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Hey folks,

Yes, you can scorch a wash in a jacketed boiler
Against my better judgement I listened to an "experienced" neighbor and let him crank up the flame on my oil jacketed still and managed to scorch the hell out of my pear schnapps.
It has the distinctive burnt taste of failure.

I've done a lot of searching in the forums and there seem to be no clear consensus on whether or not scorched distillate is at all salvageable, just three common suggestions:
1. triple distill into vodka
2. set it aside and taste it now and then, savor the taste of failure and let it be a reminder
3. use tiny amounts of it to add smoke flavor to whiskey

I'm really not interested in the latter two. I've tasted enough failure, and this stuff is so nasty I wouldn't risk adding even a molecule of it to any proper distillate.
It's been distilled twice, and passed through a carbon filter and the flavor is just as vile and burnt as ever. If I keep distilling this do I have any chance of making it into a vodka, or would I just be wasting my time?
Should I just cut my losses and dump it?

Any advice would be really appreciated, thanks in advance!

Bearpig wrote:Should I just cut my losses and dump it?

Yes.

A scorch that bad isn't going anywhere.
And I doubt it would add a nice smokey character to anything. Just a nasty scorchy flavor.

Yea an oil jacket can get hotter than a water/steam jacket and can definitely scorch things. And I have not heard of anyone fixing it. I'd save it for cleaning runs or bbq lighter fluid

BBQ lighter fluid it is then.

Thanks guys.

That or cleaning tools, burning ant hills, etc

Bottle it and give it to your neighbor for Xmas.

NZChris wrote:Bottle it and give it to your neighbor for Xmas.

Hahaha excellent plan

NZChris wrote:Bottle it and give it to your neighbor for Xmas.

Serves him right!

Use the batch for cleaning runs on new equipment could be an option.
I know it sounds depressing but you can't get that smell/taste out of it anymore.
Tell your neighbor he owns you some cases of beer.

NZChris wrote:Bottle it and give it to your neighbor for Xmas.

Snap!

Hey Bearpig sorry to hear about your scorch.
I am just purchasing a bain marie boiler and am curious about how it scorched.
Does your boiler have a mixer?
Is the oil level in the jacket higher or lower than the mash/wash level?
Do you know how hot you got the oil to create a scorch.
How hot (what temp range) do you normally heat the oil to during a run

Any input would be appreciated

Windy City wrote:Hey Bearpig sorry to hear about your scorch.
I am just purchasing a bain marie boiler and am curious about how it scorched.
Does your boiler have a mixer?
Is the oil level in the jacket higher or lower than the mash/wash level?
Do you know how hot you got the oil to create a scorch.
How hot (what temp range) do you normally heat the oil to during a run

Any input would be appreciated

^it looks like that.

No mixer. I stir while getting it up to temp and then put the head on before it starts to boil.

The oil level comes up to about 2/3 the wash level, maybe a little lower.

You're 'supposed' to use heat transfer oil but its expensive as %@$# here so I just use normal sunflower oil which has one of the highest smoke points of the 'cheap' oils (227 C). I've never had a problem with it. If it starts to smell I back off the heat. If I'm not going to be using the still for longer than a few months at a time then I'll drain the oil into 2 liter soda bottles and rinse out the jacket with some degreaser and boiling water.
I have them, but typically don't use thermometers and prefer to use my senses (smell, sound, touch, common). In this case the oil got up a touch over its smoke point, so probably >230 C.

I normally heat it much less, keeping the oil well below its smoke point. Which was how this run was going too - happily running along on a 5kw propane element at about half power. But this guy is apparently an "expert" at making grappa and he assured me that it's "impossible to burn anything in a jacketed still". He cranked the flame up to max, but that wasn't even enough for him so he removed the pressure regulator from the hose and hooked it up direct so he could get an even bigger flame
At this point you must be asking wtf is wrong with me and why I let him do something like this during my run but keep in mind he's older, he's been doing this for longer than I've been alive, and the way I've been raised I'm inclined to respect and listen to my elders by default, because they must know what they're doing

But otherwise the oil jacketed still works really well if you're patient and don't let some idiot talk you into cranking up the heat.

