Dephlegmator and bubble plate column observations.

[Barney Fife]

The short column above the throughpipes on the labmaster (usually little longer that a foot or so) doesn't do much difference as it got no condenser on top to create any reflux. The vapours that pass the throughpipes/dephlegmator travels through it as in a lyne arm before it get condensed by the product condenser.

ANY column/lyne arm length will make a difference, even without induced reflux. When vapor is working its way UP a column/lyne arm, the heavier components of that vapor will drop out of suspension(IE: reflux), and only the lighter components will reach the condenser. As the percentage of heavier components rises when nearing the tails, these heavier components begin to carry themselves to the condenser. Large diameter, long columns/lyne arms exist because of this. Small diameter columns/lyne arms have too much vapor velocity for any separation to happen.

As for the tubes VS a dephleg, yes, you have a point, but you're missing the fact that there's a large open area within the dephleg for vapor to do it's dance, for heavier components to fall out, to clean itself up, etc..., whereas the tubes comprise a major obstruction within the small-ish column and thus induce a large amount of reflux, as well as refluxing pretty much all the vapor that touches it, instead of allowing the vapor to dance around and thus selectively(controllled via input power(the boiler) and coolant flow) choose which components and how much of them we allow past. You're thinking in neutral alcohol makers' thinking, where the main concern is what, and how much, you return to be re-distilled, where the flavored drink makers are concerned with what we allow through. very different beasts. And we begin with heavily flavored washes, where you'll begin with lightly flavored washes. Again, very different in how they act. The flute guys have said it time and again, they can hit well over 90% ABV, yet they're not stripping out the flavors. That would make a neutral distiller sad, but makes us happy

[Barney Fife]

However, it are the congeners that impart the flavour of the grain or fruit. And most of these come from the 'tails'. As Ian Smiley puts it, the tails 'bleed' into the middle cut. While the reflux still can produce mind-stomping purity, the pot still must be run with a sense of art.

Well, we took that as Gospel for years, for sure, but now we're seeing quite the opposite. We're seeing that cleaner hearts, with MUCH LESS "bleeding" or smearing of the tails within the hearts, produces MORE, and cleaner, flavor. And since the high ABV producing flutes can't strip out the flavors, we must re-visit the old ways of thinking, if we want to truly find what components are responsible for these great flavors.

My last two runs, with identical washes, are undeniable. The first one, with the bubble plate column, has a good bit more flavor in the hearts(and GREAT flavor), and when I got to the tails, the jars are very "dirty" and heavy. The second run, with just the depleg, had less flavor(and not as good, Ill add, though close), and when I got to the tails, the jars are much, much clearer. This can only mean that much of the dirtier components of the tails did indeed combine with(IE: bleed/smear) the hearts, yet there's less flavor.

Either the main flavor components we seek are firmly attached to the ethyl alcohol itself via the wash/choice of wash(in other words, the alcohol produced is literally different for each type of wash), or the flavor components have a nearly identical boiling point or a strong affinity to ethyl alcohol, and/or the tails actually take away/mute the flavors. Either way, I certainly will never again think that the flavor's in the tails. No way...

[LWTCS]

My thoughts (and I certainly can't prove shit) are that with the plates,,, or more specifically the liquid on the plates,,,any flavor compounds within the reflux does not go directly back to the boiler. But rather,, is mostly retained on the plates.
And as more vapor gets forced upward it is reintroduced to the liquid containing the flavor compounds. And by virture of infusion (think gin),,the flavor compounds can have more opportunity to (re) bond with the etho.

.....Additionally, I know for certain that Dunderhead's short cut brandy trick will allow for carry over of fruit flavor.
*Nuetral boiler charge.
*Add a quantity of fruit juice to the boiler (or thumper in my case). And a very nice and delicate fruit flavor definitely carries over.

That thinking has been the basis for my build....Perhaps there is more to it than that? Maybe that is only a part of the process?

Not sure how full of shit I am?

[Bagasso]

I do not agree with you there. Activated carbon have been used to remove fusels for centuries. We used that a lot to clean our bad vodka when using bad stills as the already mentioned labmaster.

You see I'm guilty of doing it as well. I used the term fusel when talking about what carbon filters out. The thing is that fusels aren't one thing or even a single type of chemical but a group of chemicals which that are said to come over in the later portion of a distillation. Again from the parent site:

One clue that you've gone too far is if the distillate takes on a white/milky appearance. This is because the fusels (propyls, amyls & butyls) are partialy/totally insoluble with the higher %alcohols.

Now you say for centuries you have used carbon to filter out fusels but one of the chemicals found in fusels is propanol and according to the International Program on Chemical Safety:

1-Propanol can be removed from waste water by biodegradation (section 4.3.1). Activated carbon adsorption is not feasible, because the compound is poorly adsorbed [69].

This is not someone just running likker through carbon and saying that it tastes better this is an organization that has done the laboratory tests and have come to the conclusion that carbon does not do a good job of filtering out propanol.

