to bicarb or not to bicarb

[absinthe]

i have used bicarb in my vodka runs on and off to try and remove esters but i have noticed that the product seems to have more esters..

it has a sweet almost candy appleish smell...

i have tried this halfway through a run and the same thing happened...

who adds bicarb to their reflux runs?

[minime]

i have used bicarb in my vodka runs on and off to try and remove esters but i have noticed that the product seems to have more esters..

it has a sweet almost candy appleish smell...

i have tried this halfway through a run and the same thing happened...

who adds bicarb to their reflux runs?

I add to my runs. Supposed to neutralize some acid in heads and give you a bit more product. I never collect up to the volumes the calculators on the parent site show I should get but I've never had a problem with off smells or taste in my product. I've been using turbos for neutral and notice my stripping runs smell like banana but it always goes away on the spirit run.

[Mud]

There's a thread here http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3477with a bunch of good information. After reading it I started using baking soda (bi-carb) and then sodium carbonate. It made a much cleaner product than I was able to get without.

-Mud

[Rod]

I have received advise on this forum not to use turbos with neutral spirits as they can make esters and other nasties etc

I have used bicarb to remove those that do form , but will use a non turbo yeast next wash run

the idea being not to make them and therefore not having to remove them

[HookLine]

Turbos will give a good result if you do not push them past about 12%, and you use them at half the rate recommended, (ie half a pack per 25 litres, or a full pack per 50 litres).

The main reason I do not use Turbos is the cost. Using bakers yeast and home made nutrients I can do it for less than half the price of a pack of Turbo. Also do not want to become a familiar face at my local brew shop, the less people know what I do the better.

I use 1 tsp of sodium carbonate per litre of 40% low wines on all my neutral runs. Tried with and without, with is better.

[absinthe]

i never use turbos... i have used them twice once when i was making my first wash before i knew any better and once cause the home brew shop guy gave me one to try and convince me otherwise lets just say the local guy thinks turbos are the best and nothing can beet the still-spirits super "reflux" still lets just say he has no idea...

i even offered to make pot still heads at a low price for him to sell but he said "people don't want to go to the trouble" (again ) i think cleaning a turbo and adding the essence is more trouble than making a real drink lol

anyway i am going to give it one more concise test with half a batch of low wines without bi-carb and the other with so i can have a clear test

[punkin]

Very interested in your comparo, Absinthe.

I've just been using bicarb cause people here have said it's the go. Haven't seen anything to say not too.
I started with the whole stress aging thing cause e'one reckoned it was the go too, though. Glad i tried one jar next to it, not stress aged though. The distress aging was a crock and the jar on the shelf coloured and flavoured quicker
Just goes to show, not to take e'thing at face value.

I can say though that the heads compression thing is real from running a mistake. I was using bicarb to fix PH probs in a UJSM batch that had stuck at 1010 or 1015 or something and the ph was down to the shithouse, i put 10 or 12 spoons of bicarb in to lift the ph to 4 or just over. It didn't do much from memory as far as using the last of the sugar ( was a nutrient prob) but i did notice when i ran it that i got bugger all heads...

The cuts caught me by suprise and when i went back tasting the jars, i got right up to #2 or #3.
Took me a while to figure out what had changed, but that was the only thing.









LoveTheExperimentsHerePunkin

[Rod]

Hookline ,
quote ,
The main reason I do not use Turbos is the cost. Using bakers yeast and home made nutrients I can do it for less than half the price of a pack of Turbo. Also do not want to become a familiar face at my local brew shop, the less people know what I do the better.
unquote .

My local brew shop does not appear to have anything other than turbo yeasts , as you know in our country we have not got what they have in USA .

you have used turbo yeast at half the pitch and had good results and suggest to stop the ferment at 12% .

My alco hydrometer is not very accurate at 12% and I do not thing I have seen it above 12% , maybe 14%

My brewing hydrometer is usually at about .900 when I stop , rack and add clearing agent

any other tips on knowing when to stop the fermentation

[HookLine]

I never use a meter to measure ferments. For a straight sugar wash you easily calculate the % abv from the amount of sugar and water you use. To tell if the ferment is fully done, just taste it, if it has no sweetness then it is done.


•To calculate the amount of sugar needed for a desired % abv, and a given ferment volume:

% abv x litres of ferment x 0.017 = kg sugar


•To calculate the % abv from a given amount of sugar and ferment volume (in litres):

kg sugar ÷ litres of ferment ÷ 0.017 = % abv


So, to get a 25 litre ferment to 12% abv, the amount of sugar you need to use is:

% abv x litres of ferment x 0.017 = kg sugar

12 x 25 x 0.017 = 5.1 kg

[punkin]

Thank you for reminding me of my manners. I get a bit dispirited at times.

[DestructoMutt]

punkin-

i occasionally need to be reminded to mind my manners also....






there'sourmildmannered,easygoingpunkin.

