Home Distiller

"Adding heat (the reboiler heater) and removing it [cold reboiler-dephleg') at the same plate is an energy waster that doesn't improve separation. The point of reflux is to enrich lower plates therefore up-coming vapor, but that can't happen here. You are not magically, selectively knocking down fusels with any dephleg' ever. That is not how vapor condensation works. The comments suggests possible mist separation (de-entrainment) issues. In a continuous column fusels tend to accumulate at a plate around 65%ABV which is likely the lowest plate on your spirit column.”

Yes, I do want to try and discuss the intended use of the bottom dephlegmator more. May I ask, have you ever placed a dephlegmator on top of a kettle with no other plates in the assembly? If so, what did you observe? Resulting abv from distillate compared to a basic pot still? Flavor profile compared to basic pot still? I’ll also ask the same question to anyone else reading that may have done so and would like to answer.

Firstly, I am very aware of “The Magic Boiling Myth” as written by Zymurgy Bob. I feel you are very familiar too. Though you may not have read ZB's write up?
Reading ZB’s article for the very first time definitely helped me get my head around distillation as I have come to understand it. That write up is referenced around here pretty frequently.
The term selective separation doesn’t seem like an adequate term when considering separation of an infinitely miscible solution. Amusingly, magic is the term used by a couple of the system users. As I recall one of them said, and I quote, “this is where the magic happens”. True story.
Obviously, I’m being cheeky. I don’t have a very good explanation as to what is happening precisely, but here is what Brent Goodin from Boundary Oak Distillery had to say when I asked him to characterize what is happening with that first dephlegmator on his continuous system with a 4 plate spirit column: “it does a lot. It’s the only way to load the plates with what you want. Or you can turn it off and run it like a Vendome. The top runs wide open just enough to vent heads and the bottom lets you fine tune”.
Illuminating? Probably not enough for you.
Brent is not a scientist. He is a distiller. He has been running his distillery for about 9 years. Brent’s mom worked for Beam for 40 years. Brent’s son is the 3rd shift production manager at Beam. Should we discount Brents observations because he does not put into words what is actually happening with that first dephlegmator even though he is perfectly capable of making the observation that the first dephlegmator definitely assists his process of making spirits?
Here is Bill Auxier from Surf City Still Works response when asked to characterize and prioritize the importance of the first dephlegmator on their 20 plate column: “The bottom dephlegmator is definitely helpful but not really critical. It basically just helps increase your throughput speed by taking a little of the heat out. Otherwise, you’re going to be doing everything with just the plates, which just means you’d have to run slower for the same separation.”
Then Bill goes on to say as an aside: “My favorite thing on your still remains that I can manipulate the stripping column for efficiency and then the second half of the system is essentially independent of that. No matter how I play with proof and flavor on the finishing side I’m not dumping alcohol down the drain."
Did Bill just say things that sound so counterintuitive compared to what you have been preaching Steve? How do we square that? Well Bill produces all manner of spirits. He is not just rectifying. He seems to be pleased with the operating range.
The visual that comes to mind with Bill’s explanation reminds me of an inch brake on a forklift. Or the hand brake on a drifting car. The accelerator firmly planted to the floor with one hand on the hand break executing (appropriately enough) the bootleggers turn.

Bill is a chemical engineer grad from Syracuse. Worked at Chicago Distilling. Took a gig at Greenbar Distillery in California and eventually got promoted to the head distiller position. Later, Bill took a position at Surf City Still Works as the head distiller and is now the general manager. Ah,,I should also mention that Bill operated a Head Frame continuous still during his tenure at Greenbar. So, Bill knows what's what.