Now if a pot still with a dephleg does help keep propanol along with the other "fusels" in the pot and carbon is good at removing the organic flavors that it lets through then I think its a good combination for single run vodka.

Edit.- Just wanted to add that if the flavor is as clean and good as Barney says and I'm pretty sure that the hangover has been cut out then maybe some would move away from the vodka/neutral end of the stilling spectrum.

[Prairiepiss]

Barney Fife The Delphlagmator you are using I take it would be a flow through water jacketed type by the way your are describing it??? On the plated columns they have gone to shotgun Delphlags with from what they say unnoticeable results in flavors. So do you think a Shotgun Delphlag would have the same results as yours? Or from what I am reading you think it has to do with an unobstructed vapor path. And you would not get the same results from any other type of vapor cooling??? I would like to see a pic of the set up you are talking about so we could better understand whats happening???

[LWTCS]

So the other part of the bubble plate observation is that the big Holsteins are frequently used for brandy.

These stills have a bunch of plates and with that much redistilling going on,,,one assumes flavor would get stripped away. Especially with the delicate fruit notes of a pear (for instance).

When my plates (thumpers) are getting high proof vapor from the lower plates and high proof liquid draing from the above plates the abv jumps to 95 and yet the flavor notes are still very much detectable.

[Barney Fife]

The Delphlagmator you are using I take it would be a flow through water jacketed type by the way your are describing it??? On the plated columns they have gone to shotgun Delphlags with from what they say unnoticeable results in flavors. So do you think a Shotgun Delphlag would have the same results as yours? Or from what I am reading you think it has to do with an unobstructed vapor path. And you would not get the same results from any other type of vapor cooling???

Yes, it's a flow through. 3" over 1-1/2" x 12" long. Nothing more than a short and fat liebig, really. Mine won't knock down anything past 1500 watts, by the way. I can't say what a shotgun dephleg would do in pot still mode like I ran it; as far as I know, nobody else has tried that yet. I've not used any other type of vapor cooling in a pot still column, though extremely long commercial pot still columns exist because they naturally cool the vapor; using a jacketed lyne arm(IE: the large bore dephleg) should replicate the longer columns to a certain degree. that's all I'm saying here, nothing more, nothing less.

Larry, good points! Without anything for liquid to pool on, other than in the boiler, I wasn't getting as much of the great flavor I had with the bubble plate, despite obviously smearing some/a lot of tails into the hearts. Kinda kills the long held notion that the favor's in the tails, don't it?

[stillcyco]

Interesting. I'm currently building another still, and want to make a pot still.

How do you integrate the ideas presented here with conventional wisdom about lyne arms? From all the reading I've done, and all the anecdotal evidence on these forums, lyne arm angle has been stated to change flavor profiles. Angled up (and presumably the longer the greater the effect) we are supposed to get lighter flavor. Horizontal for middle of the road, and downward for heavily flavored.

So if longer, upward angled lyne arms, which induce reflux, cause lighters flavors to carry over, than surely a jacketed condenser at the top of the still would cause lighter flavors? But that isn't what Barney found. I'm curious how this can be reconciled with typical pot still wisdom. Age old wisdom at that, tried and true I would presume.

Without plates, why would it increase the flavor? Or is it that the flavor was "better" and not "lighter" or "heavier"? Better is so much harder to quantify but fits more than additional flavor with more reflux.

I think I may include a jacketed condenser on top of my pot just to see what happens, since I can always just not use it if it makes no difference or I can't tell the difference. I have the copper, so why not.

I also wonder if this effect would be seen more (or only) on rums than whiskey's, due to the whole "rum oils" thing where theres hidden flavor in the middle of the tails. That doesn't seem to be the case with whiskey.

[Barney Fife]

I'd forgotten to answer this last question; sorry about that!

I believe what's happening in the "heavier flavored VS more flavor" debate is a simple case of us not talking about the same thing. Heavy flavored is thought to contain a good amount of the tails, and in many whiskeys, some of the heads. Especially true of cheap whiskeys, the type where a wicked hangover is par for the course.

Now, if we shoot for a true neutral, 95.6% ABV, in a packed column, we strip out all flavor, but if we shoot for -almost- neutral, we can have a very light flavor rum/whiskey.

What we are seeing with the plated columns is different. It many distillations, without striping the flavor. How's that, you say? Well, if we take a simple pot still, and double distill, we end up with not only higher proof, but more flavor, since we're reducing the amount of water in the distillate, yet because we don't have random packing with its millions of inches of surface area, we haven't stripped-off the heavier flavor compounds. Triple distill, and we've concentrated the flavor even more so. Yes, someone accustomed to cheaper rot gut store bought will consider these as 'lighter flavored", but only because they're accustomed to tasting the heads and tails. Oh, and there's the fact here that the common wisdom was that the flavors were IN the late heads and especially, the tails. Yes, there's a lot of flavor there, but we now see we can have cleaner, better flavor without going into the tails. I myself have tried mixing some tails directly into my rums when bottling/aging, but while that made my rum more "commercial-like", I decided I really preferred the flavor of a refined, clean rum, and for sure, I could do without the morning-after-woosies...

