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Vodka Dash - How do you do it?

edited February 2015 in Usage

In the past I have produced all my "Vodka" on a VM/LM hybrid and now I would like to use my 4" Dash 2 to produce a nice clean vodka. Using a weet-bix wash I have now stripped it with a pot and have enough low wines for a run. I would like this to be a nice sipping vodka and was thinking I would run the vodka through the 6 plates, make my cut, dilute and run again. To summarise

  1. Strip no cuts.
  2. Run through 6 plates and retain hearts.
  3. Dilute hearts and run again through 6 plates
  4. Make cuts and air for a few days.

Is this a fairly solid run protocol for Vodka that I can reliably use? I could possibly squeeze a third hearts run if need be! I guess my goal here is to not make neutral, I have a still for that, what I would like is a nice sipping vodka! I would be keen to hear from anyone that is making a good tipple using 6 or less plates, roof height is a big issue for me and I am sure for many others.

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Comments

  • I do it a little different but only to increase the amount of final product.

    1. Strip no cuts.
    2. Run through 6 plates and retain heads and hearts, discard fores and tails.
    3. Insure the still is well rinsed out. Dilute to under 30% and run again through 6 plates.
    4. Make cuts and air for a few days.
    5. Recycle heads into the the next batch at step number 2 or 3. Discard any tails.
  • edited February 2015

    Had to look it up. For anybody else who doesn't know:

    Weet-Bix

    Weet-Bix is a high-fiber and low sugar breakfast cereal biscuit manufactured in Australia and New Zealand by the Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company, and in South Africa by Bokomo.

    Weetabix

    Weetabix is a whole grain wheat breakfast cereal produced by Weetabix Limited in the United Kingdom. It comes in the form of palm-sized (rounded rectangles approx. 9.5 cm × 5.0 cm or 4" × 2") biscuits. Variants include organic and Weetabix Minis (bite-sized) versions. The UK cereal is manufactured in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, and in Canada and exported to over 80 countries. Weetabix for the North American market (Canada and the U.S) is manufactured in Cobourg, Ontario, in both organic and conventional versions.

    Weetabix is made from whole grain wheat and the version sold in the United Kingdom has 3.8 g of fibre in a 37.5 g serving (2 biscuits). The product sold in North America has 4 grams of fibre in a 35 g serving.

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  • edited February 2015

    @vooharmy the great @minime postulated and proved that "the further you get away from the yeast then the cleaner the vodka will be" or a quote something like that. He stated that the alcohol needs at least 3 times through the still for excellent vodka and I can understand that now by following his advice. Plates or packing does not matter as much as letting the crap/stank stay in the boiler each time.

    Even if you strip each wash and then combine them together into another strip you will be "getting away from the yeast" and leaving unwanted smells and flavors in the boiler each time.
    Most importantly, you can do this 'washing away of flavors and smells' without making cuts as the stank is left in the boiler.

    Collect the "washed" alcohol, heads and hearts, for the spirit run.

    Please smell the stillage (what's left in the boiler) after every run. It is nasty and that is exactly what you want to get out of your vodka.

    Three times gives you GREAT vodka, four times gives you booze with the bite of water.
    Each time leaves the crap in the stillage.

  • @Lloyd I have a multi plate and frame (24pads) wine filter that is used to get the yeast and other solids out of the wine before we bottle it. If I pass the wash through this filter first and get rid of all the yeast and other solids will this help eliminate some or all of the stank? There is no yeast left in the filtered product.

  • This actually makes a lot of sense. My best yields and smoothest vodka was actually achieved through running the wash firstly through a 1 micron filter which removes the yeast. At the time I remember thinking is this a placebo? I never bothered to test it again but I should!

  • edited February 2015

    I could be wrong, but it seems like @Lloyd is referring more to the yeast metabolites, and the flavor and aroma compounds more so than the physical yeast cells. While running a clean initial wash free of yeast will likely help I think the process of repeatedly separating the volitiles from the alcohol water solution is what @minime claims as the trick

  • edited February 2015

    Agreed @brewsmith its all about getting the "ferment" out of the distillate and @minime's jargon is like translating South Texas drawl into normal English. Even though he is Canadian.
    @vooharmy's comment about micron filtering the wash before distillation deserves merit as it make great sense but it is not sometime I have ever done.