Adam Stumph (from Stumpy’s Spirits) finally returned my text last night. I also asked him if he could characterize the merit and effectiveness of the spirit column having two dephlegmators. Adam's still also had the 4 plate spirit column. This was his reply:
“I think the best way to think about it is that it is a vapor break. If you ran the stripper column cool enough and tried to use the doubler and the liquid in it for passive reflux, you would blow through and entrain your rectifying plates. Its not like a Vendome that totally condenses the low wines. It only partially condenses so you need that dephleg to knock the last bit down and control what gets up into the column. If he (stevea) doesn’t understand that, then it’s probably not worth arguing any further”. Again, I am getting a visual image of an inch brake on a forklift. The break/clutch behavior allows the operator to run high revs to manipulate the forks at full speed while not rolling forward too quickly. I’m not sure if that makes sense to you stevea? Probably less so if you’ve never operated a forklift. But then I didn’t get your “checking the mail box” analogy because I never check the mail box.
Adam is the owner of Stumpy’s spirits and the designer of the continuous system that I talk about most frequently here. He formerly worked for Anheuser-Bush as a process engineer. Adam sold the original prototype 12” continuous that I made for him to up grade to a much larger system. The system was a giant copper, antique conglomeration of several bits that he and his team beautifully refurbished. He paid scrap copper price for the still. You can see much of this journey documented on various social media platforms. The point here again is that Adam also knows what's what and is a very competent engineer.

And to close this out for now, this excerpt from a Thermopedia article continues to stick in my head because it touches more on the loose possibility of selective separation:
“a particular instance where the importance of the dephlegmator as a heat and mass transfer device is clear (the word is thus used without dispute) is in the separation and recovery of ethene from a cracked gas feed, which contains a significant proportion by volume of light components (hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane). The heavy component of the feed, ethene, is separated from the light components in a dephlegmator, and the ethene-rich condensate is passed on to a distillation column to remove any remaining methane. An earlier method of recovering ethene involved fractionation of the entire feed stream in a conventional adiabatic distillation column. The introduction of the dephlegmator, constituting a preseparation stage, resulted in vast savings in energy costs. A substantial part of the heat removed in the dephlegmator is transferred to the coolant at a higher temperature than was possible when the fractionation was done entirely in the conventional column. (See also Condensers; Distillation.)”

Though each of the examples above are not identical and somewhat nebulous, there is the common theme here that the bottom dephlegmator is an asset to the system.
Holding back tails, temps or pressure might be just a lazy way of trying to explain how the first dephlegmator works? But it is definitely prescreening, prefiltering or preseparating in such a way that it is providing a benefit as per the observations above. Or should those qualified opinions be dismissed because there isn’t enough source material to reference? The above comments made by the folks running the equipment is the source material. Is it published in a book that you can buy off of the internet? Nope. Listen, one does not have to be able to work out the mathematical formula that explains how a bird is able to take flight to understand in one’s mind’s eye how the bird flies.
I’m going to discuss the bottom dephlegmator behavior with Reade Huddleston to try and gain more insight to talk about this more. Reade by the way is a graduate of Heriot-Watt University, was the former head of production for Headframe Spirits and is now heading up the team that took over Cigar City Brewing and will be implementing a distilled spirits program. Reade also knows what's what.

Next topic:
Thumper, Doubler, Reboiler, Retort. Within the context of this discussion, all the same. Equally interchangeable terms here as it relates to this system discussion. And if your beer feed hasn’t been degassed very well, then you could probably throw slobber box into that mix also. Within the context of anyone in the distilled spirits industry that has no less than an intermediate skill level / knowledge base, I challenge you to find anyone that gets confused by recklessly using either of these terms when discussing continuous still configurations as we are here. But I would bet money that if you approached any given ChemE professor that has spent a career in academia at an institution with no distilled spirits program and asked him what a doubler or a slobber box was he wouldn’t have any idea. I’d take that bet every time because I’m reckless that way.

