Baking Soda

[Sylentt1]

I have a small Chinese 3 gallon pot still ( I know I know ) but it’s all I could afford at the time. I have started 3 , 4 gallon batches of bird watchers as suggested for a first time. I have made my first successful run last night. It turned out very well clear clean and I BELIVE I have made cuts in the proper place, yet I get a strong yeast odour and a very slight taste but barely. I guess this would be considered my stripping run? Would running it again with some soda remove some of the smell? Please forgive me if this isn’t the right thread

[Winnipeg204]

I have a small Chinese 3 gallon pot still ( I know I know ) but it’s all I could afford at the time. I have started 3 , 4 gallon batches of bird watchers as suggested for a first time. I have made my first successful run last night. It turned out very well clear clean and I BELIVE I have made cuts in the proper place, yet I get a strong yeast odour and a very slight taste but barely. I guess this would be considered my stripping run? Would running it again with some soda remove some of the smell? Please forgive me if this isn’t the right thread

Smh my head

[Sylentt1]

Great thanks for the help I guess .... way to make a newbie feel welcome

[Sylentt1]

What is it exactly that troubles you ? Perhaps I can help clarify ?

[Sylentt1]

And before everyone gets their knickers in a twist yes I have done all required reading and research for at least 2 months before I attempted anything. I’m extremely happy with it for my first attempt:... I just want best suggestions to help knock down that funk a bit ... thought that this might be a possible solution

[Saltbush Bill]

I wouldnt bother with the soda.....water it back to 40% or below.....run it again.
Personal opinion is that many newbs confuse tails taste / smell for yeast.

Smh my head

Winnipeg care to explain what that is all about?

[Sylentt1]

I have read multiple times today that it’s could be the case but I left pretty wide margins for cuts and I’m pretty confident I was accurate, that being said I think I know what happened and why I didn’t really give much time when racking and settling so I’m thinking it’s just some of the dead yeast carrying over

[Sylentt1]

I also know that being just a bird watchers it’s gonna have that bit of yeasty profile

[Sylentt1]

And thanks again for your advice I will definitely try that

[Saltbush Bill]

Ive never tasted yeast in a birdwatchers......a very small percentage of people say they do.

[Sylentt1]

Fair enough

[Tummydoc]

Sylent1, I'm confused. You ran your ferment once and were making cuts??? Sounds like you did a stripping run. Do that three more times, then combine all the output and rerun as a spirit run. Cuts will still be difficult on such a small boiler.

[Breakingdad1]

Hi there - Is Sodium Carbonate and Sodium Carbonate Decahydrate (Soda Crystals) the same thing? I'm struggling to find any Sodium Carbonate?
Thanks

[Tummydoc]

Decahydrate is washing soda. Sodium carbonate is available in varying hydrates that just differ in the number of water molecules in the crystalline structure. Dissolved in water they all yield a sodium carbonate solution. So yes they are the same. You can also make sodium carbonate from baking soda by heating baking soda in a 400 deg farenheit oven for an hour.

[Breakingdad1]

Thanks very much - I'm 100% going to give this a whirl (I'm assuming the dose is the same - Stir 1Tsp per Ltr into the Low Wines before Spirit run). Thanks again

[Breakingdad1]

I ran the sugar wash (stripping run) through my pot still but will be running the 1st Spirit run through a reflux - Assume this will give even better/more neutral results for the Gin I'm making/will be macerating in this 1st spirit run (before re running spirit run #2).

[morefog]

I saw 1 tablespoon per quart of bicarb, and various permutations of that, but how much sodium carbonate per (pick a measurement).

This might be the missing link I've been searching for.

<EDIT>

It seems sodium carbonate is potentially dangerous. I've switched my order to sodium bicarbonate. But I don't want to mislead. Anyone know for sure? I've only finished the first three pages of this thread will finish in the fullness of today.

[morefog]

How low should the wines be for baking soda treatment? For example I am planning to run my 170 proof run again. I had previously added some baking soda for a bit more than a day before that run but an unplanned run this week prevented getting the full effect.