[seravitae]

im doing a bicarb run of my tails/random bits and i have to say, after bicarbing it is a lot smoother and cleaner, however it is *more* fruitier. Like somehow bicarb caused greater ester formation, or more realistically, the hydrolysis of some esters gave products which also have a fruity smell/taste. i guess your milage may vary. (this works for me since im making fruit vodka. not sure how happy the neat vodka drinkers will be though.)

[Husker]

The only times I have used carbonate (not bicarb), was on cleanup runs, which are about the only time I use my offset unit any more. All I know, is I put in some very nasty stuff, and the heads removed are horribly heady, but make up less than 20%, and the body after that is very clean. That is highly compressed heads, noting that 75% of what was in there to start with was heads from other runs (mix of rum and whiskey's usually).

I have not tried running without the carbonate for quite some time. However, the first couple of times I did this heads (and small amount of tails) cleanup, I did so without carbonate, and the amount of body produced was much smaller, and I had a very hard time not having heads carry over into the "body" that was being pulled off. Of course, in the time frame, I have learned to drive the still better, but I also believe that the carbonate addition has changed the separation characteristics of this heady material, and produced a much more distinct cut over point.

The next time I do this heads cleanup, I will do so without carbonate, and see what end results I get. It is possible, that it is just the same, and the reason things are more compressed is better skill at maintaining equilibrium in the column, with the carbonate adding little to the process.

H.

[mikejwoodnz]

OK on a sugar wash 1st run of 50 litres I get 20 litres of 40% so I tip in a spoon of Baking Soda and let it sit say overnight - I use 2 of these 20 litres for the 2nd run giving them a good shake tipping them in the pot and add say 5 litres of water. I then get 20 litres of 70+%.This definitely produces a cleaner product with no ester taint - and the lack of fruit flies buzzing about confirms this

[seravitae]

absinthe, ive also noticed that it seems sweeter and more estery after a bicarb run. However, i prefer this as it's smoother than not bi-carbing.

[manu de hanoi]

absinthe, ive also noticed that it seems sweeter and more estery after a bicarb run. However, i prefer this as it's smoother than not bi-carbing.

i got some kind of sweet taste in my vodka too, the guys in the labs thought i added sweetening agent which is forbidden, tested it and didnt find anything.

Absinthe: try activated charcoal see what happens to these esters.

[seravitae]

manu,

My usual run is wash --> distill --> dilute --> carbon polish --> bicarb+distill --> dilute --> carbon polish.

From before the first carbon polish it smells like usual icky turbo yeast distillate, after the first polish it's pretty neutral, after the bicarb run it seems more estery/sweet than after the first polish.

I'm currently doing some hunting in scientific journals to see if there are any other things happening. I know in some cases you can catalytically form esters under basic conditions (for instance, fatty acids and ethanol are used under basic conditions to produce biodesiel.. those are esters..) maybe some of the residual yeast in the still pot decomposing would release the fatty acids inside the yeast cell membrane, which forms low-bp esters in basic conditions with the ethanol..

*shrug* this will be a lot easier ot analyse when i finally get some time on the HPLC/GC.

[absinthe]

i used carbon on the last batch but i don't normal need to.. and the change of flavour by adding bi-carb was huge.. so i think the next run will be no bi-carb for me i seem to get a clean dry neural product but with bi-carb i get a slightly sweet and fruity product

[seravitae]

manu, can you report the ester content for your usual neutral spirit and the bicarb-netrual spirit as per the lab guy's results?

[manu de hanoi]

it went from 220 mg/l for a single distill to 14 mg/l for a double distill neutralized. I used NaOH and CaO
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6749

[seravitae]

did anything go up in concentration? (trying to find where this sweetness/smell is coming from)

[manu de hanoi]

nothing that I know when up seravitae, but things are complex, sometimes when u remove a taste you discover an underlying one. For example, strong abv will often taste purer than low abv cause the ethanol burn is covering all other tastes....Stuff will also taste different depending on the concentrations.

For the sweet taste i remember someone saying somewhere is was a family of esters, my advice is you bring that to high pH and taste again after 3 days (didnt i tell you that somewhere else ???). Something very strange is that high pH has got no "taste" unlike sour pHes

[muckanic]

I guess there is a possibility that some higher alcohols could actually be perceived as sweeter than their esters. For that matter, EtOH is a major contributor to sweetness and body in the wine and strong beer world. The alkali could be removing one or more masks of that sweetness (like volatile acids possibly). One point to note is that alkali treatment isn't solely about ester hydrolysis. It probably also reduces lipids (fatty acids) through the formation of less volatile carboxylate salts. Saturated lipids come from the yeast, unsaturated lipids come from the ingredients. Vodka makers tend to avoid a lot of those lipids by their preferences for not fermenting on the grain, and for not distilling the yeast.