No alcohol in my distillate

[Gene0552]

I just recently tried my first distilling adventure and it was a complete flop. My mash consisted of 8.5 lbs of cracked corn and 2 lbs of malted light barley and 5 gallons of water and 2 tablespoons of distillers yeast . I heated the mixture to 175deg and shut it down and added the yeast like the book recipe I read. I sealed it and put a vapor lock in the pot. It bubbled nicely for about three days making sure to stir and aerat a few times. The out gassing slowed to a stop and I just let it sit for a few more days. The grains had settled to the bottom and left a clear layer of fluid. The hygrometer read 0. I figured it was done fermenting so I distilled it. The temperature got up to about 210 deg and started distilling. I reduced the heat, but it still required me to keep it at 205 - 210 deg in order to get a steady drip. I threw out the first pint and ended up with 8 quart jars. I did have difficulty keeping the coils cool and often they got too hot to touch. I was using a circulating pump in a 5 gal bucket of cold water, but had to keep replacing that water because it got hot. Anyway, the first quart tested at 75% alcohol on the hygrometer, all the other 7 jars tested at 0.
Where did I go wrong?

[acfixer69]

First thing you need to do is the required reading. You will know what you did wrong. You need to understand what is happening along the way. We don't know or care what book you are referring to. For your first attempt, you should find a tried and true recipe and follow it to the letter. Then you can get help some help.

[fiery creations]

That’s a lot of what to decipher.

If you heated to 175 you likely denatured all your enzymes. If you pitched yeast at that temp it surely had to have died.

But you say you had fermentation activity.

But you hydrometer read 0. If you mean potential alcohol and not SG you started with zero alcohol so I have no idea wtf your random first jar got it.

There’s no way one jar is 75% alcohol from a pot still and a bunch of pure water jars.

[AlZilla]

Welcome aboard. As mentioned, pitching yeast at 175F certainly killed your yeast. I think there are packaged enzymes that could withstand 175.

I noticed in your welcome message that you're starting with a chinese still. Here's one of many threads covering some of the simple shortcomings that really should be addressed. The "Google Search" function in the bar above will yield more:
viewtopic.php?t=89172

You've got an interesting learning curve to navigate, so enjoy your new hobby!

[Bradster68]

Not to be an ass. But you made a lot of mistakes. +1 to start with a tried and true recipe from that section. At least read a few recipes and understand the process. Starting with AG recipes can be challenging. Very challenging for some. But after following these recipes (from the tried and true section)a few times it'll come to you. A good process and careful notes are very important.
Stay safe

[Steve Broady]

You’re getting a lot of (somewhat deserved) flak from the guys here for a whole series of easily avoidable mistakes, and I get how frustrating that can be. The folks here are incredibly helpful, but you are expected to put in the effort to help yourself first. However, this place and this hobby can be daunting when you just start out, so I’ll do my best to offer a couple answers. Without knowing exactly what you did and what tools you used, the best I can do is offer an educated guess. Hopefully this steers you in the right direction.

I heated the mixture to 175deg and shut it down and added the yeast like the book recipe I read.

The enzymes in the barley were definitely denatured at that temperature. I shoot for 150, or 155 on the water alone so that it’ll drop to 150 when I add the grain. Denatured enzymes mean that there’s nothing left to convert the starch into sugar for the yeast to convert to alcohol. This is probably your #1 issue.

If you pitched yeast at 175F, you definitely killed it. I don’t like to go above 100F, or simply blood warm if I’m teaching it with my finger. The fact that you got some activity tells me that either you actually pitched the yeast at a safe temperature, or that you had a wild yeast infection.

The hygrometer read 0.

Call it pedantic if you like, but names matter. A hygrometer is used to measure humidity. A hydrometer is used to measure specific gravity. There are different hydrometers that we use in this hobby, depending on whether we’re measuring sugar concentration prior to fermentation, or pineal proof after distillation. Make sure you have the right tool, and that you note how to use it.

Without both a starting and final gravity reading taken before and after fermentation (and corrected for temperature), your measurement is essentially meaningless. Because e are not measuring a pure sugar water solution, other things in the solution will affect the reading. We therefore take two readings at different times and use the difference to know how much alcohol is present.

I reduced the heat, but it still required me to keep it at 205 - 210 deg in order to get a steady drip.

That would definitely be high, but since you were distilling almost no alcohol, it makes sense. In general though, you will not gain much other than stress by watching that thermometer. You will learn a great deal more by paying attention to how the still actually runs… Once you have something to distill.

I did have difficulty keeping the coils cool and often they got too hot to touch.

If you can’t keep your condenser cool, then you’re running the still too hard. Any condenser will have a certain amount of heat energy that it’s capable of removing, depending on a lot of factors. For the sake of discussion, say your condenser can handle 1kW, but you were putting 1.5kW into the boiler. That extra energy has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is vapor escaping into the air.

You mentioned having to change the water, which tells me that you don’t have enough cooling water. At a minimum, you probably need 2x the volume of your boiler charge. Better yet, ditch the reservoir and run straight from a cold water supply. For a while, I just put a small bucket in the sink and pulled the water out of that, with a little trickle of cold water into the bucket from the tap. It’s not exactly the neatest arrangement, but it stopped the problem of my cooling water overheating.

But backing up, which part of those coils got too hot to touch? That’s normal for the top, since they’re only exposed to the vapor. At the bottom though, they should be a lot cooler. How hot was the product coming out?

Anyway, the first quart tested at 75% alcohol on the hygrometer, all the other 7 jars tested at 0.