Now let’s move on to effluent temps.
On Pope’s thread you said:
“This is getting pretty far off-topic, but solids don't change the boiling point (they impact nucleation). Pure water boils at 100C = 212F at 1atm. If you add polar solute then you can increase the BP a little. Seawater boils at ~102.5C, ~216F, and that has a LOT more polar solute than normal stillage. Maple reportedly syrup boils at 219F and is a nearly saturated sugar solution. 220F for stillage is either a measurement error, or reported under pressure (~3psig would do it and you might acheive that at the bottom of some stills), or some very strange stillage.”
And then on my 20 plate column thread above you said:
“I can't take someone who thinks normal stillage can reach 220F as liquid at 1 atmospheric very seriously. It suggest you don't understand partial pressures and the causes of these (which is fundamental). I can't take someone who misuses common distillation jargon recklessly very seriously. If you think a dephleg' separates by BP like fusel reduction - then you are simply ignorant of basic physical chemistry of condensation. I'm not a genius on these concepts - I'm still a student, but I don't confidently mislead others as you do. I HOPE that we can all learn together - but you seem to have appointed yourself "king of distillation" and since I refuse to bow to any credential you personally attack me w/o any substance except your personal vitriol.”
So let me try this again. Let’s start at the beginning with the steam injection bit. Go and find your source material book that shows a steam table. Assuming the steam boiler is running at about 12 psi, steam temps entering the base of the beer column would be in excess of 240°F. (as an aside, preheated beer enters the top of the beer column at 172°). Did you find that steam table to confirm? So, we have 240° temps entering a steam injection port that is located not 12” away from the effluent discharge port at the base of the beer column. You can visualize this right?
And here is the important part since you keep trying to explain how water boils. WE ARE NOT INTRODUCING BOILING WATER. We are introducing 240° (+ or -) steam vapor. Couple that with the fact that grain in solids contained within the viscus effluent act as an insulator that can delay (even for a split second) when the vapor molecule would otherwise condense back to liquid. A long-winded way to say heat retention is greater with solids in the effluent stream.
Adam also double confirmed for me that his (former) still consistently ran with 220° effluent temps.
His newer (really old ) still sits at about 217°. I did not ask him to prove either temp with source material.
And he also added that Bardstown runs in the 217-220 range as well. I didn’t ask him for source material to prove it that statement either.
He did however send me copy of the process flow diagram of their still arrangement and it clearly shows that still #1 is modeled for 217.4° effluent temps and still #2 is modeled for 219.4° effluent temps. Though my own experience shows that the modeling is not always correct. The modeling for my still shows an effluent temp 218.5°
All of these temps are subject to change since steam input, beer abv, and feed rates can vary from system to system, operator to operator.

I do admit stevea, I intentionally called you out by name on several posts and could have been a lot less snarky. But in my view, you made too many inexperienced assertions cloaked in some measure of text book truths to make yourself look like an expert while politely dismissing other people’s practical experience as some sort of a mistake or confusion on their part. At least that was my take.
And then of course I couldn’t let your above descriptions of who you think I am or what my level of experience is go unaddressed. So yeah, I may very well have developed the same attitude toward your responses as you have toward mine? And for the record, practical data collected directly from the source is quintessential source material. Just because it hasn’t been published doesn't mean its not qualified source material.

This makes me want to build a shorty shotty to throw above the bottom plate in my column. Do you expect it is worth while in a non continuous flute? Always looking for ways to pick up a little speed/control!

Stevea and LWTCS,

I would like to say that this 'robust discussion' between you, is actually very good, in that generally you are addressing points of misunderstanding/differences of opinion, and typically backing it up (Steve with theory, Larry with real world experience). So, please keep up the disagreement, it makes for educational reading for the rest of us!

This is said sincerely. I learned a lot from reading the exchanges between you two.

Ben wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:46 am This makes me want to build a shorty shotty to throw above the bottom plate in my column. Do you expect it is worth while in a non continuous flute? Always looking for ways to pick up a little speed/control!

Hi Ben,
Well if its no skin off your teeth to throw something together I think its a worthy experiment in sensory awareness.
Humans can taste flavors on a parts per billion degree of resolution.

Yep, I'm gonna agree with Tommy. It's been enlightening, and I appreciate that.

Couple questions. There must be some pressure in the beer stripper for the bottoms to be that hot and still be liquid, right? Makes me wonder about the pressure in the exit pipe, and keeping the exit flow rate correct. How is that gated? If it's atmospheric pressure you can do it based on water level and let it flow out - I think all the home continuous rigs I've seen do that.

I usually think of these systems as seeing ~212 as fully stripped. I don't know what 218 means. Maybe too stripped, maybe not enough?

