Making Vodka

FullySilenced

Will not hurt a thing does not carry over...

FloridaCracker

Damn, I just ran some TPW and forgot all about this trick.

Heef71

This is an up to date report of my bicarb treated tpw low wines. Last Thursday (3 days ago) I put a table spoon of bicarb soda in each demi of low wines, 6 demi's in total, 4 liters each. There was a definite change in the smell of the low wines after a few days. Today I ran the bicarb treated low wines with a couple of liters of feints to top up the boiler, with water, to 45 liters at 35%.

Throughout the run the abv remained very clean and constant at 94% for 41 x 300ml jars. During the 42nd jar the top plate (5th plate) started fogging and the abv dropped a few points, so I knew tails where coming and that's when I switch everything off. The jars are now airing and I'll leave em for 2 days before taking cuts.

I gotta say this run is the most consistent run and as far as I could smell there was very little tails. I don't like tails in my neutral and I don't like it smearing over the inside of the still so as soon as I detect it coming over I switch everything off. On the untreated runs I'd usually get a few jars of tails as abv dropped off. On this run there was a very definite sign the hearts was finished. Another occurrence worth pointing out is when disassembling the still ( which I have to do after every use because i live in a unit) I noticed there was no usual smell of tails thru the pipes and bends. Smells pretty clean!!! Nice!! But I will still clean everything as usual before next use. So far.....thumbs up for this experiment!! Thanks FS!!

I report back after doing my cuts in a few days and let you know how the final product turns out.

Cheers H.

FloridaCracker

Watching and waiting with interest.

fusiondust

Great thread. I'm incredibly nervous about scooping Arm & Hammer into a stripped run though. Don't want to be the noob who actually "fell" for it.

FullySilenced

@fusiondust.... PUSSY! :))

in all seriousness you will be fine this has been done by many... was not my idea i read about it and tried it first on 12 gallons of stripped product that was made into a neutral... I personally have done this maybe 15 times... give it a try on a smaller batch if your really being shy about giving it a go

punkin

Swim has been using salts on low wines since 08 and would not do it any other way.

fusiondust

@FullySilenced said: fusiondust.... PUSSY! :))

Lol...Going to implement this into my routine. I'm a huge fan of dilute to 20, filter and run again. It is an interesting theory of how impurities become completely soluble at various abs.

FloridaCracker

I have also, as a practice, diluted down with filtered water as I believe that the water can bind up impurities. In my 15 gallon boiler there is no chance of getting it too watered down so I usually fill until it is at about 13 gallons. May take longer to heat up but worth it.

grim

Interesting how this thread is going down a similar path as the rum thread.

I can't speak for the specific salt introductions, but the pH of the wash will have an impact on esterification during distillation. In the rum thread we were talking about adding additional acidity to the wash to increase esterification. Adding baking soda will decrease the pH of the wash and presumably decrease esterification.

It would be interesting to see someone do a small side by side, decrease the pH of one, increase the pH of the other.

Heef71

An updated post on the cuts from the bicarb treated TPW low wines run a few days ago.

Today was smelling, tasting and separating cuts day. All the jars overall (42 x 300mls) smelt pretty darn good compared to previous runs or I should say lack off smell. Smells very clean. A taste test of the middle jar confirmed that FullySilenced is onto something here!!! This stuff is GREAT!! It's so clean.

The middle 5 jars when into bottles for my personal stash, another 5L of middle hearts went into a demi made up 60% of the run. The early and late hearts I'll make flavored drinks with.

There was very little tails. My last jar, as mentioned in a post above, was when abv was dropping and switched everything off. It still didn't have that funky tails smell, it tasted very very slightly that tails was going to be in the next jar if I had of collected it. So awesome, bugger all tails, the bicarb did it's job. To be sure I still recycled the last 2 jars into the feints jar along with the heads. I did get more heads than usual, about 800mls more. Maybe from the feints i topped up the boiler with. Next time I'll run the treated low wines without the addition of feints and compare.

I will say by adding bicarb to the low wines has definitely made a positive change to the final product. It is so clean!! I will definitely be doing this from now on!!!

grim

Another interesting outcome of the rum thread are two potential operational suggestions.

Minimize the time period under 100% reflux to the shortest time possible necessary to stack heads and begin take-off, as additional time under reflux may promote esterification. A very long time period under 100% reflux for a neutral could potentially be a negative.

Minimize the reflux ratio necessary for take-off, as longer total time under reflux and overall higher reflux ratio should theoretically promote esterification. Talking about something different than the tightness of separation.

Just some crazy ideas...

Smaug

Legit ideas though.

grim

Long 100% reflux ratios and taking fores/heads off at a drip-by-drip rate is nearly gospel though.

grim

Lots of talk about flavor and taking off high proof with a lower number of plates. This could be one of the factors involved in why a 4 plate 94% has more flavor than a 10 plate 94%. Like I said, this is different from being able to get tighter separation of fractions with more plates. Getting the higher proof out of the 4 plate requires more reflux, and more time under reflux, which promotes esterification.