So, in short, "heavier flavor" will replicate the cheaper drink you can buy, and the most common one we're used to, but the better, fuller flavored product we're now able to make with these plated columns rivals any of the high end drink we can buy, and in many cases, I believe we're beating the big boys at their own game. If you want to impress that old-time moonshiner up the mountain at the end of that two-rut trail, forget it. This stuff won't cut it. But I think we've risen above that, and that's a good thing. We're Artisan Distillers, after all, and not moonshiners anymore.

[aqua vitae]

Yes, someone accustomed to cheaper rot gut store bought will consider these as 'lighter flavored", but only because they're accustomed to tasting the heads and tails.

I that are accustomed with scotch single malt aka rot gut store bought, have a hard time time not calling column distilled whiskey lighter flavoured. It's known that there is lots of heads components in single malt scotch, but 10 years+ of aging convert the heads into fruity floral notes. How can whisky that stripped all those flavours away ever be call full bodied? I prevail in that it is a lighter whisky.
Nothing wrong in that, everyone likes different stuff and if everything tasted the same the world would be a dull place.
But it's a hame if myths instead of fact is spread at forums like this one. It's nothing magic with distillation, everything can be explained scientifically.

[Barney Fife]

It's nothing magic with distillation, everything can be explained scientifically.

If that were true, there would be no -art- to the master distiller's craft, and he could be replaced by a machine, then every single bottle from every single distillery could taste like any other bottle from any other's distillery. It's not that simple. Art isn't magic, but it is art.

Scotch is never distilled just once, is it? And how tall are the various Scottish distillery's columns and/or lyne arms? Glenmorangie's are the tallest, at what, 18 feet? What is the ABV coming off the condenser? That's not a 'simple' pot still, my friend. Irish whiskys are triple distilled with a typical final ABV of around 87%. Never met a good Irish Whisky that I would consider "light".

And yes, 10 years' aging will do wonders with heads and tails(if you like flowery notes and hints of fruits... Me, I prefer tasting the grain and can do without the fruitiness of the heads, please and thank you), but, most here have trouble aging their product one year, much less ten! I have some 3 and 4 year old that I'm damned proud of(and some older stuff that I'm not so proud of ), and I seem to be among the few here who actually has the patience to age stuff. Besides, if we truly wished to simply replicate something we can buy, we're better off just buying it. When I say my best rum can beat the finest rums commercially available, I mean it, but I don't mean you'd not be able to tell one from the other. No Sir, you'd know right away that there's something different here. Different can be good, ya know... And it can be very full flavored... Fruits and flowers have no place in my rum-flavor's profile.

[aqua vitae]

It's nothing magic with distillation, everything can be explained scientifically.

If that were true, there would be no -art- to the master distiller's craft, and he could be replaced by a machine, then every single bottle from every single distillery could taste like any other bottle from any other's distillery. It's not that simple. Art isn't magic, but it is art.

Yes, it is quite an art. But there is no magic in that sense that if you remove much of the congeners/impurites (as you do when you reflux and concentrate heads and tails and cut them off ) you'll get a lighter whisky than if you let heads and tails smear more into the hearts. That is a fact and can't be argued.

Scotch is never distilled just once, is it? And how tall are the various Scottish distillery's columns and/or lyne arms? Glenmorangie's are the tallest, at what, 18 feet? What is the ABV coming off the condenser? That's not a 'simple' pot still, my friend. Irish whiskys are triple distilled with a typical final ABV of around 87%. Never met a good Irish Whisky that I would consider "light".

Scotch single malt is distilled twice (low wines run without cuts and spirit run with the feints from previous runs where they do their cuts), but not using columns, using potstills. And a tall potstill is still a potstill. There is some reflux from ambient cooling but it's miniscule compared to the forced reflux from a dephlegmator and bubble caps/perforated plates.

As an example, Lagavulin does their spirit cuts at 72% and 59%, ending up with a distillate that is 68,5% ABV (the low wines charge is at 25% ABV). It's cut with water to 63,5% before cask storing.

Irish potstill whiskey is triple distilled, and therefore stripped of much more congeners. Compare with Auchentoshan, the only schotch single malt that is triple distilled, it's far more lighter than most Islay and Highland malts.
But most Irish whiskeys just as most Scotch blended whiskies also become quite light as they cut the pot stilled whisky with close to neutral grain whisky from continuous columns. This blending dilutes the whisky so the final product does not contain much congeners, just as your column distilled whiskey, and therefore becomes quite light.

If you would compare your whiskey with commercial products I'm sure it resemble blended whiskies like Ballantines, Chivas Regal etc than pot stilled single malt as Laphroaigh, Lagavulin, Ardbeg etc.

