Just Finished my First Run!

phaeton · Post by **phaeton** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 4:06 pm

So after hell with my distiller and getting the pump to work (turns out the pump didnt want to push the water all the way up to the top of the column) I ran my first run. (Its a valved reflux distiller).

I started off at 77.5oC, and I let it sit at full reflux while checking the steam with a flashlight to make sure that it was working, I did this for about 45 minutes because people said thats the best way to separate the heads off. I then grabbed 80mL and tossed it (not sure if I can keep it?), and I set it off to drip slowly, maybe once a second. I let it run for about 1 1/2 hours like this, I collected about 500mL of spirit (I'm using a 3 gallon boiler so I'm not lookin to do big runs), then I saw the temp started to rise so I shut it off.

I have no clue what %age my alcohol is, but I think it's pretty high/clean, probably around 80-85% from the smell/taste. It's not much because my fermentation kinda went wacky tabacky on me and I think I ended up with roughly 10%, I'll do it better next time

Now I have some questions... its very slightly cloudy, I ran it through a coffee filter and that took out some small particles (I think I got some yeast into my pot when I was siphoning out the mash), but now I want to know what to do. Should I put it on some activated carbon? How much carbon for only 500mL of distillate? Then just let it sit/shake it a couple of days, and it should be hunky dory for adding water and having vodka?

I had a couple of shots of this alcohol + water and it seems like its pretty good... was that a bad decision or a good decision?

Anyways, I hope to perfect my process over the course of the summer... thanks for all the material here! I read a lot of the posts but I just don't have time to read them all.

Edit: one more thing, what should I do with the left over liquid? dump it?

Yttrium · Post by **Yttrium** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 6:16 pm

It sounds like you had a great first run. There are a few things you can do to to further change the taste:

1. Put the alcohol in the freezer for a while and then run it through a coffee filter. This is called chill filtration.

2. Use activated carbon as a filter.

3. Aerate the the alcohol for a little while. You'll loose some alchol to evaporation, but the final product will most likely taste better

4. Age the alcohol on wood. Charred white oak is the classic wood of barrels.

5. Filter through burned wood. This is what Jack Daniel's does. I believe they use maple wood.

The Chemist · Post by **The Chemist** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 6:36 pm

Yttrium's got it goin' on.

USarmy21 · Post by **USarmy21** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:06 pm

what does chill filtration do???

phaeton · Post by **phaeton** » Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:14 pm

Thanks for the pointers

Its been 8 months planning lol...

I do have a quick question... what do you feel about using a Brita filter to put the alcohol through? It's mostly activated carbon... I'm going to try to put through around 250mL through it to see how it tastes.

Edit: Never mind about the Brita, I searched, seems like its generally not a BAD thing to use (would be better than nothing in my case, we have no activated carbon nearby and I don't want to wait!)