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Brian Boru wrote:Has anyone tried triple distillation to get Irish pot still style whiskey? My question is this. After a spirit run, I might have 50-60 ABV spirit. You can't distill that without risk of fire. So would you add wort/water and do a triple distillation?

You may be better off to ignore advice from forums and do your own research to find out what the distilleries do. Much of the advice I've seen on forums has been speculation by people who have never tried to refine the art of doing triples, advice that, for the most part, does not resemble what is done in an old school Irish distillery.

Here's a video about triple distilled Irish whiskey.
It appears the spirit still is charged with 55% and they don't dilute the still charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaS6DRy7ok" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Personally, I dilute to under 40%
Especially if I'm using an internal electric heater

Rubbish Chris plenty of ppl have triple distilled and chased a traditional Irish styled whiskey on this forum and others. About 5 years ago we had a little challenge using a bunch of different methods to see who would get a passable clone of this style (either Jameson's or Bushmills malt style not exact clone) . They used several different methods including triple pot stilling and ways to get a smoother light whiskey, some aged on oak first soaked in warm sherry etc. My own contribution was and all oat OK single grain single malt oat pot stilled whiskey. I stripped it very fast twice and then did a slower spirit run, I only did a fores cut each run but would have lost tails with each one. I also did a piggyback on the same adding various different grains chasing a certain profile. The reason I event with oats is a long time back oat malt was a common malt in Ireland and ceased completly in 1973. I figured when they changed malts they made efforts to keep the flavour close as possible and I was chasing a style not a clone. I was very happy with my results and the single malt oat whiskey was born. You can go off and do your own thing but by hell there is a lot of help to be found if you look and ask and I did both. I had lots of advise and the member Dundrhead for one was a really big help to me, I doubt I would have got the same result first up without his and others assistance.
The whole reason for the triple distilling in Ireland is interesting and interesting to note that at one time all export whiskeys were triple distilled. In the 1790s there were changes to international standards concerning the volume of impurities allowed and this allowed export whiskey to be acceptable after two passes so the scotch dropped the triple distillation where as the Irish retained it.
Edit posted same time as above.

I have been looking up Irish Whiskey in wikipedia.
It was interesting that since the introduction and widespread adoption of the Coffey continuous still, the practice began of blending the lighter spirit from that still with more flavourful pot stilled product.
Do any of our people blend product from reflux or continuous stills (or even plated stills), with pot stilled product for a better taste?

Geoff

Yeah I have blended pot stilled with column stilled and it was not bad but nothing I can't get by running the column with a little less reflux.

As time goes on, I'm doing more and more blending, my older stock mostly being used for blends rather than bottled as single runs. The bottle I proofed today got a shot of Boka distilled vodka to, hopefully, stop it clouding at room temperature. There was plenty of flavor packed into this pot stilled run and the small amount of neutral I added hasn't diluted the flavor enough to be noticeable unless you have side by side samples.

Another trick is to do more than one blend out of a run, narrow cuts for drinking young and for light flavor, wider cuts for full flavor and long term aging.

Kareltje wrote:I have seen some very intricate schemes of multiple distillations with reusing both heads and tails, but I can not find them again. If I remember correctly, der wo had a link to them.

http://whiskyscience.blogspot.de/2012/0 ... tland.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

shadylane wrote:Here's a video about triple distilled Irish whiskey.
It appears the spirit still is charged with 55% and they don't dilute the still charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaS6DRy7ok" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

8% wash, 24% low wines, 55% high wines, 80-82% new make.
Nothing info about dilution. I think if they would dilute the 55%, they wouldn't get 80-82% new make.

The Baker wrote:It was interesting that since the introduction and widespread adoption of the Coffey continuous still, the practice began of blending the lighter spirit from that still with more flavourful pot stilled product.
Do any of our people blend product from reflux or continuous stills (or even plated stills), with pot stilled product for a better taste?

I think it is not right to compare coffey continuous stills against our plates or packing batch stills with reflux condenser. It's too different.

Correct a trayed continuous still is not ran and taken off like a trayed (plate column) batch still in the same way any form of continuous still is different. I very much doubt you could achieve the same results with a Coffey still as can be had with a plated column batch still as the flute is. I might add that these stills , the patent still and Coffey did not gain exceptance in Ireland but were used almost straight away by the Scottish distillers for blending

The Baker wrote:Do any of our people blend product from reflux or continuous stills (or even plated stills), with pot stilled product for a better taste?

Its an idea that Ive been toying with for a while, Ive been thinking about doing it with a couple of Rum runs. Ive yet to try it though , and maybe will never get around to doing as I'm happy with what I make now.

thecroweater wrote:Yeah I have blended pot stilled with column stilled and it was not bad but nothing I can't get by running the column with a little less reflux.

I think you've come to the right conclusion Crow, and its one reason that Ive not hurried into experimenting with the idea.

