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I rarely get the chance to talk to anyone who shines But the other day I did. Our conversation turned to cooling. I told him that I used Ice inside the coils of my worm and that my spirits came out like ice water.
He then told me that he used to use ice and no longer does. he said his spirits have less bite when he dosen't use ice and just cools with water trying to maintain 60 deg.
Question is should I quit the ice water and just recirculate. Thanks for any advise.

JT

having product come out warm lets some of the lower alcohols vaporize.

Is there a temp. range that you like to stay in or just tap water temp.

what you use to cool with dont matter, branch water,tap water rain water. as long as it condenses the vapors.

Thanks Dnder I will be running some sweet feed in the morning. NO ICE

Shock cooling is not good for spirits which is why placing ice into a flake stand is not a good idea... Hot water on top and cold water at the bottom gives the proper temperature gradient for gradually knocking down distillate vapor... Letting ice float at the top throws the whole flake stand out of whack...

rad14701 wrote:Shock cooling is not good for spirits which is why placing ice into a flake stand is not a good idea... Hot water on top and cold water at the bottom gives the proper temperature gradient for gradually knocking down distillate vapor... Letting ice float at the top throws the whole flake stand out of whack...

What is a flake stand?

Please elaborate as I start off with cold tap water and add 7lb bags of ice as the recirculation water heats up. Thus my initial recirculation water starts off in the mid 60's and gets knocked down to the 50's with the ice additions but gets hotter and harder to control during the end of stripping runs. On my last stripping run I ended up using around 50lbs of ice, and the final recic. water after I was done was sitting in the high 80's (farenheit). What temperature should I be shooting for with my recirculation water? Should it be the same for both stripping and spirit runs?

I run a pond pump inside of a bucket with about 3 gallons of water into my liebig with the water entering on the end/bottom of the liebig and exiting on the top/closest place to the neck of my still.

A flake stand is the worm bucket. (goggle is your friend)


A bucket with 3 gallons of water in it is way too small. You need at least a big cooler for water. I use a plastic 55 gallon barrel for my cooling water. Most places you can find these for under $20.

cornwhiskey, let's review...

Where is the ice in your worm bucket (flake stand)...??? Ice floats to the top... That means there isn't a proper temperature gradient between the top and bottom of the worm... It also means that the ice is going to melt fast and you'll think you need to add more... So the cycle continues...

I just gave a detailed explanation recently about how shock cooling causes problems not only with taste but also with proof of the resulting spirits... I'd have to search for a link but you can do it yourself by searching for "shock cooling" as the search phrase and my handle in the author box... You will see that the topic has come up and answered many times, but not just by me...

We need a sticky on using ice.

If you're stuck with a small bucket for now, you can add ice gradually, to keep the bucket water at about room temperature or a bit more, throughout the run instead of dumping all the ice in at once, as I suspect you're doing now?

I did a google on "shock cooling" in reference to distillation of spirits and can't find anything outside of HD. Anyone have any links? Personally, I don't find the theory very convincing.

@ Bagasso,

Don’t you think if ‘Ice Cooling’ of the distillate was a good thing that the Big Boys (Commercial Distillers) would be using it in their mega buck big distilling rigs?

Regards,
Coaster

Coaster wrote:Don’t you think if ‘Ice Cooling’ of the distillate was a good thing that the Big Boys (Commercial Distillers) would be using it in their mega buck big distilling rigs?

I think they don't use it because it isn't needed when you have the money to store and pump whatever amount of water is needed. But, my point isn't that it is better but that it isn't really worse.

Kind of reminds me of a thread where someone said they may have a couple cc's of liquid pooling in their coil. An old timer came in and pointed out that that a couple cc's wasn't going to make any real difference. Same here. Lower ABV by how much, if at all?