[hawkwing]

When making Ramen Noodles at home, where you also need a solution with a basic pH, it’s common to make Sodium Carbonate from Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda) by baking it in an oven. An internet search for “baked Baking soda” should find some instructions. If you care to take the extra step.

I tried this to make noodles and it didn’t work. I baked for hours. I increase the temperature and it just didn’t lose any weight. But you can buy washing soda cheap.

[hawkwing]

Ok so lots of technical talk and I skipped through pretty fast looking for a basic answer I’m not sure was given. Does this strip flavor from the hearts or also expand the amount of hearts by stripping nasty flavors from the tails and possibly heads? If so how much more usable product gain are you getting?

[Hillbilly Popstar]

Ok so lots of technical talk and I skipped through pretty fast looking for a basic answer I’m not sure was given. Does this strip flavor from the hearts or also expand the amount of hearts by stripping nasty flavors from the tails and possibly heads? If so how much more usable product gain are you getting?

Yes, you'll get a larger hearts cut.

[DaveK]

It seems sodium carbonate is potentially dangerous. I've switched my order to sodium bicarbonate. But I don't want to mislead. Anyone know for sure? I've only finished the first three pages of this thread will finish in the fullness of today.

Yes, sodium carbonate is "potentially" dangerous. It is rather alkaline, but not nearly as bad as lye or ammonia solution. Don't handle it with your bare hands, especially if your hands are wet. Don't breathe the dust. Don't get it in your eyes. If you used your bare hands, rinse it off when you are done. In other words, be about as careful with it as you would be with powdered laundry detergent (which often has a rather large amount of sodium carbonate in it).

The "washing soda" version is probably the one you can find in your supermarket, and in this form has water combined into its crystalline structure... 10 molecules of water per molecule of sodium carbonate, hence the term "decahydrate". If exact proportions are important in your recipe, you need to know what form of sodium carbonate is being used, and if you are using something different (soda ash, vs washing soda, for example) you need to adjust for the difference in molecular weights. For what we are doing here, I doubt it makes very much difference.

[hawkwing]

Would this be hard on a copper pot? I noticed a slight color when I dumped my pot and it was clear going in.

[Captain Clyde]

My eyes are bleeding again. What a thread..Going through all of this, it would be interesting to try 2 of the experiment mentioned earlier..

1) Adding 1 tablespoon of Bi Carb per liter to a low wine and 0.5 teaspoons per liter of Carb to the same low wine (obviously in another receptacle).
Leave the Bi Carb in for a week, in a closed glass bottle, shake once a day and aerate for 10 minutes per day. Run the low wines that contain the 0.5 teaspoons the next day. Compare the 3 results (The third one being the same low wine without any Sodium Bicarbonate or Carbonate)

2) Redoing the same steps with the Bicarbonate and Carbonate, with the same low wine, but with a high pH (11) and with a lower (normal pH. Say 4ish). Now THAT will clear the fog. Hate sailing in the fog too..

In a pot and a reflux still, of course..

My goodness..

[Hebden]

Is it simply taken as a fact that baking soda is better being used than not being used in your low wines?
And is the several days wait really necessary?
And finally, what is the exact job of Baking Soda?

[Copper]

Adding Baking Soda to the low wines performs ester hydrolysis. In simpler terms, it helps remove undesirable tastes from neutral spirits. It has been proven that the baking soda is inactive at room temperature, so waiting several days at ambient temperature has little effect. The hydrolysis takes place at much higher temperatures in the boiling vessel. So you can add the baking soda immediately before distilling the spirit run.

Some considerations:

• Only use Sodium Bicarbonate. Sodium Carbonate is a strong surfactant (i.e. soap) and will cause foaming and boil-over, which will go up the reflux column and make a mess. Don't get fancy. Use the proper chemicals.

