We distilled 2 3 gallon corn washes today. The first wash was with a reflux. The second we did it more of pot still. The second run is slightly cloudy.
What causes that?
Will it clear up? It is 45%ABV. That is fairly strong. Alot of corn flavor in it.
CLOUDY CORN RUN
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tracker0945
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BMAC
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This is the first time we run this unit as a pot still. All we did was remove the middle 2 foot section of column from the reflux and thenremove the series of cooling lines thru the top part of the column.
I thought it was running to dang hot, but it would either stop dripping all together or the thermometer on the top of the column was at 85C.
I would turn the propane down to almost extinguished and if the temp started to drop, it would drop to 60C. We were using a 7 gallon keg and we only had about 3 gallons of wash in it. I will try and master the entire propane thing next time.
The bit of haze doesnt seem to affect the flavor in a negative way, it still has a nice corn flavor. In fact I drank probably about 5 ounces of it last night.
It is nice sipping whiskey. Just not pretty sipping whiskey.
I thought it was running to dang hot, but it would either stop dripping all together or the thermometer on the top of the column was at 85C.
I would turn the propane down to almost extinguished and if the temp started to drop, it would drop to 60C. We were using a 7 gallon keg and we only had about 3 gallons of wash in it. I will try and master the entire propane thing next time.
The bit of haze doesnt seem to affect the flavor in a negative way, it still has a nice corn flavor. In fact I drank probably about 5 ounces of it last night.
It is nice sipping whiskey. Just not pretty sipping whiskey.
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wineo
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You should just not worry about the temp when running in pot mode.Just set it so your getting a steady output,back down the heat as much as you can while keeping that output,and your set.Then once you see what temp it starts running at,you can use it for a guideline.I can run mine without a therometer but just use it as a loose guideline of my runs.Mine starts running good at 182-184f and I usually get into the tails at 200f or over,and quit at 203-204f.Yours will be different.You just have to get used to it,then you will know your temp guidelines.
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pintoshine
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When I first started distilling, I got this a lot. It was because I was greedy using my pot still. If you started at a normal 65 to 70% abv at the heads and ended up with a lot of 45% after collecting, this tells me you must have collectd a lot of tails and added to the batch. Most of the time tails from corn will cloud the spirit. I have had some be both cloudy and blue at the same time and make it look like blue milk.
So next time do a water louche test when you are getting close to 45% coming off the condenser. usually half spirit and half water will show it up as a cloudy whitish mixture. As soon as it appears start tossing it in the tails bucket. A small amount of cloudy tails can cloud the whole batch. Occsionally, I distill a batch on a coil that I rinsed with my tap water and it comes out cloudy from the beginning. I usually just throw the whole batch in a seconds run batch. I have learned to carefully not blow into a wet coil. This is almost a guaranteed blue spirit run. CO2 and water makes a blue salt that comes out in a run and makes it ugly. Distilling a fermenting batch can do this too.
So next time do a water louche test when you are getting close to 45% coming off the condenser. usually half spirit and half water will show it up as a cloudy whitish mixture. As soon as it appears start tossing it in the tails bucket. A small amount of cloudy tails can cloud the whole batch. Occsionally, I distill a batch on a coil that I rinsed with my tap water and it comes out cloudy from the beginning. I usually just throw the whole batch in a seconds run batch. I have learned to carefully not blow into a wet coil. This is almost a guaranteed blue spirit run. CO2 and water makes a blue salt that comes out in a run and makes it ugly. Distilling a fermenting batch can do this too.