The temp in the dephleg needs to have a constant temp, right? What do people shoot for and how is that achieved? Do they regulate flow rate through the deph based on deph temps?

Anyways, good thread, thnx.

stillness wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:46 pm

I usually think of these systems as seeing ~212 as fully stripped. I don't know what 218 means. Maybe too stripped, maybe not enough?

The temp has no direct correlation to how "stripped" the beer is. Your thinking of a system where the heat source is submerged, the water will vaporize as quickly as required to maintain boil temp, more BTU input=more vapor output. In the case of this column you are mixing a fixed volume of liquid with a fixed volume of steam, the beer vaporizes, excess energy in the steam is shared, the steam and distillate become the same temp, since the mash is a constant ABV the mixed vapor will be a consistent temp.

I'm talking about effluent temps of the liquid exiting the bottom of the beer stripper. Pressure wasn't really talked about in Larry's post, but I think it's reasonable to assume there's probably around 3psi with all the plates and solids and the steam at 12 psi.

stillness wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 4:46 pm Yep, I'm gonna agree with Tommy. It's been enlightening, and I appreciate that.
Before I answer these questions, I just want to make clear that there is no actual spec for any of the set points. The philosophy behind this system design is not predicated upon the exactitude of a calculation found in a chemE text book. I am not minimizing the importance of good engineering, but rather prioritizing the sensory part of making distilled spirits and allowing for a wide enough operating range so that the operator has the ability to make more than one flavor profile. A very important asset if the distillery has a contract bottling model as an example. Every operator has the ability to run this still just a bit differently. For example, we see many designs that use the bottoms temp as a way to govern the feed rate. Basically if temps are 212°F we can feel comfortable that no alcohol is running down the drain. So that is a good way to run the still. Its fine.
We on the other hand use a target temperature of the vapor at the top of the beer column to govern feed rate. And that temp can vary from 199.4°F to 206.6°F for example. Each of those target temps will impact the the flavor of the finished product. The operator chooses that target temp according to the desired outcome. My point here is that there is enough wiggle room in the math. Within reason of course, not being in "spec" is a subjective point of view based on one's desired outcome. Is that a reckless statement? Dunno.

Couple questions. There must be some pressure in the beer stripper for the bottoms to be that hot and still be liquid, right? Yes. there is pressure in the column Makes me wonder about the pressure in the exit pipe, and keeping the exit flow rate correct. How is that gated? There is a ball valve at the discharge end of the Bottoms HX that acts as a throttle. If it's atmospheric pressure you can do it based on water level and let it flow out - I think all the home continuous rigs I've seen do that. Yes a common way to handle the waste stream. This system here has the ability to drive the waste stream through about 75' of distillery hose and can lift the waste about 7' in the air. If the waste stream needs to be pushed farther or lifted higher than that then simply attaching a pump to the HX discharge will solve the waste stream handling issues

I usually think of these systems as seeing ~212 as fully stripped. I don't know what 218 means. Doesn't mean anything really Maybe too stripped, maybe not enough? Well, one could argue that the higher temps might ensure that more oils can get driven out of the grain in solids and therefore provide more flavor with that chewy mouth feel that we get with bourbon and rye. Todd Leopold talks about this a bit on that cool video he made about his 3 chamber still. Beyond that, if you have a short beer column you just want to make sure that it gets hot enough and your beer has enough dwell time in the column to flash all of the alcohol out of the mixture before it goes down the drain

The temp in the dephleg needs to have a constant temp, right? Well, unless you have a giant, gnarly chiller, it is really difficult to maintain uniform cooling media temps. So rather than measure cooling media temps you measure the vapor temps on the up stream side of the dephlegmator. Then modulate the flow rate of the cooling media as cooling media temps will likely change if you dont have the war chest for a monster chiller. We modulate the flow with an automatic proportional valve. What do people shoot for and how is that achieved? Do they regulate flow rate through the deph based on deph temps?

Anyways, good thread, thnx.