I'm not saying that there is something wrong with a lighter style of whisky, it's all up to what you personally prefer. My point is merely to dispute the urban myth that you can get the same fullbodied taste in a whisky if you cut out the congeners.

And yes, 10 years' aging will do wonders with heads and tails(if you like flowery notes and hints of fruits... Me, I prefer tasting the grain and can do without the fruitiness of the heads, please and thank you), but, most here have trouble aging their product one year, much less ten! I have some 3 and 4 year old that I'm damned proud of(and some older stuff that I'm not so proud of ), and I seem to be among the few here who actually has the patience to age stuff. Besides, if we truly wished to simply replicate something we can buy, we're better off just buying it.

Ok, this is personal preferences again what you do and do not prefer and that is not the point. Fruitiness was just an example of the tastes that comes with some of the congeners. There are more "manly" tastes too if you prefer that

It is hard, close to impossible to have the patience to age for 10+ years, that is why bubble caps/perforated plate stills can suit the hobby distiller quite well. Without have to sacrifice the most of the run as feints you can have a quite light drink-now whisky and that is just wonderful, isn't it? But it shuld be recognized for what it is, and not as a full-bodied whisky that can be compared with for example Islay malts that have to age for several years before they get drinkable.

When I say my best rum can beat the finest rums commercially available, I mean it, but I don't mean you'd not be able to tell one from the other. No Sir, you'd know right away that there's something different here. Different can be good, ya know... And it can be very full flavored... Fruits and flowers have no place in my rum-flavor's profile.

I do not doubt or question your ability to make good rum or whisky.
I'm just disputing that a whisky stripped off most of it's congeners get the same fullbodied profile as a pot stilled whisky with more congeners left in the final product. This seems to be a very vivid myth spread by many "flute"-owners. I just want to clearify things. My poor english skills doesn't help but I like to participate in a good debate/discussion anyway

And what's with you hook up on flowers? I'm sure your rum isn't girly at all. Very manly without any flowers at all
I do not know anything about rum btw so I have nothing to say about rum profiles really

[Barney Fife]

+1 to what Rockchucker said.


This seems to be a very vivid myth spread by many "flute"-owners

Well then, there -might- just be something to this, no? I mean, other than one or two fellas, nobody else is making money or getting famous with the flute designs, yet everyone is saying the same thing; more and better flavor. And I saw this same trait with my original simple slant plate column. suddenly, I could achieve much higher ABV yet the full flavor of the wash was still present, and if anything, concentrated!

The flavor we speak of is the flavor of the wash. When I make a rum, my wash recipe is simple and consistent and has been for years(except for that ill-fated journey into feed molasses which I'll never repeat..). So, when I say I am seeing more flavor, it's the flavor of the wash itself that is coming through in larger amounts, for lack of a better term, and it's also cleaner, without, or with much fewer of, the harsher components that will be present in a pot still. Thus, like I said, compared to commercial drink, even the finest, it will be different, but it won't be lighter; it simply won't have the harsher components, but what it has is a full, and strong, flavor of whatever the original wash was. And we do it in one pass, saving time and energy.

As an example, Lagavulin does their spirit cuts at 72% and 59%,

Right! They begin collecting their hearts at 72%. That's not a simple potstill; there's a lot of refluxing happening in a tall column/lyne arm, and also in the reflux ball. That's why they bother building stills with tall columns/lyne arms. And what I found with the jacketed pot still experiment(when I ran just the dephleg, no column) was that I could easily replicate any ABV range I wanted, which suggests that if we wished to, we could run a simple, short-arm pot still, and make it act like our favorite drink's taller/longer still. It's such a simple addition, yet can add a lot to a simple hobby pot still. For a real-world example using the above Laravulin distillery, how can you make your pot still act such that you'll see your hearts at exactly 72% ABV? Well, I guess you can fiddle with the heat input, but precious little else other than luck, right? But now add a cooling jacket(IE: make your lyne arm into a fat dephleg), and you can keep the heat on it to collect at the rate you wish, and dial-in the exact coolant flow you need to see the hearts come-in at 72%. Congrats, you now have a home-scale pot still that has the exact same amount of reflux as Lagevulin's. All that's left is to perfect your wash... It would take a few runs to dial it in perfectly, but once you did, mark the flow or the valve position, and then you have a whole new tool in your favor-profile making toolbox.


f you would compare your whiskey with commercial products I'm sure it resemble blended whiskies like Ballantines, Chivas Regal etc

Oh god, no! I hates these. A friend introduced me to Glenmorangie "Ten years Old Single Highland Whisky" a long ago. I also have a friend who's a Doctor(IE;, he's loaded..) and has a fetish for expensive whisky and have the pleasure of sampling his large stock of some of the world's finest single barrel whiskys. I know a good whisky from a "everyman's" blended whisky, my friend.

