Old beer as a mash?

[corntornado]

I have access to a local brewery who distributes their microbrewed beer locally in kegs. Im good friends with the brewer there and alot of times 15.5 gallon kegs will be returned with sometimes as much as half full. I have tasted some of this leftover beer before and 99 percent of the time it tastes fine maybe a little flat. My question is what are your opinions on running this? Its free. Pot still or reflux? The abv is about 6% on this beer and is brewed to a nice amber color. Just curious to get some opinions on it. Thanks.

[stoker]

it's very usefull, don't throw it away.
it depends on what you want.
using a reflux should be no problem, it's the same as when you use a sugar mash
and with a pot still, you will get a pre-whiskey spirit, age it on oak, and you have whiskey
you'r not the first one who distilles beer, they might give you more info

[The Chemist]

I tried this once on a small, lab-scale. Lots of foaming, probably from the hops. Watch out for that. I know this is gonna sound weird, and would normally be a no-no, but you may want to add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to keep the foam down. Anybody ever tried it? Maybe some really high boiling oil?

[Watershed]

I've used olive oil to keep down foam in fruit washes before - it works brilliantly and doesn't taint.

[pothead]

I made some with 7 gallons of left-over Killians

I poured the killian's out of the keg into a 15 gallon fermenter,
added 10 lbs of sugar and a couple boxes of corn flakes cereal into a stock pot with water and cooked it until the cereal was REAL soggy, and the sugar dissolved.
Then I poured it in with the killians and added cool water to top the whole thing up to about 12 gallons. Then I added about 45grams of red star active dry bakers yeast, and let it go until it stopped fermenting. Then I siphoned the liquid off as carefully as I could without transfering the cereal, and did a stripping run collecting down until 20% was coming out of the still. Then I ran it through real slow, tossed the foreshots, and collected in tiny jars until it was coming out at about 100 proof.

It wasn't all that bad.(besides the tiny bit of gin-like flavor from the hops) I made a little bit of peach with some of it, a little bit of blueberry, And put some on oak, and will tap into it this weekend.

[shadow]

does anyone have any further info on salvaging alcohol from beer thru a reflux? See, my mate recently gave me a batch of stout he had brewed but wasnt happy with the flavour, so I thought heck ill run it through and see what I can salvage from it. I put about 4l worth into my 5l boiler and topped it off with 2 teaspoons of cooking oil to combat the foaming. Long story short it didnt work, just foamed up through the column and spewed out the top and the cooling water didnt do much to help. Where did I go wrong, is it more trouble than its worth?

[The Chemist]

Ooops! Well, it was kind of a longshot, anyway.

At this point, I'd probably just add a quart or so of kerosene, distill it and use it for cleaning. Kerosene should keep the foaming down until you get most of the alcohol.

[Uncle Remus]

I threw together an old beer kit I had kicking around once and distilled it. It turned out fine. I never had a problem with foaming but my boiler was only half full. The worst problem I had with foaming was with an all malt wash. After the first run the product was all brown and gross looking, but a second distillation cleaned it up nicely.

I would take it and give it a try.

[Dr. Lector]

I ran some Bud Light that had went flat from a weding party last sumer. Like Remus my boiler was only half full and had no problem with foam.
Ran it through a valved reflux. it came out very netural. The yield was low compaired to my sugar washes, but recoverd the alcohol that would have been thrown out anyway. I never thought of using it like pothead did.I belive that would have been a better way to go .

[possum]

I have done recycled beer in a potstill, never in a reflux. Try filling your boiler less full. The second distillation will not be likley to foam up. Do ypu really have a reflux collumn mounted on a 5liter boiler ? I would try running it through the still 2x, first time without the packing to reduce the volume, and after you have enough for an all spirit run,, then use the reflux collumn to run what you have concentrated..

[shadow]

Okay sounds like if I fill the boiler a bit less next time I may have better luck, or worst case scenario I'll take on what the chemist said and salvage it for cleaning solution. I reckon I'll give it another shot, especially since there is apparently quite a few more litres of the stout lying around. and yep possum 5l boiler w/ reflux column, I really should put together a make shift boiler of a much bigger size, would minimise stuffing around associated with running 25l of wash in 5 seperate runs !

[strangebrew]

I have just the solution that you guys have been looking for regarding the whole foaming issue. There is this product called "Fermcap" which is a foam reducer.

I use it in my primary frementor so that the yeast dosen't come spewing out of the top of my carboy any more. I have a 6 gallon carboy and always brew up about 5 3/4 gallon at a time. This stuff is like a magic foam bullet. It reduces the surface tension of the wort so foaming can't take place or is very minimal at most.

You can also use it in the boil kettle too. I always have a tremendous foaming in the boil kettle when doing an all-grain batch of beer. Enough so that it will easily foam over the top of my 15 gallon keg when i'm only boiling 7 gallons. I tried adding in a little bit of Fermcap and it made all the difference in the world.

I'm not sure how much of a problem the carbonation would be but hell you can just leave it sitting open for a couple of days till it goes flat, add a splash of fermcap and let er' rip. Be willing to bet you'll have no foaming what so ever.

[shadow]

hmm sounds like the way to go, thanks for the tip