In this case, adjusting the pH upwards is would be the right strategy for neutral on a lower plate column.

Based on that, it doesn't need to be bicarb, you should be able to do it with food grade sodium hydroxide (NaOH, Lye, etc) just the same.

Kapea

On my packed VM column there is a flavor sweet spot, take off-wise, especially if running wash vs low wines. Running too fast makes for a hotter product. Running too slow makes for a slight meaty aroma/flavor I've always associated with dead yeast (perhaps it is esters). I am able to get azeotrope at any take off speed (reflux ratio) I set the column at.

FloridaCracker

@grim said: Long 100% reflux ratios and taking fores/heads off at a drip-by-drip rate is nearly gospel though.

Pretty much the way I have understood it since I started but I have recently questioned the drip by drip. On a larger column (diameter) one would certainly be able to increase the rate while still keeping the efficiency up. I'm sure that the big boys don't go drip by drip. Is there a table somewhere (I've looked) that correlates rate to the size column?

CothermanDistilling

fast enough that you are not sending too much pure foreshots back down the downcomers, slow enough that you are not sending too much good ethanol into the foreshots container... I always assumed to time it at the rate where it is all gone in about an hour... seems to work good at a trickle on the 8"/4" hybrid...

Myles

@FloridaCracker there is a table that equates reflux ratio vs boiler charge to achieve azeo. For the production rate though you would need to correlate it to boiler power and not column size.

At the end of the day you need to match boiler power vs volume of vapour liberated vs reflux ratio to get your product rate.

FloridaCracker

@Myles said: FloridaCracker there is a table that equates reflux ratio vs boiler charge to achieve azeo. For the production rate though you would need to correlate it to boiler power and not column size.

At the end of the day you need to match boiler power vs volume of vapour liberated vs reflux ratio to get your product rate.

OK (scratch head).

I have been taking fores at about 2-3 drips per second and heads at a thin stream. My column is 5" and my boiler charge is usually about 13 gallons. My 5,500 watt element, after warm up is used at 70% through the entire run, I just control the outflow via water to the defleg. I tried to change power and dephleg and had too many things going on at once. I'm sure that I could run at less power but I start losing action on some of my plates when I do.

Holy shit, I have derailed the thread. Sorry

CothermanDistilling

it also depends upon how good your wash is.... if you have overworked yeast making more acetone, you can take it off faster...

fusiondust

I couldn't find sodium carbonate so I loaded a box of baking soda into the oven at 400/200 for 90 mins. Easy. Only tried 4 heaping tablespoons for a 10 gallon stripped batch at was amazed at what I collected. Dilluted to 45 and ran through the carbon filter. I usually go for a final reflux but would have been wasted effort. Thanks for a great thread.

FullySilenced

Glad you finally gave it a go... its not a difficult thing to implement in a vodka or neutral run...

Happy Stillin,

FS

FloridaCracker

OK, I just today added the sodium carbonate to my low wines and it really got rid of the yeast smell but the inside of my boiler looked like a bubble bath. Was fine for the first gallon or so off of the still but it got so bad that I had to shut it down. Kept turning the power down until nothing was coming out of the parrot and the bubbles kept coming. LARGE bubbles. Had plenty of headroom but it was rising about 5" into the column.

Anyone else see this after using the Sodium Carbonate? That's the only difference in my run

FullySilenced

what exactly did you use FC brand and so forth ... how much did you put in? and to what size batch?

No never seen any bubbles...

jacksonbrown

I think it breaks down when heated to produces CO2. Like in baking.

FloridaCracker

@jacksonbrown said: I think it breaks down when heated to produces CO2. Like in baking.

That would make sense because it didn't happen right away. 15 minutes of reflux, another 30 minutes for fores; about 30 minutes for heads; 1 1/2 gallons of hearts before the bubbles showed up. And it kept getting worse. I kept turning down the heat and reducing flow to the dephleg to the point to where nothing was coming out of the parrot.

FS, I added 1 tablespoon per gallon of 50% strip about an hour before running it. It started out as sodium bicarbonate, Arm & Hammer but I heated it at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. I was under the impression that the sodium carbonate reacted immediately in the strip and the bicarb needed time to work. Maybe it hadn't completely converted?

I shit you not, it looked like someone had added Mr Bubble to the run. LARGE bubbles, not like brown foam out of a parrot.

grim

You guys measuring your wash pH after additions? IMHO - need to establish what the ideal pH is - and then add based on the target pH - versus blind additions (x spoons per y gallons).

Different washes are going to require different amounts of dilution. This is a pH specific phenomenon, adding too little will only provide partial benefit, adding more than you need would probably provide no benefit.

FloridaCracker

Adding wrong amount provides ass-ton of bubbles?

punkin

Leave it for a week instead of an hour is the advice that was always given before. It was the other one the simpler one that reacted faster and used less.