Here is a 3D drawing that mostly shows the tangle. Missing is the heads condenser as it is hidden behind LWHX since it is much smaller.
Green= Beer Feed
Orange= effluent
Dark purple = low wines
Light purple= finished spirit

I'll also say that I completely disagree that the size or heat recovery ability past a certain size of HX is a wasteful expense. A 4° recovery of heat is a recovery that lasts for the service life of the equipment. That translates to 4° less needed every single time the still is fired in perpetuity.

As far as the comment of losing 4° lost to the room goes, please note that all of the heat exchangers are mounted horizontally onto a rack that is easily accessible from the ground level. Therefore installing insulation around either the LWHX or BottomsHX is easy. No heat from either of those has to be wasted. Similarly, any part of the beer feed circuitry is accessible for insulation. The riser to the beer injector will require a forklift or tall ladder to insulate. And finally, the cost of that heat exchanger is just not that significant compared to the scope of the tank farm needed to feed the still. Relative to the scope of what it would take to feed the still and manage the waste stream created by running the still,,,,,the still is in FACT the least expensive.

First and foremost my apologies. I came this last time onto this site with bad attitude. From my side I felt ridiculed. I reached out via pm and was not responded to by most.

And I NEVER remember seeing this thread where I was invited by lwtcs to discuss. To be fair I wasn't actually tagged.

From a big picture I'm All about respecting those who DO. If you say your still does xyz, and it crosses what physics says, I'm inclined to question my understanding of what is going on.

I have absolutely zero respect for fucktwits who spout theory, piss off experts, and are too lazy to DO. I'm a mechanic now, and customers who Google up and argue with me get fired.

In the spirit of knowing I may have crossed a line I'll spread my thoughts in other posts.Temps.

On edit. I'm a dumbass. I just saw my comment from March. That brain cell died. Again, my apologies.

I'd never heard of and just read The Magic Boiling Myth. There is some irony here.

In any case, looking at your experience with 218 (or anything over 212) effluent Temps.

On edit: I reread this all for the fourth time. You mentioned you have the ability to lift the effluent up to 7 feet. THERE IT IS!!!!!
54 inches gives you the 2 psi to get to 218 degrees without boiling!!!!

Skip the rest if you want.




I'd like to respectfully try to understand what is going on. Some of my questions might be basic but I gotta start somewhere.
A. I assume you have calibrated that temp probe by boiling some water on the stove.
B. Are you measuring the effluent at atmospheric pressure or is it in the boiler or in an exit pipe perhaps with some pressure?
C. You mentioned you use steam at 12 psi. I'd like to look at that. Is the steam generator at 12 psi or is the beer boiler at 12 psi?
E. Lastly, perhaps your effluent could use nucleation as it comes out of the boiler (snicker) the effluent will have no dissolved gasses in it. It is superheated in the boiler. It could be the effluent comes out of the boiler and needs a sharp edge or two to boil off a bit of heat.

The amount of solids in the effluent will not affect the boiling temp.
Hell, you could add 30 percent antifreeze to get to 218. That is crazy.

However, a little bit of pressure gets you there very quickly.
Assuming you are near sea level the absolute pressure is 14.7 psi.
If you add 2 psi, to 16.6 psi you get your 218.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/boil ... .5&units=P#

Again, I respect what you are seeing. I'm trying to understand.

On edit, 2 psi is 54 inches of water. In other words if the exit from the boiler is followed by a drain pipe that climbs 54 inches to its exit (at sea level) the system would support 218 exit temps.

@lwtcs. Apologies. I edited the heck out of my post while you were writing yours

Here is the Bardstown system I referenced for viewing pleasure.

Fuse oils in continuous stills.
My thoughts are based on what Adam Stumph said.

When I run a pot reflux to 95 percent the fusels come out at the end.

If I run a medium tall column collecting 75 percent etoh the fusels mostly come out at the end.

Heck, run a simple pot still and the fusels concentrate at the end. That is a huge hint!!!!

Maybe the fusels are different than the etoh regarding the magic boiler myth. Maybe the fusels really don't want to come out if the beer at 180 degrees? Maybe the fusels only come out in 200 plus degree beer?
Or maybe the fusels only come out if there is no alcohol to bond with.
But maybe once the fusels are vaporized they stay vaporized?