Tater wrote:I getting tired .Damn tired of same group taking posters topics off subject.Will clean this topic up when I have lil more time.Guess read only will have some more members if it doesn't change

So Thanks all for wasting a half hour of my life cleaning the shit out this thread. Since i should have caught this long ago I thought it was my responsibility to save Tater the trouble, wasting his time.

I've advocated to not put any of you all into read only or worse. The next time i'll advocate for out right bans and delete the whole thread.

A quick comment for fun is nice sometimes to add some joviality to a thread, but outright dragging shit out...way off topic... is ridiculous, no one wants to read it.

Thanks. Have a nice labour day.

der wo wrote:

Kareltje wrote:I have seen some very intricate schemes of multiple distillations with reusing both heads and tails, but I can not find them again. If I remember correctly, der wo had a link to them.

http://whiskyscience.blogspot.de/2012/0 ... tland.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

shadylane wrote:Here's a video about triple distilled Irish whiskey.
It appears the spirit still is charged with 55% and they don't dilute the still charge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaS6DRy7ok" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

8% wash, 24% low wines, 55% high wines, 80-82% new make.
Nothing info about dilution. I think if they would dilute the 55%, they wouldn't get 80-82% new make.

Indeed, these were the schemes I have seen.
Answer both questions of TS, I guess: it is just commercial practice on a scale beyond our capacity.

My 2 cents...

I always see people reffering to tails as if its its a homogenous substance.
Like several times in this thread someone mentioned not wanting to strip too deep into the tails for fear that it would allow too much tails into the final product.

Well its important to thinking of tails as a myriad of flavors and compounds. Not all of these flavors and compounds will manifest into the final product at the same rates.

Think about Pugi's Pugi Rum recipe. It stresses the need for collecting rum oils and recycling them to the point that they become a component in the hearts cut.

So just cause you run deep into the tails on low wines or even high wines doesnt mean that you'll have tails in the hearts later.
I believe that it is only certain characters of the tails that will end up in the hearts on that last run. I think this is a key element to this triple distillation process.
Its a flavor hunt and theres is so many variables at play that make for such subtle differences. But we can start but understanding that tails are comprised of a very complex mixture of good and bad things that we may or may not want. Seems to me, that triple distillation provides more opportunity to manipulate that mixture.

Plus furthermore, whether a charge of high wines contains 10% tails or 50% tails, it is still the distillers responsibility to make diligent cuts. So I see no reason that you should ever settle for more tails in a final product than what you want.

I remember a thread of palinka who said, that in mixing the final drink the subsequent samples of the tails were each judged. So one sample was discarded and the following, further in the tails, was admitted.

Kareltje wrote:I remember a thread of palinka who said, that in mixing the final drink the subsequent samples of the tails were each judged. So one sample was discarded and the following, further in the tails, was admitted.

The novice guide to potstill cuts thread says the very same.

Hillbilly Popstar wrote:So just cause you run deep into the tails on low wines or even high wines doesnt mean that you'll have tails in the hearts later.
I believe that it is only certain characters of the tails that will end up in the hearts on that last run. I think this is a key element to this triple distillation process.

+1

Hillbilly Popstar wrote:So just cause you run deep into the tails on low wines or even high wines doesnt mean that you'll have tails in the hearts later.

Because of this -narrow hearts cut in the second distillation of a double distillation- and the complete feints rerunning system, more than the half of the alcohol of all potstilled double distilled Whiskies is distilled triple or more actually.

der wo wrote:

Hillbilly Popstar wrote:So just cause you run deep into the tails on low wines or even high wines doesnt mean that you'll have tails in the hearts later.

Because of this -narrow hearts cut in the second distillation of a double distillation- and the complete feints rerunning system, more than the half of the alcohol of all potstilled double distilled Whiskies is distilled triple or more actually.

Using that description, there is quite a bit of triple distilled liquor in my cellar, but none of it started with a stripping run below 25%. I do have a suitably sized ferment ready to go, but a triple was never the plan for it. I'll decide whether or not to do a triple when it gets down to 30% in the collection jug. Because I have a preheater that should be distilling well before the first strip is finished, the extra energy and time costs are relatively insignificant.

Brian Boru wrote:Has anyone tried triple distillation to get Irish pot still style whiskey? My question is this. After a spirit run, I might have 50-60 ABV spirit. You can't distill that without risk of fire. So would you add wort/water and do a triple distillation?

I would ad wort .I was told long time ago that when distilling not only do you raise proof but you also concentrate whats with it.Sounds reasonable to me but don't really know. Ive made peach brandy triple run .Had low proof wash took 3 runs to get proof where I wanted.Taste was still there .

Thanks for this info. I'll be investigating this triple-run approach too now - wash/low-wines/high-wines/new-make process and letting it run deep into the tails each run except the last of course (well, experimenting anyway yay!)... The batches that I've been making (13gal pot still) produce quite a bit of output so I don't think I'll be able to drink it all and subsequently will end up with nice opportunity for good aged stock to pass along to my kids some day. Just need to make sure that they know how to keep it going and keep the family barrels full enough

ciao!
-j

I think also Woodford Reserve Bourbon is triple distilled.