Bearpig wrote:.... so he removed the pressure regulator from the hose and hooked it up direct so he could get an even bigger flame

How long did he have the flame off for?

With a direct fired pot still, if you turn the flame off for a while then restart without agitating the solids to get them into suspension again, there is a good chance of a scorch.

Interesting thread. Presumably people have also considered engine oil or paraffin oil for this? Vegetable oils go rancid after a bit, and can oxidize and solidify, forming a film that is hard to remove.

Sorry 'bout your spirit. I've never recovered it either. My solution for distilling lumpy or sticky stuff was low pressure steam injection, which I just find so convenient.

Paraffin oil is about $10 a liter here so it's not really an option to put over $100 of it into a still. There are 'heat transfer oils' that are equally as expensive.
After this season I'll check out the interior of the still jacket with an endoscope and if I see any buildup I'll give it a good rinse with potassium hydroxide and maybe try motor oil or transmission fluid. The problem is in Europe even the crappiest motor oil is costly, it's not like in the US where you can get budget motor oils for $1/liter.
Does anyone know the typical smoke point of non-synthetic motor oil or ATF?

Steam extraction is interesting but it's totally alien to me because nobody does it around here. People here typically use either single-walled pot stills, stills with a hand-cranked stirring mechanism (dangerous because most of the time the stirring mechanism is made from brass), or a steam or oil-jacketed still.
Maybe my first foray into steam extraction will be making an add-on thumper for my still. Isn't the concept of steam injection just basically turning your boiler into a huge thumper?

$100 worth of the right oil seems like money well spent to me

Some of us are on a budget
If it had any effect on the end product, I wouldn't hesitate. But the oil never comes into contact with either the wash or the distillate so I try to save money where I can.

I started making a double wall BOP with the intention of using oil or stem as a heat transfer medium, My concern was applying a flame tothe liquid drain in the centre.

In this thread here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8864&hilit=+bop

The BOP is a double wall but without a base and I run a gas burner under it, the outer wall traps the heat, the flame is about 100mm from the base of the pot.
I run the gas flame at its lowest, just enough so the flame wont go out, I have not experienced any scorching running a plum mash consisting mostly of fruit solids.
This has saved simplified the build with no outlay for oils etc.

I was looking at using plain old vegetable oil, however steam is a better medium.

Isn't the concept of steam injection just basically turning your boiler into a huge thumper?

Thats it in one. There are lots of threads on this site. The mash never gets over 100C, the pressure is low, so you need proper joints so nothing comes apart and it is relatively safe. You can happily strip grape marc without adding water, or slimy rye wash. You can run kilowatts without fear of scorching. Of all the kit I've built over the years, my steam injection system is the one I really like (though thats a bit like having a favourite child, not really something you should think).

NZChris wrote:

Bearpig wrote:.... so he removed the pressure regulator from the hose and hooked it up direct so he could get an even bigger flame

How long did he have the flame off for?

With a direct fired pot still, if you turn the flame off for a while then restart without agitating the solids to get them into suspension again, there is a good chance of a scorch.

I'd still like to know how long he had the flame off for.

I had a couple scorched stripping runs a while back. The second scorched was because I missed a small bit of corn after cleaning. I have learned from that mistake. Those strips sat for 2 months or so. They all had a faint yellow tint to them when new. When I got ready to do a spirit run, those jars had settled & all of the "yellow" was on the bottom. I wasted a bit of strippings to keep from getting the yellow in the spirit run. After it was all said & dont, that batch turned out good, no "off flavors" from the strip. I could tell I got a little sloppy & lazy with the washes but it still turned out good.

Can this happen without solids in your mash? I've gone really fast on a few stripping runs, and that's over a direct flame. I never had this happen, but now I am worried.