So you have a continuous stripper you dump hot beer on top of. Obviously the fusels will be vaporized along with water and etoh.
If you ran that into a 4 plate colum it would be likely some of the fusels make it to the top into the product.

However, with a doubler, the doubler percentage of etoh will be 50 percent. The fuse oils CAN'T boil off the doubler. Too much alcohol, not enough heat.

?????

LWTCS wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 2:34 pm Here is the Bardstown system I referenced for viewing pleasure.

IMG_5129.jpg

Wow. Two stills running together at different Temps? All under some pressure. Combining output?

Flavor and taste require knowledge in what they are after. It seems like part of the system is to cook the grain for more flavor??..

Yeah I'm not sure if you've ever had any white dog off of a continuous outfit, but it tastes kinda like hot buttered popcorn to me.
I feel sure that the oils in the solids are being driven over into the finished distillate. Pull off the still anywhere from 115 to 130 or so and the white dog is loaded with flavor.
Not at all unpalatable like some of the guys before my time would talk about.

LWTCS wrote: ↑Sun Jul 10, 2022 3:35 pm Yeah I'm not sure if you've ever had any white dog off of a continuous outfit, but it tastes kinda like hot buttered popcorn to me.
I feel sure that the oils in the solids are being driven over into the finished distillate. Pull off the still anywhere from 115 to 130 or so and the white dog is loaded with flavor.
Not at all unpalatable like some of the guys before my time would talk about.

The stuff off the top of my continuous still tasted like a combination of turpentine, white gas, and methanol. With ear wax flavoring.

I've never been around any other stills than mine.

Ok, this seems to be a timely update considering the fusel discussions going on now.

I have been texting back and forth with Reade Huddleston. He is doing his best to dumb down his explanation for me. Specifically, why does it seem like the lower dephlegmator is able to hold back fusels? And the answer is (and I'm paraphrasing) that it only holds back some.

Here is Reade's response:

*So, water and alcohol are totally miscible up until they are not. Long story short, having an OH bond doesn’t mean that you suddenly are dissolvable in anything else with an OH bond.
*And you will always have a slightly hydrophobic end.
*It is governed by hydrogen bonding.
*So, in a certain concentration of alcohol (or water) there will be what are known as alcohol cluster matrix.
*Basically, on the whole it is 40% alcohol and 60% water, but in a small enough area it starts to look like little bubbles of water and alcohol.
*Fusels and heavy things are even worse because they have larger hydrophobic ends.
*So basically, a vapor just a really spread-out liquid, there are all these little micelles of alcohol, water and fusels.
*And since it is upward moving there is a density issue.
*So, the heavier micelles will have a longer retention time and actually have their energy grabbed by the lighter stuff. Basically, like sweating.
*Its not that you are eliminating all of the particles moving up. But enough for a flavor difference.
*I don’t know if you’ve measured on a GC or anything, but there will still be fusels in them but will be reduced.
*The short and long answer is pretty much always hydrogen bonds.
*Hydrogen bonding is what creates hydrophobic and hydrophilic areas on a molecule. It is also what causes clustering. OHs want to stick together and things without OHs naturally want to stay away from OHs. Fusels by their nature will create micelles in a liquid and will do it even more in vapor. And because they are dense will naturally move slower and have longer retention times allowing them to be preferentially condensed.
*Its not technically enough for a ChemE to notice it because they look at numbers and not sensory. But because these things are very flavor active you will notice it.
*So, the general problem with all the book learned proper scientific resource is that almost no major distillery has ever willfully published a paper about what is happening in their still.
*ChemE guys just tend to look at things as, is it in spec or not? Sensory is a distant second consideration.
*Its funny, I talk to a lot of scientists that say distilling is a mature field. Basically, there is nothing we don’t know about it. And in a way they are right. But what is not a mature field is sensory science. And until we understand that fully we won’t understand distilling for flavor.

LWTCS wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 11:04 am Ok, this seems to be a timely update considering the fusel discussions going on now.

