This is a first for me. My barley distillate went cloudy after being diluted to 45% after a couple days. I have made barley whiskey many times and this has never happened before. I used the same distilled water I always do to cut it. The distillate was run through the pot still twice and generous cuts were made, the tails cut was probably 50%av+. The distillate was absolutley crystal clear before it was cut. I had 13 litres that averaged 75%av.
The only thing different this time was one of the strip runs I distilled on the grain in a double boiler setup. This is the only time I ever tried distilling a wash on the grain.
This ones kinda got me stumped. I could understand it happening if it was only run through once, but this was put through twice.
Anyone got any ideas??
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
I have not been distilling long, but now i have accumulated about 5 gallons of spirits, all absolutely crystal clear and at 90%abv or above.
Following what i have learnt from various sources with regards diluting/cutting the spirits, everyone says use Distilled water, so that is what i did use, and my spirits had a hazy cloudy look to it, i couldn't figure out why, then i came across this.
Water is a fundamental ingredient of vodka as it constitutes 60% of its total volume. In Russia, crystal clear river water was used initially for producing Vodka but was then later purified in order to acquire purity similar to that of distilled water, although distilled water is not used as it turns the vodka opaque.
Uncle Remus,
Please forgive, not trying to hijack your post/thread, but i thought that it was totally my thought that my spirits went hazy/opaque when i cut it, my inexperience coming out, i didnt know to ask on here or not.
The cloudyness I had never had anything to do with the water I use to cut it. I use bottled water, the same water I've always used. It was this particular distillate, that I distilled on the grain. It was definitly oils from the grain that carried over through the distillation. They were easy to get rid of. I put the distillate in the freezer overnight and then filtered it through some cotton balls and a coffee filter, the distillate was crystal clear after that.
If I distill on the grain again i'm gonna run the product through 3 times instead of my usual 2. I'm sure an extra run would get rid of the unsoluable oils.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
I've seen a lot of oily residue in my column after running on the grain. It mostly collects in the first few inches of the column. I run a taller column than most potstill... I suppose those would carry right over with a shorter vapor path.
No it came out crystal clear, but it had a lot more grainey flavour than any barley I ran before. It was twice distilled and was probably 77 or 78% av. It got cloudy after I tempered to about 45%, and not right away either, more like the next day when I looked at it it was cloudy.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
Whiskeys fermented and distilled on the grain are much oilier as Fourway said. I like that aspect of them. But if yer whiskey is TOO oily try chillin' it in the freezer and pourin' it through a stainless funnel with a paper coffee filter and a cottonball in the neck of the funnel.
That's exactly what I did THM. It cleared it right up no problem. BTW this is one of the better whiskeys I've ever made. It tasted a little too grainey or grassy when it was white. I've had it sitting on toasted oak chips for about a month now, I've been putting it in and out of the freezer and it's taken on a nice dark amber colour. The taste is excellent, very smooth for such a young whiskey, it's starting to taste a little like Irish whiskey.
I'm gonna try distilling on the grain again, but not in a double boiler setup. I was thinking about gathering some nice clean river rock about the size of marbles and putting about a 6 or 8 inch layer in the bottom of my keg. I think then I could put direct heat to it without having to worry about burning the grain.
...think this would work?
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
Ive done "still on grain" a couple of times UR.
Ive done it 3 ways:
1)Doubble boiler...God it is slow..but product is good.
2)Put the grain in the spirit run, with no doubble boiler, being sure to collect all of the tails...that worked nice.
3)Distilling a quasi-stripping run with the grain in the boiler without a doubble boiler. I did this way a coupple of times, but I got burning when I ran it too fast. The slower aplication of this method worked nice. I use a stovetop rig, or the small propane burner on the grill, so beware of too much heat (I know you have a burner from hell). My heat up time is about as long as my collection time.
I think 6-8" is probably an overkil. I would think that about 4 layers of rock would be about right. To me, if you are talking marble size, I think 2" would get you to that level, or even more. I think if you go "too" deep, then you will end up in the same condition you get to with a double boiler (i.e. slow slow slow).
What you may have is protein. Commercials filter to remove this because at cool temps it goes hazy. It causes no harm and adds to taste. High proof would not be cloudy if it is protien. Near 86 proof and at low temps it will show.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, and them's pretty good odds.
I'm gonna try distilling on the grain again, but not in a double boiler setup. I was thinking about gathering some nice clean river rock about the size of marbles and putting about a 6 or 8 inch layer in the bottom of my keg. I think then I could put direct heat to it without having to worry about burning the grain.
...think this would work? Ive tryed similer ways uncle remus didnt have good results.Grain would get to bottem and scorch.Best results Ive had is to slowly stir mash till its reaches temp .Put cap on seal and run slow.Ive read where some even coat still with oil before charging it but Ive never tryed that.Using a double boiler is slow but ya aint gotta worry about scorching.
I don't think river rock would do it. A false bottom maybe better, but I still think there are going to be a lot of solids that settle down there and could scorch as easily as grain. Easier may be to diffuse the flame and spread the heat out as much as possible. Those high pressure turkey burners are hard to use if you have a lot of solids, but the larger round burner with many holes in the top will work better. A piece of perforated metal on top of that worked well for me as a diffuser.
I love the brainless aspect of the double boiler tho... I hate to risk scorching and wrecking a good batch...
The fact that the double boiler was a little on the slow side didn't bother me. What bothered me is the amount of energy it took to do it. I used 3 time the amount of propane I usually would to strip a batch. If I never had the pot of water at a rip roaring boil I wasn't getting any distillate. Now I guess I could do some things like insulating the pot a bit and it might be a little more efficient, but I don't think it would be a whole bunch better.