    I just know that the offensive stank is left in the boiler and the more times you can make that happen the better your vodka will be. Or use many, many plates.

  • I have considered using a centrifuge to clarify washes and attempt to remove most if not all suspended particles but I have not been able to source one at a price that is reasonable. Not sure how much it will help but I presume it can not hurt.

  • @vooharmy said: This actually makes a lot of sense. My best yields and smoothest vodka was actually achieved through running the wash firstly through a 1 micron filter which removes the yeast. At the time I remember thinking is this a placebo? I never bothered to test it again but I should!

    I use 10, 5 and 1 micron in the final 5 filters when we bottle wine. That ferment @Lloyd talks about is still present after the 10 and 5 micron but is barely noticeable after it goes through the 1 micron In the wine. Interesting though.

  • edited February 2015

    I think @minime was speaking of distillation iterations more than actual physical proximity.

    +1 on the Canadian "Southernisms"

    Sure do miss the little guy!

    Be careful what you say about Texas @Lloyd. Texicans can be a prickly lot when offended... ;)

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • Is little guy still alive?

    Computer, PING @minime!

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  • Yes quit drinkin, met a new woman and is a happy man...

    Last i heard...

  • I have a 4 plate 4" SD bubbler, a 2" x 48" packed section VM column, and a 2" pot still/stripper. The bubbler really shines when making flavored spirits. It cannot compete with the VM for making vodka though. To get the bubbler to make vodka anywhere near what the column produces I have to run the defleg so hard that the take off rate is very slow.

    UJSM stripped on the pot still then run twice through the column makes some kickass vodka (and some kickass gin base spirit too.)

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • @Kapea I think that last comment takes us straight back to the issue of reflux ratios. The VM inherently runs at a higher reflux ratio than the plates. You can get the plates as low as 1:1, but the VM would be unstable if you tried to do that.

    For vodka the higher your reflux ratio the cleaner the product. Thats why it is possible to produce vodka on short packed columns, VERY slowly at high reflux ratios.

    The big problem though is that once you have optimised a packed column to produce clean vodka or neutral it is very difficult to get it to do anything else.

    When I had my VM column packed with SPP I couldn't get it to produce anything other than azeo. I had to take packing out if I wanted to take the product down to say 93%. I ended up relegating my VM to be a specific recovery tool for cleaning up feints, to produce a base spirit for infused products.

  • @Kapea said:
    ...Be careful what you say about Texas Lloyd. Texicans can be a prickly lot when offended... ;)

    I am from south Texas and fluent in southern drawl. Don't much care for grits though.

    UJSM stripped on the pot still then run twice through the column makes some kickass vodka (and some kickass gin base spirit too.)

    Exactly right but probably not as efficient as having a dedicated neutral rig as @Myles suggests.

  • edited February 2015

    Yes indeed. You are both correct. The right tool for the job. My pot still has been relegated to being a stripper, my VM column to producing very neutral azeotrope. They are very good at it. No further mods necessary.

    My SD bubbler and carter head are where the flavored spirits come from. Plenty of wiggle room to experiment with, using my modular stainless "silver things."

    Plates out - a pot still.
    Plates in and defleg cranking - minime's and punkin's silver vodka...
    and all kinds of fancy shit in between.

    I'm not a "cat person" nor a "dog person." I like them all. No need to pick a side and defend it.

    Anyone from Texas who don't like grits must be adopted! ;) :D

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • @Myles said: Kapea I think that last comment takes us straight back to the issue of reflux ratios. The VM inherently runs at a higher reflux ratio than the plates. You can get the plates as low as 1:1, but the VM would be unstable if you tried to do that.

    For vodka the higher your reflux ratio the cleaner the product. Thats why it is possible to produce vodka on short packed columns, VERY slowly at high reflux ratios.

    The big problem though is that once you have optimised a packed column to produce clean vodka or neutral it is very difficult to get it to do anything else.

    When I had my VM column packed with SPP I couldn't get it to produce anything other than azeo. I had to take packing out if I wanted to take the product down to say 93%. I ended up relegating my VM to be a specific recovery tool for cleaning up feints, to produce a base spirit for infused products.

    This is the problem that I have with my current still. Works great for neutrals but is lousy to try and strip with.

