Home Distiller

I had my first experience with scorching of the wash on a stripping run I did yesterday. This was also my first grain bill that I included rye in so I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it. I had the pump to my condenser turned on and right before distillate started coming out of the still I saw a bunch of what I thought was vapor which I thought was odd since, as I said, the pump to the condenser was on. I later realized that was smoke coming out. Running my finger under the stream and tasting it during the run did not yield a pleasant flavor. As the distillate collected in a jar I also noticed a slight yellow tinge to the liquid. Should I redistill this or toss it?

After the still cooled and I dumped out the back set, I noticed that the internal heating element was covered in charred carbon which confirmed what I thought shortly after tasting the distillate on it's way out of the still. The wash did not appear any more or less clear than past washes I've produced though the fermentation did take longer than normal. I'll have to do a better job of straining before boiling I suppose.

Any comments would be appreciated.

I understand the scorched smell/flavor doesn't go away regardless of how many times it's rerun.

tp

Sounds like you still had unconverted starch. Did you test for it?

NZChris wrote:Sounds like you still had unconverted starch. Did you test for it?

No I did not. I'll start doing that from now on.

Do an iodine test.

Right you are T-Pee, that's the voice of experience talkin' here!

Haven't had the pleasure (yet).

tp