I'm thinking screening some river rock and collecting stuff the size of my middle finger nail. The reason I think river rock over crushed gravel or sand is cleanliness and minerals.
Another thought I been kicking around is to suspend the grain solids in a material like cheesecloth. If I could somehow suspend it a couple inches off the bottom of the keg. Maybe a screen, like the picture in Uncle Jesses rye wash thread??
I'm so impressed with the flavour I got by distilling on the grain that I'm determined to find a more efficient way to do it.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
If I never had the pot of water at a rip roaring boil I wasn't getting any distillate.
thats pretty different from my experiences. Are you at altitude? I use a very high grade furnace insulation around my rig and the steam can reach about a third of the way up the boiler. I don't really have to boil mine after the heatup till it's almost done. I usually just set it and forget it and its steady all the way till the end. still, I use more gas, but I don't think its three times as much. I like the idea of using an electric element to heat the double boiler water. That may ease the pain of energy use some. I'm glad to hear you are happy with the product tho... you seemed pretty skeptical at first. Made me start questioning my results... I put mine in gibbs barrels and they have a lot of flavor.... the distilled on the grain likker stands right up in them tho.
I'm at 3300 feet. I filled the double boiler pot with water to about the mash level in the keg. It took a while to get it up to temp which I expected, but I figured after the distillate started coming off I would be able to idle it right down to a slow boil. No way, I had to keep the flame humming to get any amount of distillate coming out.
And yes I was a bit skeptical, especially after it went cloudy, and the taste was grassy, earthy, but after a short time on oak chips it' really coming along. These are the kind of grain flavours I've been looking for.
Tater. A steam jacket might just be the ultimate heat system for distilling on the grain. I'm gonna think about and research a little on that one. Steam has a tremendous amount of energy. I know a fellow who is a steam engineer, so I might pick his brain a bit on the subject.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
With steam, a jacket isn't the only way of going about it. A steam line could be run into the boiler with the outlet just above the base. Both the line and the boiler would obviously have to be well insulated, otherwise you wind up with boiling water instead of steam. Water would be bound to condense inside the boiler anyway (thus diluting the wash), but at least it solves the scorching problem.
A significant issue to consider with the steam generator is whether it is simply a large boiler, or whether some continuous water-feed system could be rigged up. In other words, you need some idea of exactly how much steam would be required, which is a tricky calculation problem.
You should check out this guy's steam injection system for his mash tun. http://www.gjwspykman.com/simm/simm.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Looks pretty nice. Seems like it could work well in a still boiler, but it looks like you'd need a larger steam generator if you are going to be running it for hours at time.
Another idea for a steam jacketed boiler is to use a 'steam kettle' that is made for making soup in restaurants/cafeterias. They get quite large. Do a search on ebay for 'steam kettle' and you'll see what I am talking about. Never seen them around here, but it looks like in the US and perhaps elsewhere you can get them at restaurant/cafeteria auctions for fairly cheap. They are really expensive when new.
Uncle Remus
I'm thinking screening some river rock and collecting stuff the size of my middle finger nail. The reason I think river rock over crushed gravel or sand is cleanliness and minerals.
Another thought I been kicking around is to suspend the grain solids in a material like cheesecloth. If I could somehow suspend it a couple inches off the bottom of the keg. Maybe a screen, like the picture in Uncle Jesses rye wash thread??
I'm so impressed with the flavour I got by distilling on the grain that I'm determined to find a more efficient way to do it.
Would something like this do what youre wanting? http://www.kegs.com/falsebottom.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Salus populi suprema est lex. [L.] The safety of the people is the highest law.
="Uncle Remus". What bothered me is the amount of energy it took to do it. I used 3 time the amount of propane I usually would to strip a batch. If I never had the pot of water at a rip roaring boil I wasn't getting any distillate. Now I guess I could do some things like insulating the pot a bit and it might be a little more efficient, but I don't think it would be a whole bunch better.
I suspect the problem there is two-fold. First, a stainless keg is probably not the greatest heat conductor in the world. A copper boiler inside a stainless double boiler would ideally be the way to go. Second, evaporation from the water jacket is not just a topping-up problem, it also represents a significant loss of energy from the system. One solution is to seal the double boiler so that no evaporation occurs; another solution is to use a higher boiling liquid in the jacket. This has all been thrashed out before.
Lastly, an alternative to a steam-line in is a hot water coil in. This has the advantage that the boiler cannot potentially overflow before all the alcohol has been stripped off. Plus, the system could be easily sealed (so no water or steam loss), and the heat could be enough such that no recirculating pump would be required. The major uncertainty as I see it is the efficiency of heat transfer from the coil to the mash.
I have an Idea similar to muckanic's.
How about using one rig just to produce steam.
That steam could go out of the keg, via a copper line.
That line could run into a coil in the boiler of the still. As long as the coil allows the condensed steam to run back downhill into the steam generator, then you shouldn't ever run dry.
A pressure release valve might be a good safe feature, but as long as there is a good amount of liquid/wet solids in the stil, then the boiler should remain unpressurized.
Ive been thinking about this design for some time. The copper coil in the mash might be hard to clean, but I bet some good distillate could be made with that rig. Anyone got any ideas?
="possum". As long as the coil allows the condensed steam to run back downhill into the steam generator, then you shouldn't ever run dry.
I am speculating that gravity may not be required to maintain the recirculation, as the heat differential might do it. There is a design issue of whether it is attempted to push steam or boiling water into the coil. In other words, with one outlet at the top of the boiler keg and another line entering in at the top and terminating just above the bottom, which way does the flow go?