  • Say you were at 6 plates, and you had 2' or so more headroom, would you add more plates or a packed column for a better neutral... not considering cost, what method you you choose?

  • edited February 2015

    Packing provides "theoretical plates". The more plates you have the more condense/evaporate cycles you have. More cycles means purer condensate, until you reach the azeotropic limit. Choosing physical plates vs theoretical plates would depend on which would get you to the purest distillate in the space available. Packing material, ease of use, production rate and appearance would all be factors in the decision.

    Would SPP give you more bang for the space than pro caps or sieve plates?

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • @cothermandistilling Thanks for the tip I'll give it a crack!

    @kapea before I bought my SD I did consider having a still with modular packing sections tuned to be 2-4 plates. I was pretty excited about the idea for a while, until I becamed concern about the cleaning! I do wonder from time to time whether this would still be a good option. At the end of the day you could always charge your boiler with water and steam it.

    @lloyd Today begins the run, I'm in the garage doing the first charge now! I'm going twice through six plates with your run protocol. Leaving the heads cut until the final run. Thanks for all the tips I'll let you guys know how I go.

  • edited February 2015

    I do a steam blow after each run on my VM column. She is a 2" x 48" packed section copper column full of SS pot scrubbers. After a run I let the boiler cool a bit, drain it, flush the boiler, fill it up with a few gallons of clean water, fire it back up (propane-fired boiler) and send clean steam up the whole distillation path until the smell of tails have been all blown out.

    I've been running it this way for five years now - probably close to 100 runs. The packed section of the column is two 24" pipes connected in the middle with a copper union. I took it apart at the union a couple of months ago and pulled several scrubbers out from all four ends. Clean as a whistle. The copper pipe has a nice brown patina. No green or blue sulfate buildup. Scrubbers are still bright silver. No sign of deterioration or galvanic corrosion from dissimilar metals either.

    I've never puked her, so I guess that counts for something too.

    Guess she's good to go for another 100 runs...

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • Nice @Kapea, I wish I was as industrious as you are.
    Lately I've been giving the column a good flush of clean water from the top but have noticed my copper plates and caps have lost their shine and have settled in on a dull brown color. Probably will get worse with time and more runs so at some point it will probably need to be broken down and cooked in a warm citric acid solution to get back to pretty red copper.
    Whether or not its really necessary I'm not sure as long as its just brown. When the color turns black (by letting tails sit on the copper) it definitely needs the treatment.

    Note to self: strands of copper mesh were poked into the dephlegmator holes this time instead of stainless scrubby so that needs to be monitored.

  • @Kapea I think that is a good routine. And @Lloyd cleaning to pretty red copper is probably not a good idea. Fresh copper tastes bad. A nice clean patina is supposed to be a good thing on the inside of the still.

  • But will fresh copper make its way up the column and past the dephlegmator?

  • I have found with all my copper builds that after the cleaning runs when the copper is nice and shiny, that I still have to sacrifice a couple of runs. I tend to put some simple junkahol sugar wash through a new copper still until it has developed the patina. The taste from a super clean copper is just "off" somehow.

  • Since realizing that the black deposits on the copper plates and caps were from letting tails sit on them for a few days, I've been flushing the column with fresh water and haven't had the problem anymore.
    Patina good but black crap is just nasty.

  • So for those of us using copper scrubies in the vapor path, we shouldn't be cleaning those to remove the nasty color?

  • @FloridaCracker back flush the packing into the boiler after a run should help. Only take the packing out to clean it properly when you need to, because the colour is bad or you notice an off taste in your product.

    You can over clean your still. Probably the most important thing is to steam clean it if you aren't going to use it for some time. In storage and not clean can lead to problems.

  • @FloridaCracker what @Myles said. You do need to clean the copper and in my experience a good flushing with water does the job. Best if done right after the run.
    If tails are allowed to eat at the copper they will turn the copper black and that's not a good thing.

    Once the black sets in you'll need to cook the copper in a mild acid to restore it and every time you do you will lose a little bit of the copper.

    I put a water valve on the top of my column and love it. Quick and easy compared to pulling the still apart to acid wash the copper bits.

  • edited February 2015

    Copper packing will go black after just a couple of uses even if you flush with water. That's why i don't stock it anymore.

    It needs to be pulled out, soaked in citric and neutralised with a base before being flushed and replaced pretty often.

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