Infusion Bath

[Bushman]

Went to one of our distilleries here in the State of Washington. They are known for their flavored spirits (which I think are quit good). They started out buying their alcohol from distilleries and then infusing flavor to them. They still buy some but was told that they also do some of their own distilling. They buy Tequila from Mexico and flavor it so they can still label it as Tequila.
Below is the machine they use to use fruit to give it a flavor bath. The equipment is from Switzerland and I priced one machine at over $3700 US. They had two in their tasting room and tomorrow after 1 PM PMT I am going to go back as they are going to be running the machines and infusing fresh grapefruit into vodka so I can watch the process. Below is a picture of their still for infusing flavor.

[Euphoria]

Interesting piece of equipment. Kinda looks like something you'd see in a Frankenstein laboratory. It'd be fun to see it in action. The background scenery through the window looks like it may be from around the Leavenworth area.

[Bushman]

Interesting piece of equipment. Kinda looks like something you'd see in a Frankenstein laboratory. It'd be fun to see it in action. The background scenery through the window looks like it may be from around the Leavenworth area.

They had all the fruit ready to go with the pith removed. The one glass ball sits in a heated element that looks like a crockpot. It will be interesting to see the process and hopefully I can report back with more details.
We are at one of our condo's in Leavenworth for a week snow shoeing, wine tasting, antique shopping, and what ever else is on my wife's list of things to do.

[bitter]

Very interesting.. looks like a bigger lab setup.

B

[Bushman]

Very interesting.. looks like a bigger lab setup.

B

The gal running the tasting room said they have 2 at this location and one at their other location. At those prices they must have a few bucks! Looking forward to seeing it in action tomorrow. There is a winter storm warning here in the mountains for tonight and tomorrow but our condo is about a 10 minute walk from the tasting room.
This distillery is known for it's flavoring of whiskies, vodkas, gins, tequila. It is where they make their money.

[WIski]

Where's the fruit............

[Bushman]

Where's the fruit............

In a plastic tub, will see tomorrow how they infuse the fruit to the product. Hopefully they will allow me to take pictures.

[Bushman]

This might be a better view of the set-up.

[Cleco]

Pretty cool. From the looks of that contraption, don't be surprised if they tell you your missing a cromosome or are related to Bob Villa.

I've been toying with the fushion idea lately as there is always a market for alcohol.

Thanks for sharing and enjoy your trip!

[shaawnzee]

It's called a rotary evaporator, or rotovap for short.

It's used in chemistry labs to pull off solvent from, usually under reduced pressure. A more familiar way to put it is its vacuum distillation. The bath us heated and the flask is turned to agitate/roll the liquid to keep it from bumping. The condenser should look familiar and distillate drops in the collection flask.

Since it's done under vacuum, less heat is needed. This could/will alter the flavors/chemicals as some might be more heat sensitive than others.


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[Bushman]

It's called a rotary evaporator, or rotovap for short.

It's used in chemistry labs to pull off solvent from, usually under reduced pressure. A more familiar way to put it is its vacuum distillation. The bath us heated and the flask is turned to agitate/roll the liquid to keep it from bumping. The condenser should look familiar and distillate drops in the collection flask.

Since it's done under vacuum, less heat is needed. This could/will alter the flavors/chemicals as some might be more heat sensitive than others.


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You are correct, it is a vacuum rotary evaporator. I took a video but can't download it here at the condo. I was told the licensing just to get these are hard because they are used in the pharmaceutical industry thus very stringent application process. I took a few more pictures I will share below but the glass tube on the right rotates in a water bath at 30 C or about 86 F. Because it is vacuum distillation they can run it at lower temps. They are making a grapefruit vodka. The grapefruit was cut into chunks then run through a blender as it had to fit through a funnel into the tube. Because of the low heat they mixed it in with 190 proof/95% alcohol. The gauge you see at the top reads ambient temp and as it goes through the distillation it goes from 75 down to about 35 C. They distill until nothing else goes through the Graham condenser so they can distill most all of it back which is close to 1/2 gallon at a time. Looks like the process takes about 1 hour and they had 2 machines running at one time. After the process then they will proof it to 80 proof/40% for bottling. Lots of flavor came over not sure how much is lost through proofing.

[shaawnzee]

They are all over eBay or lab surplus...


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[WIski]

Very interesting process. Just curious how this could possibly be profitable from a business stand point. How much are they getting for the finished product?

[Bushman]

Because they have unusual flavoring there prices per bottle are a bit higher. They lose nothing in the 190 proof they use when adding flavoring.. Extra cost on fruit but the gal in the tasting room is running this while doing other duties.

[WIski]

Very interesting. Thanks! This all seems like it would be doable hobby scale and it would be super safe.

[Bushman]

Finally figured out the video:

[Desvio]

That's pretty cool, never knew they were there! Have to check that out next time I'm up there.

[Bushman]

I got thinking last night that I probably should have made this disclaimer at the beginning. This equipment is lab tested to resist imploding under vacuum, because it's under vacuum it does not require the high heat, there is no direct flame.
Warning this is tested lab equipment, don't try this with everyday glass!

[WIski]

Bushman, how much vacuum are they holding on the system during production? I am seeing a few of these machines on University auction for very reasonable prices but the vacuums are not included.

[Bushman]

Bushman, how much vacuum are they holding on the system during production? I am seeing a few of these machines on University auction for very reasonable prices but the vacuums are not included.

That's a good question I was looking at both ambient temp and bath temp and did not get into the nuts and bolts of the vacuum aspect. I bet if you went to the website you could probably find a contact info that can answer that question. Hope the prices you are seeing are good as I thought the process was really cool.

[WIski]

On its way!! $150.00

Buchi Rotavapor.jpg (31.73 KiB) Viewed 3010 times

[Bushman]

Wow, pictures when you get it so I can see if it's the same model. Regardless what a great price will be following your posts. Remember under vacuum you don't need near the same heat for distillation.

[WIski]

It's a model 200. It also comes with the electronic water bath not shown. I will need to buy the 2 flasks that hold the macerate and the product as well as the vacuum source/control. This is going to be fun!