Jacking, or freeze stripping

[PapaGoose]

I had around 3 gallons of ~18% ABV sour mash wash that I wasn't going to be able to deal with immediately, so I broke it down into gallon jugs filled half full and parked them overnight in the freezer. 16 hours or so later, I took three out and laid them on their side (sealed of course) and about 20 minutes later I was able to pour a bit over a half gallon out of all three that measured at around 30%! I repeated this twice (refreezing, a few minutes of thaw) and got about a gallon and a half of ~25-30% and then set back another gallon of the "left overs" (which still had some alcohol but I'm guessing somewhere under 4%) to fill out a small pot still charge, into which I'll toss a quart and a half or so of feints from previous runs.

Is anyone using this method to "strip"? Am I missing something crucial? I mean I tasted a teaspoon of it and it just tasted like my wash only "hotter" with alcohol so it should be fine to charge my still with, right? I think I read somewhere that this method tends to carry more "flavor" over in the run, which I don't follow the mechanics of... If this works out I think I might use this method periodically to finish out a few of the last gallons of "odds and ends" washes...

While this method rendered about a 50-60 proof "drink", I'm also absolutely sure that without properly distilling you'd just be buying a monster of a aching noggin if you were to imbibe, large scale. To be fair I had heard of this with "hard cider", but I hadn't heard of someone doing mash like that. All you guys in the cold regions could "pre-strip" your wash out on the porch! LOL

[rad14701]

Is anyone using this method to "strip"? Am I missing something crucial?

Are people doing it...??? No... Are you missing something...??? Yes...

The reason people aren't doing this is because if you calculated it out you are using more power and more of your precious time tinkering than it would take to do proper stripping runs... Feezers aren't all that efficient and with multiple steps it consumes a lot of energy and a lot of your time... Not to mention efficiency... You'd get more good alcohol quicker by doing proper stripping runs and then a proper spirit run...

[PapaGoose]

Yeah I guess so, but I had room in my freezer and no time to charge and run the still.

[wendellbaker]

Ok. agreed. Freezers are an inefficient way of freeze stripping.

Devil's Advocate: It's snowing here. So free cold versus propane. Is there any reason not to do it?

[Dnderhead]

only thing alcohol/water will freeze ,freezing does not just freeze the water so each time you do this you can loose some alcohol.

[th=11]Ethanol Concentration (% by volume)[/th]

0	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100%
32	25	15	5	-10	-25	-35	-55	-75	-110	-175F

[PapaGoose]

well I used the freeze stripping method and then tested a sample at 70%F and my "good" stuff was right at 30% (31 on the scale and I didn't adjust for temp) on my proof/trailles hydrometer..the stuff left over...I let it thaw to about 68% (room temp) and tested that...it was so low on the scale as to not really register on the hydrometer, but you're right, I tasted it and it tasted like weak wash watered down, but did have some alcohol. But without a "heat run" this doesn't get rid of the "bad stuff" so it's probably not a method to use to drink, or on a low ABV wash, it seems to me that you'd just suspend the alcohol in an ice matrix, and it would take a lot of melt to free it.

I dunno if I'd do a lot of this as a "method" but since I had a little wash left over, I thought I'd try it. Since my pot still is small, this will save me a charge and run. If I had a big fancy reflux rig or even the equipment and spare cash to buy materials to build one, I prolly wouldn't mess with this as I wouldn't have wash left over in the first place.

And I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that jacking as a stripping run would carry over flavors better than a "proper" stripping run, like if you were doing an apple wash or a fruit wash. So as a rule, freezing = no. BUT, If it's freezing outside then the option looks a little better and if you're trying to retain flavor instead of consistently making neutral spirit, it moves up to viable .... or so I gather from the various and sundry places in this forum

[drpotoroo]

I have been doing some thinking about this, and a little research. Based on wikipedia data it appears that water and some unwanted chemicals, most notably methanol,l all melt at higher temps than alcohol. So there is a chance that stripping by freezing witould remove some unwanted things that a traditional stripping runs might leave behind. However, given that seems to be a pretty inaccurate method, maybe that is no real benefit?

Edit: oops, I was looking at the temps in Kelvin to graph it without negative values. Seeing methanol freezes at -97°C my point is probably fairly redundant.