I’m just guessing here, but I suppose it’s possible that you got a little bit of highly volatile stuff in the. Acetone, alcohol, etc. It doesn’t make sense to go straight from 75% down to zero, though, which makes me suspect some sort of measurement error. Were you using the same hydrometer that you used for your mash?

Did you taste anything that came out of the still? It’s not likely to be amazing, but it should taste like more than grain flavored water.

[still_stirrin]

I think Steve Broady got most of your questions, but I’ll try to add to that a little:

—> 8.5 lbs of cracked corn
—> 2 lbs of malted light barley
—> 5 gallons of water
—> 2 tablespoons of distillers yeast

Process:
I heated the mixture to 175deg and shut it down and added the yeast <— Like Steve said, if you added the yeast at this temperature, you killed the yeast. And you denatured all the natural enzymes in the malts. Plus, the temperature was not high enough to gelatinize the cracked corn. So, there was likely very little fermentable material from the corn available in the fermentation.

It bubbled nicely for about three days making sure to stir and aerate(sp) a few times. <— First thing, yeast fermentation is anaerobic, that is “without oxygen”. That means, once the yeast has reproduced to the cell density to ferment, you DO NOT need to add oxygen. Stirring the mash is not needed unless it has gone dormant, ie - consumed all the fermentable materials already. By stirring, you likely just re-introduced more air into the wort, which outgassed and caused the airlock to bubble.

The out gassing slowed to a stop and I just let it sit for a few more days. The grains had settled to the bottom and left a clear layer of fluid. <— After fermentation slows and stops, the yeast will flocculate (clump together) and settle. This is normal and expected in any beer ferment.

The hydrometer(sp) read 0. <— Big question here: did it read “0.0”, or “unity” (1.000)? A brewing hydrometer measure the ratio of specific gravity (density) relative to water. A measurement of “0.0” would be much less than water, approaching the density of air, and even less than that, like the density of helium. So, a “0.0” SG reading is IMPOSSIBLE. But, if it actually was 1.000 (or zero alcohol potential), then what you have is water, or water with some alcohol in it.

Bear in mind that the density of alcohol is LESS than water, so if you have a lot of alcohol resulting from the ferment, it could actually measure less than 1.000. This is why some distillers say their ferments finish with a SG=0.995 +/-.

I figured it was done fermenting so I distilled it.

Distillation::
The temperature got up to about 210 deg and started distilling. <— If the still didn’t start producing until the boiler was at 210*F, or higher then you didn’t have much alcohol in the beer. Using a thermometer to tell you when the boil starts is an indication of the “potential” alcohol in the wash. With 10%ABV potential in your wash, the boil would start to produce at a lower temperature, 175*F for example. But this does not really indicate the purity of alcohol “at the spout”. That will vary as you progress through the run.

I reduced the heat, but it still required me to keep it at 205 - 210 deg in order to get a steady drip. <— Again, this indicates that you did not have much alcohol from the ferment in your wash, most probably due to the mash temperatures and how you pitched the yeast.

Results:
I … ended up with 8 quart jars. I did have difficulty keeping the coils cool and often they got too hot to touch. I was using a circulating pump in a 5 gal bucket of cold water, but had to keep replacing that water because it got hot. <— Not surprising because you were mostly making “distilled water”, for which water has a high enthalpy (energy needed to change phases). This results in a lot of energy transferred to your coolant reservoir.

Anyway, the first quart tested at 75% alcohol on the hydrometer(sp), all the other 7 jars tested at 0. <— Like Steve said, I am quiet surprised you got even 1 jar that tested to 75%ABV. It must have been owed to a wild flora ferment, or possible bacterial ferment, given your processes. Regardless, the remaining jars indicate you just distilled water, for the most part.

Where did I go wrong?

OK, so what to do?

Next brew, mash the grains at 150*F for saccarification. But, I suggest first milling the cracked corn to a fine cornmeal consistency.

Then, make a SEPARATE mash for the corn but heating the mash water to 195*F, or a low simmer and stirring in the cornmeal. Stir this every 10-15 minutes as it thickens (into a porridge). If you have HTL enzymes, add those at 0.36ml/lb to thin the porridge. Mash this at 190*F for an hour, or more, stirring regularly.

After an hour (or more) drop the temperature to 150*F-155*F by adding water. Then stir in your malted barley until the temperature is around 148*F-150*F. Let this mash rest for another hour, or until the iodine check says you’ve converted all the starches. You could also add the GL enzymes to help conversion at this point, if you have them. But the malted barley should be adequate to convert the corn.

As far as your distilling processes, start the heat and feel along the riser to see how the temperature progresses. That should tell you when to expect the still to start producing. You really don’t need a thermometer to tell you. Also, you be able to smell when it’s coming online too.

Collect into 15 or 20 jars so you can make proper cuts. I like to do the 1st run as a stripping run (without cuts) and collect all the low wines for the spirit run (2nd distillation). That’s when I collect into 15-20 jars for making cuts (after 24 hours of airing).

A lot of details, but hopefully it will help fill in the blanks.

Be safe, responsible, and discrete.
ss

[HDNB]

yo Gene, i'm just wondering if all that made sense or if your head exploded from all the info? throw back some feedback.

[Gene0552]

All that made a lot of sense and yes my head was ready to explode. Another try at it in the fall when the temperature drops and it's apple picking time. Would like to try apple shine, but maybe one more run at corn liquor first. Thanks tremendously for the step by step tutorial.

[IAmPistolPete]

I would suggest maybe picking up a handle of cheap-ass vodka or rum, dilute it to about 20-30% ABV in the boiler & run it, mult jars & all. Then run it again. And again. That way you can get a little more experience with your SOP, the distillation process and blending before moving on to your more precious resources. As described above, there are so many variables involved and the more you can eliminate, the better.