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In this Discussion
- CothermanDistilling November 2015
- crozdog November 2015
- FullySilenced January 2015
- Kapea February 2015
- Lloyd February 2015
- luckyliqueur January 2015
- Myles February 2015
- punkin November 2015
- SDeurope February 2015
- Smaug November 2015
- Sunshine January 2015
- TheMechWarrior November 2015
- XEIP November 2015
Comments
I would not have a problem running both products on the one configuration.
I ran wine through a 6" 5 plate plus 500mm packed section to make neutral.
One day out of curiosity I turned off the RC and all plates remained loaded and the product out was a divine tasting 92%abv that went straight onto oak for aging as brandy (diluted back to ~64%abv). 6 months in and this is by far better than any brandy we have for sale in any of our local bottle shops. It was from a 94' Pinot and a 92' Chardonnay. 18 months to go.
So it is possible to carry over flavour, if you wanted more flavour just up the power to drop the abv.
As for the gin, either place all your botanicals in the still and be done with it or place them in a basket after your column, up to you. I've seen gin made on columns in both configurations.
Under the scenario above life is made easy by not having to constantly change your configuration but you now need to consider your CIP programs between runs more than before. Particularly if charging the boiler with botanicals, for that reason I'd be going the basket after the column approach. Keeping life simple. ~O)
Cheers,
Mech.
Thank you all, every comment is a help for me! Reading every opinion I see that all depends on the quality of our neutral, and this is the best starting point to obtain a quality product. I did not know read previous comments and I was sure I could not improve quality of commercial neutral. One more question, what would you recommend me for the gin run in your experience ? Maceration? Maceration for hard botanicals and GBK for the rest or only use GBK? what would be your starting point?
@TheMechWarrior , two speriences whit a column with cider made me know that the temperature of the column is very important, a high temperature does not let us separate odors and very low temperature rectify a lot our spirit. In particular with very aromatic ciders it is a heartache for us. 8 or 9 months taking care of our cider to finally pull away smells and flavours is not right!!!! I can not wait to see working SD.
Absolutely I appreciate all comments and advices.
Thank you
another issue of using a column before a GB is that you are likely to stop when alcohol drops, but some aromatics come out with water more than air, and you are never sending vapor that is strong in water through the basket. This is also an issue with changing the basket, which sounds good on paper, but is considered nothing but trouble by larger artisan distilleries.
@Crozdog your recommendation of experimentation is very very interesting for me, Thank you @CothermanDistilling it seems that you see more interesting maceration, perhaps easier? there are many variables that only experience brings, fortunately there are a lot of friendly and full of knowledge people in this forum.