Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Sugar, and all about sugar washes. Where the primary ingredient is sugar, and other things are just used as nutrients.

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Wino2Distill
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Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

Hi All,

I just finished a piloncillo (panela) fermentation and was about to run it through my reflux still. Now I'm thinking it might not be clarified enough and I might scrap 4 kg of piloncillo I brought back in my luggage from Mexico.
The wash spent a night at 7C before racking, but is still somewhat cloudy. Doesn't smell yeasty or reductive, but I don't have enough experience to appreciate the importance of clarification prior to distillation.

Your probably wondering why the hurry? Well, if I don't run it today, I won't have time to do it until 4-5 weeks from now and that worries me.

Any advice before I fire it up?
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by ShineonCrazyDiamond »

Fire it up slowly. Put some veggie oil in there, and don't make nuetral from rum.

Rum washes will never be completely clear. As long as the yeast settled out, you're fine.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

ShineonCrazyDiamond wrote:Fire it up slowly. Put some veggie oil in there, and don't make nuetral from rum.

Rum washes will never be completely clear. As long as the yeast settled out, you're fine.
Thanks for the quick reply SoCD. I am reassured. I definitely don't want to trip the flavor, it smells quite nice right now. I'll remove some packing from my column. As for the veggie oil, what is that for and how much should add for 5 gal wash?
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by ShineonCrazyDiamond »

Couple table spoons to help keep the puking down. Panela/ molasses will foam a bitch and get into your column. PIA to clean that out of your packing.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

ShineonCrazyDiamond wrote:Couple table spoons to help keep the puking down. Panela/ molasses will foam a bitch and get into your column. PIA to clean that out of your packing.
I see, thanks.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

So I got about a quart of very smooth hearts and half a gallon of heads and tails by running it through my still with the reflux column packed with about 18" of copper wool.

Meanwhile, I wen't to my local latino food store and ordered 40 lbs of panela, which smelled much more like molasses than the piloncillo I brought back from Mexico. I fermented the first 20 lbs in my cold room (about 12-15C) for two months. Wasn't quite done (0.997) but I ran it tonight anyways. I removed the reflux column but added about 4" of packing in my column neck So far: WOW! Incredibly aromatic. Smells like pineapple, overripe banana, vanilla and I'm getting a fair bit of spice and liquorice on the palate. I do not think that me removing the column is the sole reason for the extra esters getting through. I'm thinking that I may have gotten some dunder funk in the ferment. I ha started a dunder pit with the piloncillo backset and it has now a thick beige dusty film on top and some of that appeared on the panela ferment so this might be the source of the extra esters (?).

Another noteworthy thing I did differently this time is that I added a couple of copper plumbing pieces in the kettle.

Anyways, I guess my next move would be to run it again. Maybe with some backset and dunder ?
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by NZChris »

What yeast were you using?
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

NZChris wrote:What yeast were you using?
A no-name baker's yeast.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

I'm running the second half of the panela wash right now. I forgot to add the copper pieces: Heads smell horrendous.

I was also prepping one more ferment of the remaining panela that I had when I noticed that I accidentally quadrupled the yeast nutrients, which are mostly yeast based (not much DAP) so shouldn't be the end of the world. Nonetheless, I will split the batch in two and bring up the density with plain sugar which is all I have on hand. I will also add tonights backset once it has cooled tomorrow morning. I figure that since this panela seems to give such an aromatic product that cutting it with some neutral white sugar won't hurt too much.
Someone stop me if this is a bad idea...
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by NZChris »

It's always a bad idea. If the flavors are too intense, you can always dilute them with neutral later, or better still, use it to blend with other rums that are lacking. Most of what I bottle for drinking are blends of various styles and ages, as are most of the rums you buy.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by nerdybrewer »

When you are tempted to up the gravity by adding "regular" sugar keep this in mind.
You can increase the amount of ethanol in your end product that way but it won't be the best it can be, your heads and tails will be a larger ratio of your total output.
Your flavor will be something other than the thing you were aiming for.
Better to run it through the still multiple times to get the higher ABV than add sub-par ingredients to get there.
Bless Rad for drilling that home to me years ago, better to split the wash & add water than to dilute the flavor with something I don't really want.
On the other hand better to run low strength wash multiple times rather than try to fortify it with something like table sugar.
Cranky's spoonfeeding:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52975

Time and Oak will sort it out.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Pikey »

nerdybrewer wrote:When you are tempted to up the gravity by adding "regular" sugar keep this in mind.
You can increase the amount of ethanol in your end product that way but it won't be the best it can be, your heads and tails will be a larger ratio of your total output.
Your flavor will be something other than the thing you were aiming for.
Better to run it through the still multiple times to get the higher ABV than add sub-par ingredients to get there.
Bless Rad for drilling that home to me years ago, better to split the wash & add water than to dilute the flavor with something I don't really want.
On the other hand better to run low strength wash multiple times rather than try to fortify it with something like table sugar.
Now you see I disagree - plain sugar has a large place in my life.

Too much flavour IMO is one of the reasons why spirits are "Double distilled" or more. - well you can do that - or you can put a load more sugar in the wash and spread the flavour out :)
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

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Pikey wrote:Too much flavour IMO is one of the reasons why spirits are "Double distilled" or more.
Really? You should start off a thread to discuss that.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by Wino2Distill »

Well, I wen't through with the dilution with sugar at a 40/60 ratio (sugar/panela). Lots of backset in there as well. The ferments were rocketing last time I checked. Maybe I'll add funked dunder in the wash. I'll let you guys know how it turn out.
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Re: Importance of a clarified wash? Piloncillo Wash

Post by just sayin »

Very interesting thread, Wino! Keep us updated. Thanks
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