I couldn't find any specific info regarding this on either the home page or the forums, that is there's no obvious headings addressing this, it seems.
So can someone please provide the scoop on polishing neutral spirits with baking soda? Is it 1 teaspoon or 1 tablespoon per liter, for instance. Does it need to sit for 7 days? What is the chemistry of it, and what happens when you do this? Is filtration required before re-distilling? How does this compare to using carbon? Can this process possibly go wrong? What about using calcium carbonate (pool shops) which is cheaper?
Looking forward to a good discussion. Thanks!
Polishing With Baking Soda FAQ
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Re: Polishing With Baking Soda FAQ
From what I understand, Baking Soda is not for "polishing" spirits. "Polishing" is a term used to describe removing "off" tastes by filtration through Activated Carbon. This is necessary if you use Turbo yeast of do other silly things in your fermentation. A good ferment should not require polishing of the finished spirit.
However, Baking Soda is used in feints ( Heads and Tails) to free up, or recover, "clean" ethanol out of the unused cuts. This enables you to redistill the stuff that would otherwise be discarded as "undrinkable". From memory I used 1 Teaspoon / litre and left is sit for a week, stirring each day. I also read that you have to dissolve it in water before adding it to the spirit, so that is what I did.
I have only used Baking Soda, (ie: Sodium Bicarbonate or Bicarb Soda or Bicarbonate of Soda) once in some stockpiled feints I had, and it did seem to free up a reasonable quantity of usable spirit that I had previously cut from my Spirit runs, as outside my taste. I can't say whether I could have achieved the same result without using it as I haven't done a control run to compare.
This hobby is full of advice that is either good or useless. My father told me he read somewhere on the Parent Site, that using it has a detrimental affect on the copper of your still. Not sure about this either. Some other people say to use salt for the same purpose but apparently this can have an degrading effect on your Stainless Steel.
My advice is to forget it. Just do another batch and run your feints through a fractioning column to get product closer to neutral.
However, Baking Soda is used in feints ( Heads and Tails) to free up, or recover, "clean" ethanol out of the unused cuts. This enables you to redistill the stuff that would otherwise be discarded as "undrinkable". From memory I used 1 Teaspoon / litre and left is sit for a week, stirring each day. I also read that you have to dissolve it in water before adding it to the spirit, so that is what I did.
I have only used Baking Soda, (ie: Sodium Bicarbonate or Bicarb Soda or Bicarbonate of Soda) once in some stockpiled feints I had, and it did seem to free up a reasonable quantity of usable spirit that I had previously cut from my Spirit runs, as outside my taste. I can't say whether I could have achieved the same result without using it as I haven't done a control run to compare.
This hobby is full of advice that is either good or useless. My father told me he read somewhere on the Parent Site, that using it has a detrimental affect on the copper of your still. Not sure about this either. Some other people say to use salt for the same purpose but apparently this can have an degrading effect on your Stainless Steel.
My advice is to forget it. Just do another batch and run your feints through a fractioning column to get product closer to neutral.