• Only add baking soda to clean stripped low wines. The baking soda raises pH and evolves ammonia species from fermentation components (i.e. yeast and nutrients). So the low wines must be clean and free from residual fermentation components. Do a good job during the stripping run. The most common ammonia species indicator is blue low wines due to Schweizer's reagent.

• For the above reasons, NEVER add baking soda to your primary fermentation unless you absolutely know what you are doing. Use eggshells or calcium carbonate if you need to adjust primary fermentation pH. Don't add anything unless you understand it.

• Only add baking soda to the low wines if you are making neutral spirits. It will strip out flavors from whiskey and rum.

• Baking soda starts becoming effective around 1 to 2.5g/L, which is enough to raise a typical stripping run to pH to 7.0 (neutral). A bit more pH is probably useful. This requires 1 to 3 tablespoons for a 25L batch. Having pH paper is useful because your "typical" stripping run is different than my "typical" stripping run. Order some pH strips on Amazon. They are cheap and easy to use. Don't fly blind. Shoot for pH around 7.5. At 8.3, the baking soda won't dissolve anymore and fall to the bottom.

• Use your judgement to experiment with chemicals. Baking soda may seem innocent but it can do very bad things if used incorrectly (i.e. if you add it to primary fermentation). Be prepared to lose your experimental batch if you don't like it or unforeseen circumstances happen.

There's a nice technical analysis of ester formation and hydrolyzation published in the American Chemical Society here: https://www.rameywine.com/wp-content/up ... olysis.pdf

"The reaction is entirely reversible, one direction resulting in ester hydrolysis and the other in esterification of the component acid and alcohol, so that factors affecting the reaction rate in one direction will affect the reverse reaction similarly. The catalyst may be either a free hydrogen ion or an undissociated proton of an organic acid ... reaction velocity increases with temperature and varies directly with [H+] in a linear manner."

To the layperson, that means the acidity of the primary fermentation promotes evolution of ester species. But we need acidic primary fermentation to avoid evolution of ammonia. Ammonia is nasty because it strips copper from the still and copper is toxic. It's a choice: do we want esters (low pH) or ammonia (high pH)? Since esters are easier to clean out with cutting foreshots, we choose the lesser of the two evils. Low wines gives us an intermediary step. We accept the acidic primary fermentation and the evolution of esters, but because we do two distillations, we can reverse the process during the second distillation by adding a base! The reaction velocity dramatically increases at boiling temperature, so we just add the base when we start the boil. (Note: there are other factors needing high acidity in the primary fermentation, but I simplified matters for this analysis.)

I'm actually quite impressed because the analysis is written by Mr. Ramey, who started the Napa Valley Ramey Wines. Not only is he an accomplished scientist, he also runs a reputable and notable wine cellar!

Hope this helps!

[Goonshine]

I've cleared up cloudy liquor a couple times.
One like above, forgot about it and it sat for months, whatever was clouding it sank to the bottom, looked like silt. I just poured it into another jar very slowly over a coffee filter and tossed the bottom few ounces. Stayed clear as water after that, and yes, aging makes it a whole lot better on the nose and mouth.
Other time I stuck it in the freezer for a few days, ran through a coffee filter, came out clear as a bell as well, dunno why that worked, other then I guess everything was thicker, so the filter was able to capture the particles it couldn't capture before. Sub zero liquor through a coffee filter is a slow process, about the same drip comes out the funnel as the condenser when you are cooking it.
Still don't know how I clouded those jars, hasn't happened again.

[NathanScriv]

Adding Baking Soda to the low wines performs ester hydrolysis. In simpler terms, it helps remove undesirable tastes from neutral spirits. It has been proven that the baking soda is inactive at room temperature, so waiting several days at ambient temperature has little effect. The hydrolysis takes place at much higher temperatures in the boiling vessel. So you can add the baking soda immediately before distilling the spirit run.

Some considerations:

• Only use Sodium Bicarbonate. Sodium Carbonate is a strong surfactant (i.e. soap) and will cause foaming and boil-over, which will go up the reflux column and make a mess. Don't get fancy. Use the proper chemicals.