I find it interesting that all who wish the argue are the ones who haven't run a plated column, yet. These really are different, and a whole new era for the hobby distiller. It's no longer enough to just think of reflux and ABV output, but we now can think of the -type- of reflux and ABV output. In other words, the spirits collected from your column and mine, when putting out the exact same ABV from the exact same wash, won't necessarily contain the exact same compounds and congeners and such. I know this for fact, having built and run many variations and modifications of my columns for the past year or year and half or however long it's been since my original slant plate idea. The same consistent wash tastes very different when run through the different columns, even when collecting at the same ABV ranges. When we took away the randomness of mesh packing, we suddenly had solid, reproducible devices we could share, and work on and refine.

[aqua vitae]

No not all flavour compounds are stripped and lots of the heads and tails are smeared into the body or else you would have gotten out neutral. But much of the heads and tails, the crap as you call it, is removed. It's much of that crap if let to oxidize for a decade that gives what I would like to call a complex full body. I don't think we are talking about the same thing here when we say full body. I bet the flute whiskey is very grainy and nice and smooth. Not harsh and wild like most Islay malts and some Highland malts that I call full body. Lot's of oomph that makes your mouth curl up.

If you reflux at the beginning when you take out heads you do concentrate the heads before you cut them out. Not all heads are cut out but considerable more than in a pot still. The tails get's concentrated too by the reflux and the majority of them does not show up until the end of the run, when output slows down, right?
I still claim that you get less congeners and impurities with a tray column than with a pot still, isn't that the whole point with using tray columns?

Those heads and tails that get cut out is a part of the flavour compounds and what makes a scotch single malt so complex. It's very time consuming to oxidize them to something drinkable and therefore it's a good idea for the homedistiller to cut most of them out to get a drink now whisky. A little less harsh. Do you see what I mean?

And about the 72% cut. First of all you'll get 72% output from a single HETP run if the charge is 25%. Most would say that it's still in the heads and therefore this number might seem high to you.

So the the reason to why the heads cut is so relatively high in ABV is not that it's very refluxed but that they do their heads cut very early.
Sadly I got no fact what strength the foreshot and heads come at but I got this timeline:
Heads ?%-73% 0,5 hours (as it takes 5 hours for the abv to drop 13% a guess is that it's unlikely to come off much higher than 75%)
Hearts 72%-59% 5 hours
Tails 59%-0% 4,5 hours
Everyone that have tasted raw single malt or very young will agree with me that it's very headsy and therefore not so good young. And remember that they NEVER discard ANY foreshots, never done for centuries. Everything is always tossed in the next run. Pretty nice heads build up eh? All this heads is a part of the complex full body, and if that is refluxed and mostly cut away you will get a less harsh, much smoother whisky that would be drinkable after a few months (or even earlier?).
I see that I'm on thin ice calling your whisky light. But compared to this heads monster above it won't got all the flavour compounds you find in the heads. As they always reuse ALL the tails there will be much buildup with tails too and that is also a big part of the full body. Very harsh young but after a decade it gives a rich full body.

Ballentine and Chivas Regal was quite and exaggeration from my side. They are some of the extremes in lightness and Laphroaig and Lagavulin etc is the extremes in full body. I meant that it probably reassemble those more than the Islay malts. If you do a gas chromatography (is that the english word?) it probably have more similarities with those compared to the Islay malts.
It's funny that you mention Glenmorangie btw. I like it a lot because of it's sweetness and they have some interesting wine cask agings but it's still quite light
Next time you visit your doctor friend ask for a sample of Laphroaig Cask Strength. If it tastes just as yours I take back everything I've said about light whisky.

[Barney Fife]

If it tastes just as yours I take back everything I've said about light whisky.

Mine won't taste like it; promise. But I wrote that earlier, too. But mine's got as much flavor, only slightly different(not as much time on as much oak, to begin with...). You keep skipping-over what I'm saying; the wash has flavor, and it's THIS flavor that comes through, in spades. I can't strip the flavor out with the plate column like I could with my packed BOK, even at ABVs into the high 80's. In fact, as I've said before, and all the flute guys have said, the flavor's more concentrated. Without the crap. Forget what the mother site says about the flavor being in the tails. Commercial distillers do it that way, but we don't have to. If you want the same flavor notes(floral, fruity, etc...) as commercial drink has, yes, go ahead and smear your hearts.

A true neutral is so hard to make, even when we begin with a light flavored wash, i canb't understand why you can't wrap your head around the fact that a heavily flavored wash will give us a heavily flavored distillate even at ABVs approaching 95%. How many neutral guys here have reached 94 and 95% and complained of off flavors, or in the least not-so-neutral flavor? Lots. And they're trying to make a neutral! How's that line go? Crap in, crap out. Turned around, we can say great flavor in, great flavor out! The wash counts, my friend. You're stuck in 2 dimensional thinking, and need to add a 3rd dimension, or you're going to be stuck in your rut.

Your loss, not ours. I'm done with this subject.

