Adding to backset

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MooseMan
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Adding to backset

Post by MooseMan »

A comment by Higgins regarding the use of the hot backset left in the boiler to further preheat an incoming wash has lead to a question.

Could the next wash to be stripped, be added to the hot backset left from the previous run just completed with no detrimental effect to that second strip?

Obviously it would have to be a slightly lower volume so as not to over fill the boiler, but it would cut heat up time even more on the second strip.
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Re: Adding to backset

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It's not something that I would try unless I wasn't sober.
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Re: Adding to backset

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Hahaha loud and clear Chris!
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by Yummyrum »

I dunno , at the end of the day , you have more volume to bring to boiling temp and it will be of a lower ABV .

Maybe with your bent towards efficiency and water saving , you should investigate Continuous Stripper . They utilise heat from condensing product to heat wash as well as waste heat from the boiler to add even more heat to wash so by the time it hits the top of the stripping column , it has almost enough heat to become vapour .

It was this energy and water saving that got me keen on it all .
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by Steve Broady »

I’d think that watering down the incoming wash would be detrimental. You could look at some kind of counter flow heat exchanger to heat the incoming wash instead, perhaps.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by MooseMan »

Well, I've read through that entire thread and can honestly say that I'm not yet familiar enough with this hobby to make complete sense of what you are explaining.

I get the principle, and I get at least some of the mechanics but at my current level of experience in distilling, there is no way that I could confidently approach that.

One day, maybe, when I'm retired with a lot more time and a bit more experience, but right now not a chance in hell!
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by Wildcats »

I really don't get what you are asking. You could pre heat the was to save time in heat up.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by MooseMan »

Sorry Wildcats I was replying to Yummy after reading the thread on his continuous stripper, I might have confused this by not quoting his post.

All I was asking to begin with was, is it feasible or wise, to add a second wash immediately to the hot backset in the still after a strip, to take advantage of the residual heat, then carry on with the second strip.

And the answer is, no!
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by PLAYMP »

I have added low wines to hot backset to get to a spirit-run appropriate abv. Did not love the result (100% LME), extremely heavy and has these sickly sweet notes, possibly a good blender but it’s not gotten much better after a year on oak.

Honestly I don’t see why what you suggest with stripping runs wouldn’t work, you’ll get all the alcohol out either way and run it again to clean up. The downside is just that it would really shrink the amount of alcohol you can fit in your boiler and run.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by jonnys_spirit »

In my 15g boiler I'll strip out approximately 5g low wines. If I topped that up with fresh wash it would only be 5g fresh wash going in and it would theoretically only strip out to about 1.7g low wines.... I like the idea of using your PC hot water output and backset through a wort chiller to pre-heat the next boiler charge and may experiment with that.. I have a hot wort pump that can transfer hot liquids. I guess you'd want to monitor the temp of the pre-heat charge and be able to bypass the wort chiller so as not to cook off ETOH and create a fire hazard...

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Re: Adding to backset

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jonnys_spirit wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 1:36 pm In my 15g boiler I'll strip out approximately 5g low wines. If I topped that up with fresh wash it would only be 5g fresh wash going in and it would theoretically only strip out to about 1.7g low wines.... I like the idea of using your PC hot water output and backset through a wort chiller to pre-heat the next boiler charge and may experiment with that.. I have a hot wort pump that can transfer hot liquids. I guess you'd want to monitor the temp of the pre-heat charge and be able to bypass the wort chiller so as not to cook off ETOH and create a fire hazard...

Cheers!
-jonny
I tried this early on jonny. I ran hot water from my shotgun exit directly into my keggle/mash tun through a copper wort chiller. In order for the wort chiller to give up its heat it needed to be constantly agitated up and down. I agitated it intermittently and only gained about 15F over the course of 2hrs or so. If you can set up a constant agitator and enclose the receiving vessel with a lid I think it would work more efficiently for you.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by MooseMan »

Twisted Brick wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 5:16 pm
jonnys_spirit wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 1:36 pm In my 15g boiler I'll strip out approximately 5g low wines. If I topped that up with fresh wash it would only be 5g fresh wash going in and it would theoretically only strip out to about 1.7g low wines.... I like the idea of using your PC hot water output and backset through a wort chiller to pre-heat the next boiler charge and may experiment with that.. I have a hot wort pump that can transfer hot liquids. I guess you'd want to monitor the temp of the pre-heat charge and be able to bypass the wort chiller so as not to cook off ETOH and create a fire hazard...