• Only add baking soda to clean stripped low wines. The baking soda raises pH and evolves ammonia species from fermentation components (i.e. yeast and nutrients). So the low wines must be clean and free from residual fermentation components. Do a good job during the stripping run. The most common ammonia species indicator is blue low wines due to Schweizer's reagent.

• For the above reasons, NEVER add baking soda to your primary fermentation unless you absolutely know what you are doing. Use eggshells or calcium carbonate if you need to adjust primary fermentation pH. Don't add anything unless you understand it.

• Only add baking soda to the low wines if you are making neutral spirits. It will strip out flavors from whiskey and rum.

• Baking soda starts becoming effective around 1 to 2.5g/L, which is enough to raise a typical stripping run to pH to 7.0 (neutral). A bit more pH is probably useful. This requires 1 to 3 tablespoons for a 25L batch. Having pH paper is useful because your "typical" stripping run is different than my "typical" stripping run. Order some pH strips on Amazon. They are cheap and easy to use. Don't fly blind. Shoot for pH around 7.5. At 8.3, the baking soda won't dissolve anymore and fall to the bottom.

• Use your judgement to experiment with chemicals. Baking soda may seem innocent but it can do very bad things if used incorrectly (i.e. if you add it to primary fermentation). Be prepared to lose your experimental batch if you don't like it or unforeseen circumstances happen.

There's a nice technical analysis of ester formation and hydrolyzation published in the American Chemical Society here: https://www.rameywine.com/wp-content/up ... olysis.pdf

"The reaction is entirely reversible, one direction resulting in ester hydrolysis and the other in esterification of the component acid and alcohol, so that factors affecting the reaction rate in one direction will affect the reverse reaction similarly. The catalyst may be either a free hydrogen ion or an undissociated proton of an organic acid ... reaction velocity increases with temperature and varies directly with [H+] in a linear manner."

To the layperson, that means the acidity of the primary fermentation promotes evolution of ester species. But we need acidic primary fermentation to avoid evolution of ammonia. Ammonia is nasty because it strips copper from the still and copper is toxic. It's a choice: do we want esters (low pH) or ammonia (high pH)? Since esters are easier to clean out with cutting foreshots, we choose the lesser of the two evils. Low wines gives us an intermediary step. We accept the acidic primary fermentation and the evolution of esters, but because we do two distillations, we can reverse the process during the second distillation by adding a base! The reaction velocity dramatically increases at boiling temperature, so we just add the base when we start the boil. (Note: there are other factors needing high acidity in the primary fermentation, but I simplified matters for this analysis.)

I'm actually quite impressed because the analysis is written by Mr. Ramey, who started the Napa Valley Ramey Wines. Not only is he an accomplished scientist, he also runs a reputable and notable wine cellar!

Hope this helps!

Hi Copper

Would you also caution against adding potassium bicarbonate to adjust ph during a ferment? I am talking raising to a ph of say 4-4.5 after a ph crash in a sugar wash fermentation.

[Ducky]

Hi Copper

Would you also caution against adding potassium bicarbonate to adjust ph during a ferment? I am talking raising to a ph of say 4-4.5 after a ph crash in a sugar wash fermentation.

Many people seem to use crushed oyster shells suspended in a brewing bag or similar, some use marble blocks instead. Seems to help control the pH levels, they dissolve faster at lower levels preventing a crash. Remove the bag when fermenting is complete.

[NathanScriv]

Tonight I gave this a try with a 3 litre jar of feints that was mostly heads. Knocked it down to 40% ABV then added sodium hydroxide at 0.5g/l. Instantly noticed a reduction in the sweet, ethyl acetate smell. PH measured at 11.4. I then waited around 10 minutes, then knocked it down further to around 30% ABV and ran it through my 2” boka column. Yet to decide on what to keep but current impression is there is at least 1.5 litres of totally neutral hearts there. Everything, including the still, has been left smelling clean (i.e. none of the usual tails smell that likes to hang around on my equipment after finishing a run).