[Bagasso]

While I could get behind the "science has the answer" stance I think that we need to understand what these scientific processes are and as Rockchucker said without tests we can't say for sure what is being cut out and what is in the distillate.

First off aqua I think you are lumping esters and phenols (heads and tails) and saying that they both are converted to flavor compounds by oxidation. I think this is untrue. According to information on this page: http://www.vintagecellars.com/science-of-aging-wine.asp

Oxygen helps the fruity flavors of a young wine fade and combine with the woodsy flavors from the barrel, creating something that is more "winey" than "fruity."

and about tannins (phenols) it says:

The phenolic compound aldehyde, for example, imparts tastes of vanilla. Ethylphenol smells like horse...Once bound together, tannins fall to the bottom of the bottle as sediment, lose their ability to bind with other compounds, and the aged wine loses its astringent qualities and starts to taste mellower.

What I have gathered from information like this is that aging diminishes the esters (heads) and changes the phenols (tails) through chemical reactions. Aging doesn't make flowery and fruity smells and flavors it would seem to be that it cuts back on some of the stronger phenols and thiols and lets the flowers and fruits come through.

What I find interesting is that it is recommended that a tannin rich red wine should be drank after 5-6 years. After that the flavors from the esters and phenols continue to oxidize and the wine losses flavor as time goes by. What could this mean to the flavors in a 30 year old scotch? I'll side with the science and say it has less flavor than it did when it was a 10 year old no matter what the snobs or the marketing say.

[aqua vitae]

If you want the same flavor notes(floral, fruity, etc...) as commercial drink has, yes, go ahead and smear your hearts.

Yes the crap( or whats hidden in between the crap stuff and whats left after aging done it's job) is a part of the full body I talk about so I think I want my hearts smeared

A true neutral is so hard to make, even when we begin with a light flavored wash, i canb't understand why you can't wrap your head around the fact that a heavily flavored wash will give us a heavily flavored distillate even at ABVs approaching 95%. How many neutral guys here have reached 94 and 95% and complained of off flavors, or in the least not-so-neutral flavor? Lots. And they're trying to make a neutral! How's that line go? Crap in, crap out. Turned around, we can say great flavor in, great flavor out! The wash counts, my friend. You're stuck in 2 dimensional thinking, and need to add a 3rd dimension, or you're going to be stuck in your rut.

Yep a nice grain flavour can carry over, I agree with you there. We talk about different things though and that might be why you get a bit frustrated. It's the flavour thats held within the heads and tails I talk about.

About neutral it's quite easy if you use an ARC, might take a while to adjust everything but when that's done it's quite foolproof (if nothing brakes down of course). But thats another subject.

Your loss, not ours. I'm done with this subject.

Yeah I guess. But isn't it good for others that we had this discussion? It's with debates that the arguements really get through.




Bagasso, I simplified what happends quite a bit there. Compounds change and others that go away and let others through, but it's the casks ability to breath and let compounds through that triggers it. It's hard to compare aging between spirits and wine though. Wine will age bottled as it does not need oxygen to age (ok simplifying again), but a spirit does almost not age at all if it's not allowed to breathe.

And about very old whisky, it's gets smoother and looses much of the wildness. It can be very creamy and flavourful and as the edges are flatted out you can taste many small flavours, often very complex. But a bit too smooth for me. I tend to like them best younger, but thats about personal preferences really.

[Bagasso]

Bagasso, I simplified what happends quite a bit there. Compounds change and others that go away and let others through, but it's the casks ability to breath and let compounds through that triggers it. It's hard to compare aging between spirits and wine though. Wine will age bottled as it does not need oxygen to age (ok simplifying again), but a spirit does almost not age at all if it's not allowed to breathe.

And about very old whisky, it's gets smoother and looses much of the wildness. It can be very creamy and flavourful and as the edges are flatted out you can taste many small flavours, often very complex. But a bit too smooth for me. I tend to like them best younger, but thats about personal preferences really.

I have no problem with the simplification to explain things but we shouldn't say, for example, oxidation creates esters, because it isn't true. No amount of aging is going to create esters because they are not created through the redox process.

As for comparing wine and distillate you are right about them being different but it actually works against your position because aging affects tannins more than anything and wine has many times the amount that distillate does and still 10 year old wine is considered less flavorful. They are both products of fermentation (about the same chemical make up before distillation) they are both (at least the better of both fields) aged in oak barrels and if the science is right there comes a time when they both start to loose flavor.

What I get from Barneys observations and your take on old whiskies is that the traditional aged spirits have to be aged to tame that wildness but with that aging you get that flattening that you mention. I mean with a regular pot still you get all the rough as well as the flavorful and you age to get rid of the rough sacrificing some of the flavor.

I think this bubble plate dephlegmator technique allows you to dial in how much rough you want to let through without loosing flavor like you do with a mesh filled column. Could be that once you find the sweetspot for your taste you may be able to oak and age for a month and be happy with it. I know a month isn't really considered aging but if you don't have to age out the rougher chemicals then it may not get much better past that point.