Cheers!
-jonny
I tried this early on jonny. I ran hot water from my shotgun exit directly into my keggle/mash tun through a copper wort chiller. In order for the wort chiller to give up its heat it needed to be constantly agitated up and down. I agitated it intermittently and only gained about 15F over the course of 2hrs or so. If you can set up a constant agitator and enclose the receiving vessel with a lid I think it would work more efficiently for you.
jonnys_spirit wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 1:36 pm In my 15g boiler I'll strip out approximately 5g low wines. If I topped that up with fresh wash it would only be 5g fresh wash going in and it would theoretically only strip out to about 1.7g low wines.... I like the idea of using your PC hot water output and backset through a wort chiller to pre-heat the next boiler charge and may experiment with that.. I have a hot wort pump that can transfer hot liquids. I guess you'd want to monitor the temp of the pre-heat charge and be able to bypass the wort chiller so as not to cook off ETOH and create a fire hazard...

Cheers!
-jonny
Ok so to answer both, I use as little water flow through the condenser as i can get away with to keep product temp sensible off the spout.
That gets my cooling water pretty hot at the return, so very hot water is going to the wort chiller coil.
I've done it twice now, and it heats a 40l wash to above 60c before the strip is finished so I like to turn the water up a little at the end.

No agitation at all, but the coil is all the way to the bottom of the wash bucket so there is some convection going on. I'm sure it would be way more efficient with even some minimal stirring, I'll get to that.

This is with a 55l keg, 2x 2400w elements on full, long leibig stripping 10% wash at 12L/Hr exciting the spout at 50c, so there's a lot of heat energy to transfer.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by jonnys_spirit »

MooseMan wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 10:03 pm
Twisted Brick wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 5:16 pm
jonnys_spirit wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 1:36 pm In my 15g boiler I'll strip out approximately 5g low wines. If I topped that up with fresh wash it would only be 5g fresh wash going in and it would theoretically only strip out to about 1.7g low wines.... I like the idea of using your PC hot water output and backset through a wort chiller to pre-heat the next boiler charge and may experiment with that.. I have a hot wort pump that can transfer hot liquids. I guess you'd want to monitor the temp of the pre-heat charge and be able to bypass the wort chiller so as not to cook off ETOH and create a fire hazard...

Cheers!
-jonny
I tried this early on jonny. I ran hot water from my shotgun exit directly into my keggle/mash tun through a copper wort chiller. In order for the wort chiller to give up its heat it needed to be constantly agitated up and down. I agitated it intermittently and only gained about 15F over the course of 2hrs or so. If you can set up a constant agitator and enclose the receiving vessel with a lid I think it would work more efficiently for you.
jonnys_spirit wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 1:36 pm In my 15g boiler I'll strip out approximately 5g low wines. If I topped that up with fresh wash it would only be 5g fresh wash going in and it would theoretically only strip out to about 1.7g low wines.... I like the idea of using your PC hot water output and backset through a wort chiller to pre-heat the next boiler charge and may experiment with that.. I have a hot wort pump that can transfer hot liquids. I guess you'd want to monitor the temp of the pre-heat charge and be able to bypass the wort chiller so as not to cook off ETOH and create a fire hazard...

Cheers!
-jonny
Ok so to answer both, I use as little water flow through the condenser as i can get away with to keep product temp sensible off the spout.
That gets my cooling water pretty hot at the return, so very hot water is going to the wort chiller coil.
I've done it twice now, and it heats a 40l wash to above 60c before the strip is finished so I like to turn the water up a little at the end.

No agitation at all, but the coil is all the way to the bottom of the wash bucket so there is some convection going on. I'm sure it would be way more efficient with even some minimal stirring, I'll get to that.

This is with a 55l keg, 2x 2400w elements on full, long leibig stripping 10% wash at 12L/Hr exciting the spout at 50c, so there's a lot of heat energy to transfer.
How cool is the water coming out after the wort chiller compared to straight off the condenser? Just wondering how much heat it looses. I run my cooling water pretty slow too and it's steaming when it comes out of the PC but haven't measured the temp.

Cheers,
jonny
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by NZChris »

Preheating wash has been around for decades. There are plenty of old drawings that can be used to help you design a preheater that is already known to work and is easy to run, so there is no need to re-invent one unless you have had an idea that makes a more efficient model.
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I have added fresh wash to hot backset, sort of. I've had slightly too much wash to fit into the boiler without it puking, so stripped off enough Low Wines that I could shoot the excess wash into the boiler. There is no preheating advantage, do the math, you still have to input the same amount of energy to heat and distill the addition.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by Chauncey »

NZChris wrote: Sun May 28, 2023 11:46 pm It's not something that I would try unless I wasn't sober.
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Re: Adding to backset

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jonnys_spirit wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 10:30 pm How cool is the water coming out after the wort chiller compared to straight off the condenser? Just wondering how much heat it looses. I run my cooling water pretty slow too and it's steaming when it comes out of the PC but haven't measured the temp.

Cheers,
jonny
Coming straight from the condenser, my water is also streaming, probably 60-70c? (Too hot to keep my fingers in)
When I run it through the coil in the next wash, it starts cold and ends up around 50-55 by the end of the strip as I can just keep my hand under it.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by higgins »

Typically I will do three ~12 gallon strips to one ~10-11 gallon spirit run. The stripping runs yield 3-4 gallons of low wines, leaving 8 or 9 gallons of backset.

