steam injection + thumper = fruit hydrosol - the scorch ?

[LB Miles]

Hello all

This is my first proper post after my introduction.
I've been running a small hydrosol still mainly for herbs. Mint, basil, tea, and other aromatic herbs and flowers have worked well for me with no scorching whatsoever. I personally only am interested in hydrosols, while EO's aren't that interesting for my purposes, which are to make syrups and liqueurs and flavoring neutral to make a good flavored vokda.

Then one day I tried to distill peach hydrosol. And the scorching was pretty bad. Twice in fact.

So I thought maybe using a boiler with water only (no alcohol anywhere near the setup, let alone in the boiler or thumper) to use as a steam gen, injecting steam into my current $h1t11 still (will modify it if the end answer is yes) to make it act as a thumper (I say thumper because it will be filled with liquids, as fruit juice and pulp) so that I can obtain clean fruit hydrosol without scorching the fruit itself ?

Simple setup, here I'm running a mint hydrosol run. Will post about it soon.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance!

[edited for typo]

Miles

[metalsmith]

I know and understand nothing about essential oils. I do know how to scorch a thick mash. Steam will be your friend.

[Kareltje]

I do not know about hydrosol, apart from the fact that they are flavours captured in water.

But these days I repeatedly run a 10 L boiler to extract alcohol and flavour out of a 15 L thumper loaded with 10 L fermented fruit pulp.
I even intend to fire the boiler at minimum and light a fire under the thumper. Until now I had no scorching at all: the steam from the boiler keeps the pulp moving around, so in firing the thumper there is no risk of scorching.

I still have to play around to prevent the risk of emptying the boiler before the contents of the thumper are all harvested.

[LB Miles]

Thanks metalsmith. Before the scorching occurred both times, the runs started with a great smell and taste. So if steam injection solves the problem of scorching then I'm set to distill all sorts of fruit hydrosols. Could add peach hydrosol to neutral (that I buy ready at 96 ABV) to make a 'schnaps' style drink. The possibilities are endless. Maybe even distill Juniper and a bunch of other stuff to replicate a gin.

[LB Miles]

I do not know about hydrosol, apart from the fact that they are flavours captured in water.

But these days I repeatedly run a 10 L boiler to extract alcohol and flavour out of a 15 L thumper loaded with 10 L fermented fruit pulp.
I even intend to fire the boiler at minimum and light a fire under the thumper. Until now I had no scorching at all: the steam from the boiler keeps the pulp moving around, so in firing the thumper there is no risk of scorching.

I still have to play around to prevent the risk of emptying the boiler before the contents of the thumper are all harvested.

Kareltje, I know that hydrosols aren't that popular when you can make booze, it sure is quite nice to be able to. Though I do recommend trying to make hydrosols. You can store it for a long long time and use it whenever you want. So if you want a flavored vodka you can make almost 9 Gallons using 1L (a bit more than a quart) so it enables you to make small quantities without having to soak fruit or whatever flavor you want for a while in neutral then redistill in a quantity that fits your boiler. The best part is that hydrosols are more abundant in a run than essential oils, which I personally let evaporate. I know that not everyone likes vodka or gin or the sort, but it's fun as a new horizon to experiment with.

[OtisT]

Steam injection should eliminate any scorching issues because what you put in there will never, ever get over 100C in temp.

Otis

[LB Miles]

Steam injection should eliminate any scorching issues because what you put in there will never, ever get over 100C in temp.

Otis

Im getting more reassured. I wanted to make sure it would work, so now with all the feedback from y'all I can go ahead and apply as soon as I can. Thanks Otis!


Miles