[Barney Fife]

We talk about different things though and that might be why you get a bit frustrated. It's the flavour thats held within the heads and tails I talk about.

And one last time, since I stated it often enough in the past handful of posts, the flavor I am talking about is the flavor of the hearts, without the smearing of the tails and heads. The hearts aren't a neutral; they're not pure ethanol, AND they DON'T have to contain the heads or tails; there are plenty of flavor compounds there for a full, rich flavored drink. You're fixated on flavor -only- coming from the heads and/or tails, which is dead-wrong.

Done. Fini. Over and out.

[The Baker]

Thank you Barney and Aqua and others for your discussion.
You have helped me to understand lots more about distillation as well as the newer stills.
And this must eventually help me to become more proficient at distillation and cuts and all that; something I am just beginning to have some success with.
I am just analysing the cuts of my vodka and some of it seems to be quite good (done in a pot still).
The rest will go back for re-distillation.
I have five different vodkas including grey goose, to compare mine with, and I will maybe get another three or so.
But what surprised me was that the commercial vodkas had a hint (in most cases more than a hint) of heads or tails or both.
Not being much of a vodka drinker I thought it was supposed to be flavourless but that is not so at all.
I think maybe the grey goose was the closest (very close) to flavourless.
But it is around sixty dollars a bottle and if mine could be anywhere as good....!

Anyway, thanks again.

[The Baker]

I think the real hero with all these new style stills is not the plates, but the dephlegmator(note proper spelling).

Interesting I had the idea that the water in the plates did a better job of holding on to the chemicals that make up the tails than metal, copper or ss. Would be nice to see what comes out of a regular pot still with a dephlegmator (no plates or packing).

I believe that copper in the vapour path removes sulphury stuff (not sure if it is sulphates, sulphites, sulphides and they are all different, I am no chemist).
But that may be either the material the mesh is made of or the metal in your still and is a separate consideration to the removal of most congeners. I think.

It seems that you should be using the comparison between the liquid content in the trays, and the droplets of liquid on the mesh, at whatever stage of distillation the liquid or droplets may be.
In either case that is what the upcoming vapour passes through and performs its magic of distillation and re-distillation.
The tray or the mesh is just the mechanical means of holding the liquid.

[The Baker]

snip

What I find interesting is that it is recommended that a tannin rich red wine should be drank after 5-6 years. After that the flavors from the esters and phenols continue to oxidize and the wine losses flavor as time goes by.

We drank a 19 year old Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon the other day (with barbecued sausages; we're not wine snobs!) and it was magnificent. No shortage of tannin.
Of course it is a special wine.

[The Baker]

We talk about different things though and that might be why you get a bit frustrated. It's the flavour thats held within the heads and tails I talk about.

And one last time, since I stated it often enough in the past handful of posts, the flavor I am talking about is the flavor of the hearts, without the smearing of the tails and heads. The hearts aren't a neutral; they're not pure ethanol, AND they DON'T have to contain the heads or tails; there are plenty of flavor compounds there for a full, rich flavored drink. You're fixated on flavor -only- coming from the heads and/or tails, which is dead-wrong.

Done. Fini. Over and out.

Barney, Don't go away!!

All this discussion has been fantastic.

And it is fine to have differing points of view in what, after all, is pretty new technology, at least for the small amateur distiller.

[aqua vitae]

We talk about different things though and that might be why you get a bit frustrated. It's the flavour thats held within the heads and tails I talk about.

And one last time, since I stated it often enough in the past handful of posts, the flavor I am talking about is the flavor of the hearts, without the smearing of the tails and heads. The hearts aren't a neutral; they're not pure ethanol, AND they DON'T have to contain the heads or tails; there are plenty of flavor compounds there for a full, rich flavored drink. You're fixated on flavor -only- coming from the heads and/or tails, which is dead-wrong.

Done. Fini. Over and out.

Don't give up Barney Fife; "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Voltaire

There is no single substance that is called the hearts, the hearts is just what you choose to take as hearts. Early hearts cut means more heads in the heart, late hearts cut means less heads in the hearts.

There is obviously still smearing of heads and tails throughout the run with a tray column, but not as much as with a pot still. This gives less of that kind of flavour. I think we agree on this, right?

Tray columns and pot stills also lets water and other flavour compounds through (I mean those that not are formed in the fermentation but comes from what you ferment, malt flavour etc). I presume this is the flavour you are talking about?

Because the higher ABV during the collection of what you choose to use as your hearts one could presume that there is more ethanol and less water and the other flavour compounds with a tray column than a pot still.
BUT, there is also less heads and tails components to hide this kind of flavour.
Also, the normal homedistiller have to make quite narrow cuts with their pot still to get a decent whisky within some months and that means sacrificing more of the wash flavour (the malt flavour etc) which take away the advantage with lower ABV.

