Aluminum Pot and possibility of contamination?
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:47 am
Hi, I'm new to this forum just as I'm new to the art of distilling. First off, I feel necessary to explain that I come from a country in which both alcoholic beverages and home brewing/distilling is prohibited by law, so the range of measures I can take to improve the quality of my spirits are pretty narrow.
I used to distill my wash in a set of laboratory instruments made of heat resistant glass, but it turned out to be too costly because my instruments would crack or break and I had to replace them all the time and since the largest boiling flask I could find was 6000 ml, the process of distilling was time consuming and required a lot of maintenance. Then I decided to look for other solutions. The only distilling instruments available for sale where I live are used for extracting aromatics from flowers and plants, I thought basically this is the same thing, so even though I still needed to do some modifications due to its poor design, I decided to buy it. The boiling pot (still as you call it?) appears to be made of Aluminum (no way to be certain, it might contain other metals as well, I'm just guessing from its appereance and weight), and the top part is made of low quality stainless still. I have many complaints about the design but all and all it has made my life much easier until I saw the safety topics in this forum and noticed there are not many fans out there for Aluminum pots and started to think the issue I have with my final product might lie in the materials used in the device.
I usually double distill my product and it results a spirit containing 70 percents alcohol, smells and tastes just fine and it appears as crystal clear. But when I mix the spirit with water to reach 40 percents (no matter if i use either tap or distilled water) it turns into a grayish foggy solution. It needs to be stored for ten days until it turns clear again and the particles turn into larger bits and I can finally filter the solution. I used to distill using an old pressure cooker and I seemed to have the same problem. Now is it possible for my product to be contaminated? After filtering the solution and getting a clear product again, should I still be worried about Aluminum ions, if that's even the case?
Finally is there any way to avoid this problem using the same setup? it is going to be a lot of trouble for me building my own instruments and I'd like to avoid it for as long as possible. I have used treating the product with activated charcoal and it didn't help. What is happening to the product on a molecular scale anyways? Is there something I can do, like making chips from other metals to avoid the aluminum -or whatever else that causes this- from entering the product? Maybe I can paint coat the pot with a heat resistant material? Any hints may be very helpful and please let me know if you need more info, meanwhile I'm going to dig up the forum for any possible solution.
I used to distill my wash in a set of laboratory instruments made of heat resistant glass, but it turned out to be too costly because my instruments would crack or break and I had to replace them all the time and since the largest boiling flask I could find was 6000 ml, the process of distilling was time consuming and required a lot of maintenance. Then I decided to look for other solutions. The only distilling instruments available for sale where I live are used for extracting aromatics from flowers and plants, I thought basically this is the same thing, so even though I still needed to do some modifications due to its poor design, I decided to buy it. The boiling pot (still as you call it?) appears to be made of Aluminum (no way to be certain, it might contain other metals as well, I'm just guessing from its appereance and weight), and the top part is made of low quality stainless still. I have many complaints about the design but all and all it has made my life much easier until I saw the safety topics in this forum and noticed there are not many fans out there for Aluminum pots and started to think the issue I have with my final product might lie in the materials used in the device.
I usually double distill my product and it results a spirit containing 70 percents alcohol, smells and tastes just fine and it appears as crystal clear. But when I mix the spirit with water to reach 40 percents (no matter if i use either tap or distilled water) it turns into a grayish foggy solution. It needs to be stored for ten days until it turns clear again and the particles turn into larger bits and I can finally filter the solution. I used to distill using an old pressure cooker and I seemed to have the same problem. Now is it possible for my product to be contaminated? After filtering the solution and getting a clear product again, should I still be worried about Aluminum ions, if that's even the case?
Finally is there any way to avoid this problem using the same setup? it is going to be a lot of trouble for me building my own instruments and I'd like to avoid it for as long as possible. I have used treating the product with activated charcoal and it didn't help. What is happening to the product on a molecular scale anyways? Is there something I can do, like making chips from other metals to avoid the aluminum -or whatever else that causes this- from entering the product? Maybe I can paint coat the pot with a heat resistant material? Any hints may be very helpful and please let me know if you need more info, meanwhile I'm going to dig up the forum for any possible solution.