Home Distiller

made my first batch of sugar wash and ran it and it came out clear and very pure, but when i cut it i used distilled water from grocery store and now it has became very cloudy. what did i do wrong. it taste allright just aint very attractive.

most likely tales. minerals can also but using filtered/distilled water probably not.

Did it stay cloudy? Often when I add distilled water it turns cloudy but quickly settles to crystal clear. It is just millions of micro bubbles making it look cloudy.

i thought i was very care ful of seperating tails, i ran very slow in a reflux collum started cllecting at 172 degrees and stopped at 182. i collected a quart like that. then i continued untill i reaced 200 and got another quart saving it for next run. i got about a pint of heads and through out my fore shots. its been about 24 hrs since i cut with distilled water and its still a bit cloudy. my themomater is at the top of my collum , its 36 inches high and is packed with 15 copper scrubbies. of course this was my first run ever and i know i have alot to learn. im drinking it it taste allright mixed with grapefruit juice. should i have stopped collecting before 182 or should i not be concerned with themometr and go by taste ( but then again it taste fine to me).

dilute it back down to 30-40%....run it again... it will be clear when you cut back to 40% after a second run... I think

What design is the still?? LM, CM or VM.
I run my LM and start collecting at 77.3 and am all done when it hits 77.8. After that the temp goes up very fast and all that is collected is feints for another days run.
How fast did you run, was the output 5-10 drops per second or did you have a steady or heavy stream for output?
Do you have any plastic or rubber in your still?
Is the still a new build? how clean is it?
Usually cloudy likker after dilution is tails but we must rule out other possibilities..

i dont know the diffewrence in cm vm. its a new still ran a vinager wash. ran the run very slow it took about an hor to get a quart. its the internal reflux still design on moonshine .com has a 36 inch reflux collum 2 inch in diamater with a 23 inch condenser with a sump pump recirculating water out of a 55 gal drum which never gets hot it stays cold through out run. 7 . 75 ss keg. do uyou think still wasnt clean enough? is it dangerous to drink?

outdoorsmadness wrote:i dont know the diffewrence in cm vm. its a new still ran a vinager wash. ran the run very slow it took about an hor to get a quart. its the internal reflux still design on moonshine .com has a 36 inch reflux collum 2 inch in diamater with a 23 inch condenser with a sump pump recirculating water out of a 55 gal drum which never gets hot it stays cold through out run. 7 . 75 ss keg. do uyou think still wasnt clean enough? is it dangerous to drink?

outdoorsmadness, first, if you don't know what type of still you have you shouldn't be running it until you do, and know how it should be run...

What you have is a Cooling Management (CM) reflux column... The inefficient one with the reflux tubes through the main column, if I'm not mistaken... There is plenty of good information in the New distiller reading Lounge that you may find helpful... That's as good a place as any to start...

When I run my Liquid Management reflux column I collect between 172F and 174F, at most, and am usually deep into the tails by 176F... Did you make proper cuts based on taste, smell, and feel...??? Did you collect by temperature only...??? Did you collect by volumes only...??? Regardless, it sounds like you went too deep into the tails...

ok thanks, i went by temp only i ran until 182 obviously too long will try again after reading more. practice makes perfect i hope but i want give up.

I had the same problem many years ago.
In my case I used a flexible PVC plastic tube in the collection process. The high alcohol % dissolves the PVC. When you water it down to 40% the PVC falls out of suspension and clouds the liquid.
This was my first experience to home distilling.
Regards

Not sure if this helps, but on my first run, I got a cloudy substance out first. I suspect it's a kind of fusil.

prdbrissy wrote:I had the same problem many years ago.
In my case I used a flexible PVC plastic tube in the collection process. The high alcohol % dissolves the PVC. When you water it down to 40% the PVC falls out of suspension and clouds the liquid.
This was my first experience to home distilling.
Regards

ive seen the same thing before myself. knew a guy who used to use a small section of clear vinyl tubing in between his tower and a copper pipe he used to run to his receptacle. on the first two quarts, the vinyl stayed clear, but when he got into his mids and tails, the tube turned very cloudy. his hooch turned out good, but when he tried to cut it, it always clouded up.

How hot was the likker when you diluted it and how cold was the water? If it was clear before diluting and mixed hot and cold, therein lies your problem. Mix at the same temp and you should be fine.

Could be yer problem is you have a lot heads or tails in yer likka. The heads/tails contain fatty acid esters that when mixed with water will turn yer likka cloudy.

Run it again, be careful about yer cuts, everythins gonna be just fine.

I've been getting 1 jar of cloudy fores/heads lately, on a stripping run and clear on the spirit run. Each time I get a jar of cloudy fores on the strip, the spirit run turns out to be great. Not sure if there's a correlation or just a shiner's superstition.