The commercial single malt distilleries have a big buffer so they have the time to age their product and therefore they can take big hearts cuts and let aging polish the harshness. That means that they don't have to sacrifice the wash flavour and ALSO retain flavours from the heads and tails.

That is what I refer to when I say full bodied whisky. BOTH the full flavour you talk about AND the flavour that comes with the heads and tails.

Now we are back to personal preferences, while I like that kind of whisky others maybe like whiskies with less heads and tails components. I call that kind of whisky lighter, influenced by whisky snobs that use that term to desribe such whiskies, but it's not ment to be diminishing, just a way to describe it. Most people obviosly like their whisky lighter (aka less of the harshness from heads and tails), commercial tray column whiskies dominate the market and pot still whiskies just have a few percent of it.


That said, I think downscaling tray columns for hobby use is a good idea, I mean who have the patience to age whisky for decades?

I have no problem with the simplification to explain things but we shouldn't say, for example, oxidation creates esters, because it isn't true. No amount of aging is going to create esters because they are not created through the redox process.

I don't think I said that oxidation creates esters? If i did, sorry, my mistake. I meant that oxidation of the various compounds changes their structure and therefore their taste. What I don't wrote is that the casks ability to hold some compounds and let some vaporize also is a big part of the aging process.

And about old whisky, I wouldn't say flattening (on VERY old this might be true according to some sources), more of a smoothening and allowing of softer flavour to seep through. Thats why older whiskies often got more fruit and chocolate descriptions in reviews, what once was hidden behind harsher flavours unravels from aging. I've only read about this but very old, 40 years +, can get kind of bland and oaky though. I guess too much have vapourized from them.

Cheers

[Barney Fife]

The commercial single malt distilleries have a big buffer so they have the time to age their product and therefore they can take big hearts cuts and let aging polish the harshness. That means that they don't have to sacrifice the wash flavour and ALSO retain flavours from the heads and tails.

They also retain ALL of the hangover...<lol> Enjoying a rich, full flavored rum or whisky that delivers zero hangovers isn't just a personal preference.

Until you've run a plated column or even a pot still with a cooling jacket, you'll not "get it", no matter how hard I, or others, try. I feel like I'm trying to describe colors to a man who's 100% color blind and refuses to even -think- there's more than 2 dimensions. But it's just black and white, he says. No, it's millions of variations of the colors of the rainbow, says I. But the rainbow is just different shades of black, which is simply varying amounts of white included within the black, says he. Oy! Vey! Fuck it... says I. <lol>

And we've now taken this thread completely off of its original intentions. Thanks.

Sad....

[heartcut]

Thank you, gentlemen, for all the ideas. Loved the emotional part- I do chemical analysis for a living and you should hear our meetings! That's the way it goes if you really care. I have a 32" potstill with a little coil on top and a liebeg, but am planning something along this topic's lines. What a great site.

[Bagasso]

We drank a 19 year old Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon the other day (with barbecued sausages; we're not wine snobs!) and it was magnificent. No shortage of tannin.
Of course it is a special wine.

I'm sure that 19 year old Cabernet was full of flavor. The wine folks test the amount of tannin to calculate when to offer their wines to the public so that they can be enjoyed in their best moment. I think the link I posted and some other wine sites state that all but the most full bodied reds start to loose flavor after 5-6 years. That doesn't mean the flavor disappears it means that after aging develops the wines flavor to a peak it starts to decline.

Of course the relation to aged spirits is actually in the science of flavor and even if the science holds that flavors in fermented drinks peak and then fade I'm sure that they never become flavorless just that there comes a point where aging really isn't changing it for the better or worse.

[ginjo]

I believe there was some factual error posted a few pages back. When vapor condenses on a cooler surface (say in a dephlegm), that condensate is of the same chemistry as the vapor. The act of condensing in a dephlegm doesn't enrich the vapor with lower boiling point compounds. It is the act of re-vaporization (plates/packing/maybe some on the walls) that enriches the vapor at the top. And, it needs to happen before the condensate makes it back to the boiler.

[aqua vitae]

They also retain ALL of the hangover...<lol> Enjoying a rich, full flavored rum or whisky that delivers zero hangovers isn't just a personal preference.

Yes, definitely, terrible hangovers from full flavoured whisky. But you can't eat the cake and still keep it.

Thats why I only drink my neutral when I want to get drunk that gives less hangover than even light whisky

And we've now taken this thread completely off of its original intentions. Thanks.

That reflux removes flavour is an observation that I think belongs in this discussion. That it makes the whisky drinkable earlier is a good thing but we should call it what it is, a little smoother, lighter or whatever you want to call it.


Pintoshine wrote some interesting stuff about the effect of the reflux in tray columns that is worth reading, I don't think I'm allowed to link to it but it shouldn't be so hard to find.



ginjo +1 btw

EDIT, added the italic text that I somehow left out when i first wrote the post.

[Barney Fife]

But you can't eat the cake and still keep it.


Oh yes we can!

Well..., you can't; but we can.