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Using Ultrasound

After investigating this for a while, I have decided to run some trials using an ultrasonic treatment. Some of the guys over on HD have had some success with it so I will try and then share my findings here. I picked up a 2.5 liter capacity at Harbor Freight. It may not last a week but with all of the sales and coupons I was out the door at $72. I have 90 days to beat the shit out of it before the warranty at HF runs out so I will give it hell.

From what I gather, the newer the spirit, the better the result so since I am flush with fresh neutral, rum and UJ I will try it on all three. Right now they are all airing so I will wait for that to finish before I start.

If anyone here is either doing this now or has in the past, please chime in. Or if you just have an opinion.

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Comments

  • Can you enlighten me on the science here please?

  • Uhhh, no, I can't.

    My understanding of what it does is definitely not science but makes sense to me:

    It vibrates the shit out of the spirit which scares the bad stuff and makes it leave. The good stuff is not scared of the vibration or ultrasonic waves, thus it stays. After the bad stuff is gone, the good stuff is left alone to age peacefully and without conflict.

    The aging takes place in minutes instead of years. Goes to show just how much of a bad influence that the bad stuff has on the good stuff. In the very near future, I see coopers looking for other work. There just will be no need for oak barrels anymore.

    OR it could be that I had $62 burning a hole in my pocket and I decided to fuck around a bit.

  • Haha I like your version. i think I remember reading about you guys talking about this from ADI

  • edited June 2015

    @LocalGoat

    There's a thread about it already somewhere

  • @FloridaCracker , best explanation I've seen for it yet :D

  • What about ozone?

  • edited June 2015

    Works for these guys.

  • edited June 2015

    The patent if anyone is interested

    Method and system for purifying ethanol

  • Cool article. You would think that they would get someone who could do better than 1 out of 5 on the taste test. In my experience, sorority chicks don't know a lot about the complexities of alcohols.

  • We have a resident sorcerer on staff that casts purification spells on our alcohol.

  • edited June 2015

    If you could look at spirits on the molecular level you would see that newly distilled spirit molecules have lots of jiggy-jaggy edges sticking out in all directions. This is what makes it taste sharp and hot.

    All molecules vibrate on the molecular level. Over time these vibrations cause the jiggy-jaggy spirit molecule edges to rub up against each other and round off the jiggy-jaggy parts. Less jiggy-jaggy spirit molecules can fit closer together and become even smoother. This is what makes the spirit taste smooth.

    Natural molecular vibration = long time

    Induced molecular vibration (heat, ultra-sound, microwaves) = short time.

    Spirit molecules (like everything) have a natural resonance frequency. The closer to this resonance frequency the inducing frequency is, the faster the aging process happens.

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

  • Wow , Dats what happening. I hit mine in two gallon batches without wood for 2 treatments 25 minutes @ 160 degrees 42 megs then 2 more with wood then in glass or barrel to set for a spell. I have been poppen the cork on my aging containers and hitting it with 2 micron stainless diffusion stone with ether air pump, or O2 when i got it. Mainly UJSSM seems to be helping still playing with the set up.

  • edited June 2015

    Funny, my bourbon tastes much better after being subjected to a few hours of some very loud Sex Pistols.

    I would imagine that creates more jiggy jaggies than it removes, but who knows.

    Summer solstice yesterday, the guys in operations were very productive. We had aligned all the barrel racks into a kind of stonehenge formation. We originally thought the naked maidens would be a distraction, but not so.

  • So what is the verdict then, ozone is bullshit?

  • I am loathe to call bullshit on any "new" way of smoothing out a spirit. In theory, ozone, bubblers, ultrasonic treatment, Sex Pistol exposure, all SHOULD smooth out an early, rough spirit. I would think that it would take an absolute chemist with multiple trials and failures to definitively poo poo any of these ideas.

    But there are always those who believe that everything that can be known already is. They are usually the first to shit on new ideas.