During the first and second strips I set up my next batch to be stripped in three 5 gallon buckets. To drain the boiling backset out of the kettle I pump it (I have a hi-temp pump from my beer brewing days) thru a wort chiller in one bucket, using my drill with stirrer attachment in the bucket to increase heat transfer. I'll run about a third of the backset thru each bucket. Then I have 12 gallons of beer at ~130F (~55C) instead of 70F (21C) to begin the second (and third) strips. This cuts my heatup time on the 2nd and 3rd strips by at least half.

Before I started doing this I had to add cool water as I pumped the boiling backset down the drain to avoid deforming my PVC drain lines. Now the backset is much cooler so I don't need to add the cool water as I drain it.

I've been collecting my hot PC output water to use during cleanup, but most of it goes down the drain. On my next batch I will use it to preheat the next beer before using the backset. I think I'll probably get another 10-20F out of it, and I'll get enough hot water from the last strip to save for cleaning up.
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Re: Adding to backset

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higgins wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 6:06 am Typically I will do three ~12 gallon strips to one ~10-11 gallon spirit run. The stripping runs yield 3-4 gallons of low wines, leaving 8 or 9 gallons of backset.

During the first and second strips I set up my next batch to be stripped in three 5 gallon buckets. To drain the boiling backset out of the kettle I pump it (I have a hi-temp pump from my beer brewing days) thru a wort chiller in one bucket, using my drill with stirrer attachment in the bucket to increase heat transfer. I'll run about a third of the backset thru each bucket. Then I have 12 gallons of beer at ~130F (~55C) instead of 70F (21C) to begin the second (and third) strips. This cuts my heatup time on the 2nd and 3rd strips by at least half.

Before I started doing this I had to add cool water as I pumped the boiling backset down the drain to avoid deforming my PVC drain lines. Now the backset is much cooler so I don't need to add the cool water as I drain it.

I've been collecting my hot PC output water to use during cleanup, but most of it goes down the drain. On my next batch I will use it to preheat the next beer before using the backset. I think I'll probably get another 10-20F out of it, and I'll get enough hot water from the last strip to save for cleaning up.
I think you'll get a fair bit more than 20f temp gain out of running your PC outlet through the next wash, in fact as long as you use the minimum water flow you can, I know you'll get a fair bit more! This is based on only 2 experiences of doing this admittedly, but it's pretty reliable.

If the backset is also run through it afterwards, you may even be getting too hot and get steam coming off!
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by Boda Getta »

Are you guys referring to using hot back-set to preheat a wash or a mash? 95% of my All Grain mash are sour-mash and already contain back-set, I usually use about 20-25% back-set and mix it in with the water before I "cook" the mast. I just like the taste of a sour-mast whiskey. I don't think Scottish or Irish distillers use back-set when making single malt or Irish whiskey; but I regularly make both and usually use back-set in both. It was originally used for Ph adjustment and fight infection but it is a "taste" thing for me. Is the lees after a wash run back-set or y'all talking using a mash back-set in a wash?
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by MooseMan »

When I refer to backset, I'm talking about the hot, alcohol depleted liquid that's left in the still after a run.
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Re: Adding to backset

Post by Boda Getta »

I will strip my Shady's Sugar Wash in the next couple of days. My next run in a couple of weeks or so will be a Irish Whiskey with a Raw Barley, Malted Barley and Oats grain bill. I have no All Grain Back-Set on hand and in the past I have done a small 7 gal run of All Grain just for the back-set to use for the next 30 gal mash run. I don't think I would have considered the hot, alcohol depleted liquid left from a sugar wash a true back-set. As mentioned in a earlier post most of my all grain runs (bourbon, wheat whisky, etc) are sour mast runs. I prefer sour-mash whiskey over sweet mast whiskey and I do sour-mash runs for the added favor. Would using the "back-set" from the sugar wash run provide the same favor enhancement as a all-grain back-set??
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Re: Adding to backset

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Boda Getta wrote: Thu Jun 08, 2023 10:18 pm I will strip my Shady's Sugar Wash in the next couple of days. My next run in a couple of weeks or so will be a Irish Whiskey with a Raw Barley, Malted Barley and Oats grain bill. I have no All Grain Back-Set on hand and in the past I have done a small 7 gal run of All Grain just for the back-set to use for the next 30 gal mash run. I don't think I would have considered the hot, alcohol depleted liquid left from a sugar wash a true back-set. As mentioned in a earlier post most of my all grain runs (bourbon, wheat whisky, etc) are sour mast runs. I prefer sour-mash whiskey over sweet mast whiskey and I do sour-mash runs for the added favor. Would using the "back-set" from the sugar wash run provide the same favor enhancement as a all-grain back-set??
I don't have the experience to answer or to help you on this I'm sorry BG.
But I'm sure one of the guys who do, will chime in!
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