Stillspirits super reflux "Q's" (probably lame)

[Rod]

I am part way thru an experiment using copper mesh instead of saddles in my super reflux still

see other thread on copper scrubbers

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

decided improvement and worth the effort so far

final decision after redistilling

[fatbloke]

Trying to "get 20%" because the people pushing that yeast "say" it can survive to that level, is a very bad rookie mistake. What you will end up with is 80% water and 20% of something else. It will NOT be good tasting booze. It will be heavily contaminated with foul flavored volatiles. Also, the length of time you will have to wait to get to this ABV is a great amount of time.

No no, I should have said, the yeast I was using was a turbo that's for either 14% wash in 5 days (with 6 kg of table sugar)or 20% wash in 7/8 days (using 8kg of table sugar).

You are MUCH better off shooting for an ABV in the 12% range (+-2% from there is a pretty good range). When you push yeast too hard, the ethanol will poison it, and cause it to do bad things (or to stick). Also, if you try to do this "20%" wash, by simply dumping in that much sugar (or dextrose), it will have a severe osmotic stress on the yeast, from such a strong sugar content.

About the only thing I push above 10-11% myself, is my rum washes. When I do them, I feed them sugar and molasses enough to get to about 10% to start with. Then 2 days later, I add more sugar/molasses (and some water), then 2 days later, I add more sugar (and some water). In the end, I target 13%. I can get to 13% and have a pretty clean result, without having the wash stick, or having it generate off flavors.

My problem is, that using a turbo with the manufacturers recommended amount of sugar - but then taking an S.G. measurement, and comparing the SG to a table of predicted % ABV (table is from a reasonably reliable source), often doesn't match up. i.e. the sugar wash that I distilled yesterday had a finished gravity of .990 - so all the sugar was "done", but when I was looking at the table and measuring the SG during the mixing of the wash, the highest reading I could make was 1.350 - then anything more was off the scale. The table suggested that the 20% abv was requiring an SG measurement of 1.500 - I was rather unsure how to obtain that measurement, but managed the aforementioned 1.350 by using 12kg of dextrose in 21 litres of water. I probably could have worked out an approximation but decided against that.

Again, you should really LISTEN to what many here discuss. Do not try to be "greedy" and build a overly strong wash. You will ONLY produce very sub par end results. If you worried about the strength, well, that is what your still is for! It will convert the wash into whatever strength you want (usually much stronger, and you will have to water it down anyway). What you are really after is either that "ultra" neutral, tasteless odorless product, or the really fine flavored flavorful drink (rum/whiskey/brandy), which does NOT give a hang over, which has nothing (or very very little) of any volatiles which you do NOT want in there. Trying to build too strong of a ABV wash will NOT get you to that point.

Just my $0.02 worth. Please ignore it if you want. H.

Yes, I understand what you're telling me Husker, it's just that at the moment I still consider myself as "dipping my toe" in the world of home distilling. It's not my trying to be greedy, I'm just using commercially made products for wash/mash production, until I'm confident enough to try a "proper" recipe (I did think about trying the turbo that's aimed at making 23%abv wash from fermentation alone, but thought that might be "taking the p!ss" a bit).

I know that with the mead I make, if I use a yeast like Lalvin EC1118, I can get between 16 and 18 % abv (about 4lb or so honey per gallon). I've yet to try distilling some mead that I don't like i.e. one that I've made but doesn't come up to scratch taste wise.

Though I'm starting to appreciate the advice here, because I've yet to obtain any copper mesh to pack the column on my still - but I found 3 stainless steel pot scrubbers in a bag of rags at work the other day - so yesterday, I unravelled them and managed to pack 2 of them into the column, yes it may have been a bit tight because the still heated in the usual time (about an hour and a half), but it then too about 6 hours to get 3.5 litres of 86% spirit (after dumping the first 100ml's or so of heads).

It seems to have come out nice and clean, odour free (apart from the alcohol smell of course). I've yet to run it through my Z filter.

When I make the next batch of wash - I'm reverting to the original turbo yeast (still spirits "triple distilled") to head for the 14% abv wash, but I'm definitely gonna measure the SG with just the 6 kg's of table sugar to see how it matches up to the prediction table.

Thanks for all the hints and tips so far everyone, very much appreciated.

regards

fatbloke

p.s. Oh and yes, while the stainless mesh seems to have worked well, I think I'm still gonna change it for copper mesh - still spirits seem to sell small "pads" of copper mesh, that seem to be for putting inside the small table top pot stills. So I'm thinking of trying that as well.