  • jiggy jaggies :))

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  • "Gettin' jiggy jaggy wit' it" - Will Smith

  • @Ak49er said: Wow , Dats what happening. I hit mine in two gallon batches without wood for 2 treatments 25 minutes @ 160 degrees 42 megs

    what is 42 megs? is it 42 kilohertz?

  • I meant to say 42 kilohertz , I know some of the higher end Ultrasonic machines you can change that setting.I found a scratch and dent one off amazon for 200 its a kendal HB-49MHT holds 9 Liters and has a 540 watt heating pad on it

  • Mine's 42 as well but only 160 watt. Running some UJ tonight and while it is running I plan on puttin the jiggy and the jaggy on some neutral that I ran last week. I will probably only bring the temp to about 110 for the treatment.

  • edited June 2015

    @Kapea said: If you could look at spirits on the molecular level you would see that newly distilled spirit molecules have lots of jiggy-jaggy edges sticking out in all directions. This is what makes it taste sharp and hot.

    All molecules vibrate on the molecular level. Over time these vibrations cause the jiggy-jaggy spirit molecule edges to rub up against each other and round off the jiggy-jaggy parts. Less jiggy-jaggy spirit molecules can fit closer together and become even smoother. This is what makes the spirit taste smooth.

    Natural molecular vibration = long time

    Induced molecular vibration (heat, ultra-sound, microwaves) = short time.

    Spirit molecules (like everything) have a natural resonance frequency. The closer to this resonance frequency the inducing frequency is, the faster the aging process happens.

    Like, Wow man. Heaaavvvyy.

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  • edited June 2015

    Isn't using the heat in addition to the ultrasound going to confuse the result? You would at a minimum, need a control group that is exposed to the same level of heat, for the same period of time. Or better yet, use no heat at all. One sample in a jar, one sample in ultrasound, compare both after some set period of time. Would be even better if both samples had the same surface area.

    We already know both air and short-term heat exposure are potential positives.

  • Yeah, I have done FS's nuke treatment before. I probably should just do the US at ambient to start with but it feels like 110 degrees here right now I shit you not. I am going to have so damn many tests going on in the next week between the US stuff and the rum trials.

  • Grim I will give it a try my next run to see if one or the other works better or the same , had not tried the nuke method yet but i would like to sounds like folks are liken it .

  • Double blind or it don't count!

  • @FloridaCracker said: I am loathe to call bullshit on any "new" way of smoothing out a spirit. In theory, ozone, bubblers, ultrasonic treatment, Sex Pistol exposure, all SHOULD smooth out an early, rough spirit. I would think that it would take an absolute chemist with multiple trials and failures to definitively poo poo any of these ideas.

    But there are always those who believe that everything that can be known already is. They are usually the first to shit on new ideas.

    Well I think Johannes might qualify in that respect. I would think that an engineering professor wouldn't risk his career and reputation on a lie and a bottle of vodka. If you read the patent and other articles on how ozone works on a molecular level on odors, well I'm just putting it out there that he may know a bit more than some of us. Just saying.

  • Totally agree. There just seems to be too much going on to discount the claims.

    This just in from a non scientist, non professional, sometimes distilling hack:

    Wife just ran out of "vodka or neutral". Not good around my house but saw it coming as I got behind waiting for all of my still parts to arrive. I have about 1 1/2 gallons of TPW hearts airing out so I decided to pull 1/2 gallon early from airing and go ahead and put it in the US machine. Took a couple of good sniffs to get an idea of what was there. Made a mental note (told you this wasn't scientific) and proceeded to give it 4- 8 minute treatments. 15 minutes in between.

    Whatever I was smelling before it went in is gone and I do mean gone. Barely any smell at all. AND the spirit has warmed considerably during the treatments. Not sure by how much but it is warmer which should mean that more odors would be detectable. Not so.

    I still have a lot of trials to do but the first one definitely looks promising.

  • edited June 2015

    I've got a pretty sizable ozone system in the shop, Clearwater Technologies. We're going to try to stay away from chemical sanitizers in prep for organic certification. Could nuke quite a bit with that monster.

  • FC never tryed with out heat,How warm did it get?

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