Can one of you fine gentlemen please explain what the ever-loving fuck is this?
And how it works? not quite a thumper, not quite preheater, not quite reflux.
There is a lot going on and interacting here.
Found a couple of technical references but nothing that really explains how you get the flavour out.
It seems like a lot of knobs and levers you can turn.
charentais-still-diagram-300x201.png (45.3 KiB) Viewed 2286 times
It looks a little bit like a bomb.
So many things to manage. Not finding a user guide/operators manual anywhere
Talking about trying to manage a rain storm.
I'm just trying to get my reflux column sorted and switch to steam so I can try grain in.
That thing just confuses me in so many ways.
You can run it so slowly that you make cognac but fast enough to make vodka.
It's like running a little thunderstorm. you can adjust primary and secondary heating manually.
water flow on the worm to some extent,
I think you can effectively manage a fairly narrow alcohol % in your low wines
If it was electric I might be able to turn it on but trying to operate it with fire with an intention not.
Going to have to think about this for a while I think.
2.2 DISTILLATION TECHNIQUES AND APPARATUS 9
2.2.1 Distillation 9
2.2.2 Pot stills 10
2.2.3 Influence of maturation of the final distillate 11
2.3 FACTORS AFFECTING THE DISTILATION OF VOLATILE COMPOUNDS
11
2.3.1 Azeotropes and phase equilibrium 12
2.3.2 Reflux 13
Missed a typo in the Table of Contents... oops.
Last edited by tiramisu on Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
The secret of Tigre Blanc Alambic Edition® lies in its carefully selected ingredients and its distillation process carried out in two steps. The wheat that goes into Tigre Blanc
Alambic Edition® is harvested in Champagne-Ardenne, then combined with Charentais water and distilled five times in a column. This classic process is followed by double distillation in a traditional copper Charentais still for over twelve hours, under the expert eyes of master distillers. It is this double Charentais distillation, called "à repasse”, that gives Tigre Blanc Alambic Edition® its smooth, round character essential for pure tasting and the perfect pairing of vodka and fine foods.
This looks good though https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/37323608.pdf
3.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS 39
3.2.1 Pot still heads and swans neck variations 39
3.2.2 Distillations 40
3.2.3 Chemical analysis 40
3.2.4 Sensory analysis 42
3.2.5 The addition of certain compounds to the distillates to investigate
the effect on the sensory style classification 44
3.2.6 Statistical analysis 45
"Brandy can be said to have originated from the Moslem Mediterranean states in the 7th and 8th
centuries. The Arab alchemists used the distillation technique to produce medicinal spirits; to them
it was known as “aqua vitae”, meaning the water of life."
tiramisu wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 8:40 pm
"Brandy can be said to have originated from the Moslem Mediterranean states in the 7th and 8th
centuries. The Arab alchemists used the distillation technique to produce medicinal spirits; to them
it was known as “aqua vitae”, meaning the water of life."
Arab states did not talk Latin. They very likely did not "invent" the distilling process but took if from the Byzantine Empire and they brought it to Europe (through Sicily, Spain, southern France, and commercial contacts) in a period were commercial and cultural contacts between the Byzantine empire and Western Europe were scarce.
Alembic, Alcohol are Arabic words, aqua vitae is not, it is certainly Latin. Monks (who were not just brewers, but also herbalists and distillers) brought the term aqua vitae all over Europe, and you can find it from Ireland (Uisce beatha) to Russia (yakovita). We owe a lot to those monks...
tiramisu wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 7:13 pm
Cognac.jpg
Can one of you fine gentlemen please explain what the ever-loving fuck is this?
And how it works? not quite a thumper, not quite preheater, not quite reflux.
There is a lot going on and interacting here.
This has come up on my course recently, so I'll try and flex/reinforce my learning here. Please correct me if I am wrong. The charentais is a pre-requisite in cognac distillation. The central bulb/onion is indeed a pre heater. The vapour pipe from the main pot passes through the preheater to the worm tub and the wines in the preheater are heated via heat exchange from the vapours, preparing the wine for a subsequent run.
In cognac distillation, two runs are required and both take head, heart (brouillis) and tails cuts. In the second run where the first hearts are re-run, an additional cut is taken after the hearts called 'secondes' which comes off around 60% down to about 5%.
I assume the upper valve from the swan neck through the preheater is to control the vapour flow rate. The valve below that controls the feed from the pre heater and the lower valve on the base of the preheater is for dumping.
Æther wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:41 am
I assume the upper valve from the swan neck through the preheater is to control the vapour flow rate. The valve below that controls the feed from the pre heater and the lower valve on the base of the preheater is for dumping.
The connection from the swan neck to the preheater will simply be a union. These things still need to be broken down and cleaned after all.
The valve at the start of the preheater is a two-way which allows the operator to bypass the preheater (you can see the pipe running around the back of it). This is critically important, because if the contents of the preheater reaches distillation temperatures before the main run is completed, you have created a potential pressure bomb.
I overcame this problem by use of a condenser on my preheater.
Æther wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 3:41 am
I assume the upper valve from the swan neck through the preheater is to control the vapour flow rate. The valve below that controls the feed from the pre heater and the lower valve on the base of the preheater is for dumping.
The connection from the swan neck to the preheater will simply be a union. These things still need to be broken down and cleaned after all.
The valve at the start of the preheater is a two-way which allows the operator to bypass the preheater (you can see the pipe running around the back of it). This is critically important, because if the contents of the preheater reaches distillation temperatures before the main run is completed, you have created a potential pressure bomb.
I overcame this problem by use of a condenser on my preheater.
Great points. I had been wondering about bypassing the preheater but hadn’t noticed another pipe running around the back. This is good to know. Cheers
The operator still has to manually initiate the bypass at an appropriate time, just like I have to do with turning on the cooling water for my condenser. The difference being that my condenser gives me fair warning well ahead of any potential problem.
Even with an appropriate idiot proof valve, the idiot driving it can forget. That to me, is a lot more dangerous than a condenser which will start puffing vapour. I have a temperature alarm on mine and I know NZChris has automated water for his (which I'm going to look at implementing). That and the bonus of simultaneous production, makes the condenser a no-brainer as far as I see it.
Its certainly cheaper too.
NZChris wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:18 pm
Because of the constantly changing demand on the condensers, both of mine are automated.
Do you have a thread on that build? I am planning on automating my flake stand using an Arduino. I would be using it to monitor some of the other processes as well.
I have thermocouples reading the condensate temperatures at the spouts.
Any water solenoid valve coupled with any temperature controller will do. If you control a pump, you usually need a solenoid valve to prevent siphoning. Constant water flow isn't important as long as your condenser is oversized for the job. I feed weirs that gravity feed the condensers. The weirs smooth the flow a bit.