I did a feints run recently that included some scorched rice vodka from my fire in the boiler incident. Ran it nice and slowly through my reflux setup and found it did clean it up very nicely through the hearts section. But what was really interesting was as I was just thinking it was time to shut down, I did the usual and tasted a small bit, usually it's just watery and a bit yucky. This time it was the most vile and potent liquid imaginable, it had concentrated the ashy scorch flavour into those late tails. After cuts I can barely taste the diff between it and the TPW vodka. Of course YMMV.

Bearpig wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 2:19 pm But this guy is apparently an "expert" at making grappa and he assured me that it's "impossible to burn anything in a jacketed still".

I am led to believe that your friend did not figure there was oil in the jacket.
The normal way to do grappa in a bain-marie still is - well - bain-marie, which means water in the jacket, and the jacket open to atmosphere.
Water cannot reach a higher temperature than 100°C and bain-marie is exactly employed to avoid scorching the solid matter in the still (in making grappa you necessarily have solids in the kettle).

If you use oil instead of water, temperatures change radically. Of course you can scorch the solids.

Did you inform him you had oil instead of water in the jacket?

I have learned a few days ago that people can use vapour, or oil, in a jacketed still.
If it's something you don't know exists, it's something you don't even suspect.
Your friend is probably a "grappa" producer and he wouldn't think about oil being in the jacket.

If he knew, then I think your judgement of him is well-deserved.

Up hill slow down hill fast touch my still and I kick your ass. Feel free to print this and hang over your still.

in making grappa you necessarily have solids in the kettle

Well you could press it just prior to distilling. If you are making wine with grapes anyway, you probably already have a press of some sort. You only need the grapes on for the duration of the 2nd run fermentation, not during distillation.

Captain Pappy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2019 7:50 am

in making grappa you necessarily have solids in the kettle

Well you could press it just prior to distilling. If you are making wine with grapes anyway, you probably already have a press of some sort. You only need the grapes on for the duration of the 2nd run fermentation, not during distillation.

To make grappa proper, you need to distill pomace. Else you have something different (brandy, acquavite d'uva)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grappa

pomace confers typical substances that filtered must lacks.

To make grappa proper, you need to distill pomace. Else you have something different (brandy, acquavite d'uva)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grappa

Yer right, I didn't realize that. I had always thought that what made it grappa was to run a 2nd fermentation on the skins and distill it. I didn't realize the pommace must be in the boiler with it.

Scorpster wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2019 10:34 am Ran it nice and slowly through my reflux setup and found it did clean it up very nicely through the hearts section.

Scorpster was it 'good enough' or was it completely 100% cleaned? I have the low wines from a 15-gallon ferment that all scorched and I don't want to waste it, but I don't want to waste my time/energy either.

With a pot still you'll have a hard time cleaning it with only a 40% charge. With Reflux you can concentrate the burnt taste in the tails which you can throw out. A pass or two through a reflux still will usually clean it up possible followed by a handful of carbon thrown into a gallon jar jar for a few days, then strained.

It really depends on how scorched it tastes to start with. If it's light it may be salvageable, but if it has a heavy scorched smell it's probably not worth the effort to clean it as a batch. Cut your losses and time.

Now with that said I've burnt a batch or two trying to see how "pasty"/dirty my mash could be in the boiler (that's my story). I've thrown both carbon and wood at it and let set for a while followed by a another spirit run of the low wines cut back to 20%. That reduced the scorch a lot but was still present and undrinkable as is IMHO.

Not wanting to waste alcohol I mixed it down to 10% and then would just add a half pint of this 10% lightly scorched potion to each new 5 gallon stripping run. By the time this lone half pint makes it through the stripping and spirit run it's hardly tastable in the final product and is almost a more complex flavor (kind of like how new make wheat taste hot) but after sitting on oak was fine.

Trying the above of course has the chance of ruining yet another batch so your mileage may vary. The safe course of action is to pour it down the drain or save it a charcoal starter or similar. But you have little to lose by bottling it, throwing heavy carbon and wood on it and just putting it away for 6 months then re-evaluate if it could be re-distilled again. You can always pour it later. Just make sure to label it well.