batch turned blue?!?!? a little help asap!

[ZED]

i just ran a simple batch of brown sugar, champagne yeast and water. much to my dismay it came out blue and smelling of amonia. i have a amphora pda-1, . i only rinsed the "dust off" when i reassembled. when i tore it down one of the cooper scrubber pads had been left in the cooling coils and had not been cleaned when i put it away, after running the batch i found the copper packing had turned the inner part of the cooling coils blue. corrosion. my question is can i run the product back through the now spotless still and have a drinkable mixture or did i just make a batch of poison?

[pintoshine]

add bicarbonate of soda and run it again.

[HookLine]

Uhh, Pinto, I generally am happy to bow to your vast knowledge, but I thought ammonia and blue distillate meant the wash was too alkaline and had excess nutrients left over, and it need to be acidified (below 6, using citric acid), left stand for the copper citrate to precipitate out, racked off, and then run again?

Could be wrong. Never had this problem.

[schnell]

the distillate that turned blue no longer has most of the components of the wash. the base treatment of distillate is very different from the base treatment of wash, which is high in ammonia containing stuff.

treating wash with base often liberates ammonia, treating distillate this way will probably only hydrolyze the esters, since there aren't many nitrogenous components left to react with.

pintoshine's advice is good.

[ZED]

thank you all. i recieved some similar advice from one of the authors of the complete distiller. he advised that i clean the still with a salt and citric acid mix in hot water... after doing this and adding 1 teaspoon of citric acid per liter of product i re-ran the product through the still. it turned blue again and i noticed the same reaction to the condeser coils as before.
the only difference to this recipe that i have changed from my normal one was to add 1 table spoon of lemon juice into the wash when i fermented it. to me it seems that the product i distilled was TOO acidic and needs to be nutralized. i'll try one last time with the bicarb idea and if it doesn't work then i'll use it as window cleaner...
is there an amout of bicarb per liter equation?
thanks again for all the input!
this is the response i had recieved from mike in new zealand.



Pound to a penny you added some bicarb to the wash to netralize it before you distilled it.
If the wash is neutral or alkaline, then the proteins you will always have in a fermmented wash will hydrolyse and release nitrogen, which goes on to form ammonia, which then enables the formation of a complex cuprammonium compound called Schweizer's Reagent – and that a deep blue color!

Soak the mesh and the cooling coil unit in a hot mix of ordinary salt and citric acid – to 500ml hot water use a heaped teaspoon of salt and the same for the citric acid (obtainable as a white powder in food stores as it's used in baking). When the solution cools, pour into a microwave proof jug and reheat, then continue soaking. After around half an hour it should all be clean again. Rinse thoroughly, then leave soaking in a bucket of fresh water overnight to remove the last traces of citric acid and salt.

Now add citric acid to the blue product you have, using about 1 teaspoon for every liter, or even a bit more as you want to acidify that liquid. Now re-distill and you should get a clear, colorless product.

Use the same method to clean your mesh periodically when it gets black with sulphides.

[HookLine]

thank you all. i recieved some similar advice from one of the authors of the complete distiller. he advised that i clean the still with a salt and citric acid mix in hot water... after doing this and adding 1 teaspoon of citric acid per liter of product i re-ran the product through the still. it turned blue again and i noticed the same reaction to the condeser coils as before.


Now add citric acid to the blue product you have, using about 1 teaspoon for every liter, or even a bit more as you want to acidify that liquid. Now re-distill and you should get a clear, colorless product.

I think you have to let the distillate sit for several hours, maybe a day, after adding the citric acid, to give the precipitate (copper citrate, I think) time to settle onto the bottom of the container. Then carefully rack the clear distillate off, making sure you don't take any of the precipitate sediment from the bottom.

Then redistill.

(You need to get the pH of the solution below 6 for this to work.)

I am pretty sure you shouldn't add bicarb to it at this stage.

Once again, I could be wrong.

Good luck.

[ZED]

thanks hook line. i have re-emailed mike in new zealand with a more descriptive letter as to what is happening as well.
i had added the citric acid to the distillate as instructed before, reran soon after it started to change from windex blue to a cloudy light green. even the smell went away. but as soon as i put it through the still, it popped back blue and turned my 100% cooper packing and condenser coils bright blue again.
i have added more citric acid, brought the ph down and have it sitting in the shop. the smell tends to lessen every day. do i need to let it "air out" or keep it capped. i also had not taken only from the top; i dumped it all back in. i'll try to re-run it one last time this weekend. (super busy cutting firewood this week.) if it doesn't come out crystal clear at 98.6% this time i'm going to wash windows with it. i dont want to poison anyone. and i've got twenty gallons of un-sulfured wine coming in from a friend the following weekend. (which will take all dang weekend to process!) thanx again for everyones help!
i've been reading tons on this, (as much as i can understand...) all the books i have say the same basic thing... but no one adresses how to fix it.

[Fourway]

i've been reading tons on this, (as much as i can understand...) all the books i have say the same basic thing... but no one adresses how to fix it.

really you shouldn't try to fix it.
whatever you did that made it happen?
dont do that again.

dont try to salvage spirits with metal in them, it's like washing dog shit off pork chops.

even if you could get them perfectly clean you still wouldn't want to eat em.

[ZED]

YEAH, I FIGURE THAT TO BE TRUE... it all has been part of the experimentation process for me.. i've only been doing this for just over two years.. never had a problem like this... ever... follow the recipes to the letter and wonderful tasting spirits abound. i was/am interested in seeing if things are possible more than to try and salvage it for consumption.
the chemistry portion of all this makes me feel a little small. it makes sense, sort of, but watching it all work has been part of the magic.
it will be the first entry in the log book that has a negative result.
thanks for the reply!

[HookLine]

i had added the citric acid to the distillate as instructed before, reran soon after it started to change from windex blue to a cloudy light green. even the smell went away. but as soon as i put it through the still, it popped back blue and turned my 100% cooper packing and condenser coils bright blue again.

Just let it sit and see what happens to the colour. The smell going away was a good sign.

i have added more citric acid, brought the ph down and have it sitting in the shop. the smell tends to lessen every day. do i need to let it "air out" or keep it capped.

Don't know. I am pretty sure all the reaction is taking place inside the solution, not between the air and the solution. But letting it air out ain't gonna hurt.

Remember, you got to get the pH below 6 for it to work properly.

i also had not taken only from the top; i dumped it all back in.

You gotta leave the precipitate behind. That contains the nasty stuff.

i'll try to re-run it one last time this weekend. if it doesn't come out crystal clear at 98.6% this time i'm going to wash windows with it.

Sounds like a good plan. Let us know what happens.

[schnell]

I typed without thinking in my previous post, and need to eat some crow.

Although I said most of the wash components aren't there to produce ammonia, which is true, I should have thought just a little bit longer and realized that if the spirit is blue then there's obviously some of the Schweitzer's reagent (ammonium complex) in it.

So - yes treat with acid to decompose the ammonia complex.

Oh, and use a weak organic acid.

Sorry to give poorly thought out advice...

[bronzdragon]

It's like washing dog shit off pork chops. Even if you could get them perfectly clean you still wouldn't want to eat em.

Sorry, I have nothing to add to this thread, but this quote made me have a good laugh.

cheers

~r~