Cloudy Vodka

punkin

I think he means the run took 16 hours overall including stabilising.

grim

Hope so, creating all sorts of crazy compounds refluxing that long.

Lamanzo

Sorry about the confusion. The run took 16 hours: 3 hours in total reflux to allow the column temperatures to stabilize, and 13 hours in vapor management drawing off the alcohol. Also, my column is not a plate column, it is packed with copper mesh. I'll try the PBW and citric acid wash on all my components before I try again. It will take me some time as I still have a few more trial runs of all grain bourbon I want to get through before I get back to attempting clear vodka.

Thanks again for all the thoughts and help!

Fiji_Spirits

@Lamanzo seems to me that you are wasting a TON of time distilling maybe 3 liters of total product off. Your column prolly doesn’t need stabilization more than maybe 5-10 minutes, and the run should take maybe 3 hours if you are really milking it.

You are gonna get much better results if you do the following for your vodka: - strip off the alcohol as fast as you can keeping above about 60-70%ABV (honestly it doesn’t matter much) -combine your stripped “low wines” into a larger spirit run, dilute it to about 30% ABV or less, and take it off above 90%.

It shouldn’t take all day for an 8 gallon still to run. 16 hours is nothing short of wasting time and is probably the reason for some of your problems. It’s total INSANITY and 100% wrong way to run it.

If you dont like it after dilution from 90%, then just run it thru again a third time and try for 93%+

You are just not going to get good product from one run on that rig.

punkin

Steve a 2" boka or VM column will only run at between one and one point two litres an hour. If you fill a keg boiler with 40l of 40% you have 16l of 100%. Allow an hour for heat up, an 1/2hr for stabilization then say 1.5 hours to drip heads off you still have 14l left at 1.2l/hr.

The run time described is about spot on.

Upgrading to a 3" column will move your hearts collection to 4-5l/hr, the early stuff takes just as long but the net reduction is very well worth it.

Fiji_Spirits

@punkin said: Steve a 2" boka or VM column will only run at between one and one point two litres an hour. If you fill a keg boiler with 40l of 40% you have 16l of 100%. Allow an hour for heat up, an 1/2hr for stabilization then say 1.5 hours to drip heads off you still have 14l left at 1.2l/hr.

The run time described is about spot on.

Upgrading to a 3" column will move your hearts collection to 4-5l/hr, the early stuff takes just as long but the net reduction is very well worth it.

He said he had an 8 gallon or 30 liter boiler. At 10% wash that’s at best 3 liters of strip. Maybe 1.5l of hearts being optimistic. Was this a spirit run? Maybe I missed that.

It’s also been a while since I ran a vapor management still. I’ve forgotten how slow they are when you throw limited heat at them.

Thank you for the clarification.

Lamanzo

@punkin is correct. I had already completed multiple stripping runs, and was making an 8 gal spirit run. Looking back through my notes, I would guess @punkin estimate of 40% ABV charge is pretty close. Result was about 3 gal of high purity ethanol, (95% ABV by the alcometer).