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This is my first attempt at using sodium carbonate to get a cleaner, smoother, higher ABV vodka.

I have stripped 2 batches of gerber wheat sugar wash and ended up with 6 gallons of 50% low wines that I have sitting on 1 TBS/gallon sodium carbonate for the past week. I had planned on adding this strip to 7 gallons of 11% gerber wash I just racked and planned on doing a spirit run this weekend. On doing more reading about using carbonate to clean up your spirits, I came across that you should only carbonate stripped low wines, NOT washes. Has something to do with the carbonate reacting with nitrogen in the wash and producing ammonia.

Should I abandon my idea of combining all these to do a spirit run because of the carbonate in the stripped low wines? Strip the third batch, carbonate it, then do a spirit run with 9-10 gallons of carbonated low wines diluted down to 30%??

Peace,
Opihi

There are no exceptions to the rule, only treat low wines with alkaline agents.

You should be able to neutralize the carbonate with some kind of acid but if what you are after is vodka that you are after then you would probably be better off stripping the wash and then running the combined stripped and treated low wines.

Thanks for the reply, its what I thought. I'm stripping the half batch as we speak and plan on doing my low and slow spirit run this weekend.
Last question about carbonate. I put a Tablespoon of sodium carbonate per gallon of low wines. Looking at my glass jars, I now see probably a half cup of white precipitate on the bottom of each jar. I assume this is all the "bad" esters and whatnots that I'm trying to clean out. When I do my spirit run tomorrow should I filter out and remove all this white precipitate?

Thanks,
opihi

It isn't the bad esters. If anything it is salts caused by the reaction of the carbonate and acids. They don't come over during the distillation but it can form a cap of crud in your pot so you do want to filter it out.

Got it, thanks for the answers.
I just filtered it out and have it heating up nice and slow right now. Got nothing better to do all day but watch a slow drip drip drip with an occasional taste taste taste.

Peace,
Opihi