I have been texting back and forth with Reade Huddleston. He is doing his best to dumb down his explanation for me. Specifically, why does it seem like the lower dephlegmator is able to hold back fusels? And the answer is (and I'm paraphrasing) that it only holds back some.

Here is Reade's response:

*So, water and alcohol are totally miscible up until they are not. Long story short, having an OH bond doesn’t mean that you suddenly are dissolvable in anything else with an OH bond.
*And you will always have a slightly hydrophobic end.
*It is governed by hydrogen bonding.
*So, in a certain concentration of alcohol (or water) there will be what are known as alcohol cluster matrix.
*Basically, on the whole it is 40% alcohol and 60% water, but in a small enough area it starts to look like little bubbles of water and alcohol.
*Fusels and heavy things are even worse because they have larger hydrophobic ends.
*So basically, a vapor just a really spread-out liquid, there are all these little micelles of alcohol, water and fusels.
*And since it is upward moving there is a density issue.
*So, the heavier micelles will have a longer retention time and actually have their energy grabbed by the lighter stuff. Basically, like sweating.
*Its not that you are eliminating all of the particles moving up. But enough for a flavor difference.
*I don’t know if you’ve measured on a GC or anything, but there will still be fusels in them but will be reduced.
*The short and long answer is pretty much always hydrogen bonds.
*Hydrogen bonding is what creates hydrophobic and hydrophilic areas on a molecule. It is also what causes clustering. OHs want to stick together and things without OHs naturally want to stay away from OHs. Fusels by their nature will create micelles in a liquid and will do it even more in vapor. And because they are dense will naturally move slower and have longer retention times allowing them to be preferentially condensed.
*Its not technically enough for a ChemE to notice it because they look at numbers and not sensory. But because these things are very flavor active you will notice it.
*So, the general problem with all the book learned proper scientific resource is that almost no major distillery has ever willfully published a paper about what is happening in their still.
*ChemE guys just tend to look at things as, is it in spec or not? Sensory is a distant second consideration.
*Its funny, I talk to a lot of scientists that say distilling is a mature field. Basically, there is nothing we don’t know about it. And in a way they are right. But what is not a mature field is sensory science. And until we understand that fully we won’t understand distilling for flavor.

Nothing but respect amd appreciation from me. I read this 3 times.
I will read it a bunch more. This guy knows what he is talking about.

Here is a paper that talks about alcohol clustering.
It's a bit esoteric.

No doubt some new vocabulary words to study on with this and his above explanation.

He is looking for some other relevant write ups to help us absorb more understanding.

LWTCS wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 5:23 pm 1657609557365_1657608186433_Alcohol Clustering(1).pdf

Here is a paper that talks about alcohol clustering.
It's a bit esoteric.

No doubt some new vocabulary words to study on with this and his above explanation.

He is looking for some other relevant write ups to help us absorb more understanding.

I can't open it. I do have 3 pdf readers.

Thank you Larry.

drmiller100 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:21 pm I can't open it. I do have 3 pdf readers.

Works fine for me, problem must be your end.

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:54 pm

drmiller100 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 12, 2022 6:21 pm I can't open it. I do have 3 pdf readers.

Works fine for me, problem must be your end.

Thank you!!! I'll start digging.

Edit. Ok. I downloaded it and read it. Mostly way over my head as organic Chem I never took as I suck at chemistry.

As near as I can tell the idea is if you take etoh and water and fusels they will create molecule level clusters. I'm not sure if violent boiling will break up and mix the clusters.

I'm not sure if diving into this will help me make fuel or hooch.

I wonder if this clustering explains the disparities in boiling temps for different mixtures.
Like the magic graph has curves.
And fusels boil below 212.

More thinking.

It's a lot to digest. And doesn't help that the write up is not specifically put together for our purposes.
The nerve,,,,,,

Seems more like thermodynamics than o-chem... At any rate, the Iceberg theory is interesting, best visual I could find on it was here (A): https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mod ... _257868644

paragraph 3 of this article explains it well, but it is long and I don't have the time (or mental stamina) to get through it today https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c09489

The way I am reading it is the things we are trying to separate are caged by water, and it's very difficult/energy intensive to break that cage up.