Distilled product smells of tomato paste

[Cherry1]

Hi,
Apologies if this is elsewhere. i am also a newby first run was a turbo last weekend.
Just running my first TPW through my Pure Distilling spirit maker still.
The foreshots and first 250ml of heads have a reasonably strong tomato paste smell???? Still is still running.
Fermentation went well and left a couple of days after getting down to 0.990
What should I do?
Thanks

[Cherry1]

Update through the process :o Taken off 1.5l still strong smell of tomato paste :sad:

[Peregian]

Not sure of your type of still and how it operates.

I have also not done a tomato paste wash for along time, I just do the FFV and get good results.

Things I do..............

(1) When the wash has finished fermenting, regardless of the type of wash, I always "rack it off" and leave for several days.

(2) Do a fast stripping run using a pot still, take product down to about 25% ABV.

(3) Re-distill very slowly using a reflux still.

The second distillation using the reflux still should remove most flavours leaving a nice neutral product.

Assuming the tomato paste recipe was done by the book a second slow reflux distillation should take care of any odd smell/flavor.

If your not sure of the result do a FFV and compare

[Cherry1]

Not sure of your type of still and how it operates.

I have also not done a tomato paste wash for along time, I just do the FFV and get good results.

Things I do..............

(1) When the wash has finished fermenting, regardless of the type of wash, I always "rack it off" and leave for several days.

(2) Do a fast stripping run using a pot still, take product down to about 25% ABV.

(3) Re-distill very slowly using a reflux still.

The second distillation using the reflux still should remove most flavours leaving a nice neutral product.

Assuming the tomato paste recipe was done by the book a second slow reflux distillation should take care of any odd smell/flavor.

If your not sure of the result do a FFV and compare

Hi Peregian,
Thanks for your response, did a search with zero results, what is a FFV (dumb newby)?
With my still do not believe I can do a slow reflux distillation, but I am happy to be corrected.
Unfortunately I do not have a pot still.
cheers
Chris

[Zak Griffin]

Did you syphon the clear wash into the boiler, leaving the yeast etc in the fermenter?

[Peregian]

This is the link to the FFV................

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=8009&hilit=teddy%27s+ffv

Sorry I can't help with your type of still.

[Cherry1]

Did you syphon the clear wash into the boiler, leaving the yeast etc in the fermenter?

It had settled really well, the boiler looked good.

[Cherry1]

This is the link to the FFV................

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=8009&hilit=teddy%27s+ffv

Sorry I can't help with your type of still.

Cheers Peregian. Will be lots of trial and error over the next few months. Sure I will drink anything that comes out :obscene-drinkingdrunk: Before I hand out anything to friends.

[Cherry1]

Another update. Everything still smells of tomato paste, but even the fore-shots smell nicer than the hearts of the turbo I did last weekend :music-deathmetal:
Assume I will need to take all down below 40% and re-distill in an attempt to get rid of the smell? Or I could use it in my next bolognaise.

[EziTasting]

Did you syphon the clear wash into the boiler, leaving the yeast etc in the fermenter?

It had settled really well, the boiler looked good.

Just throwing my thoughts in here ... this sound like you fermented IN the boiler ...

What Zak is talking about here (not trying to teach you how to suck eggs) is let your fermenter sit additional time until it looks all clear (TPW has a pinkish tinge thru it), then you syphon off (racking off) the clear liquid that sit on top of the solids at the bottom of the fermenter. This cleared fluid ONLY get put into the boiler... then you run your boiler... is this what you did?

The more info you give us the better we can guide you.

[Plumby]

I ran tpw for years syphoning straight out of the fermenter into the boiler b4 I made my pot still, i never had any tomato paste flavour carry over.
If you fermented in the boiler then when it was finished fermenting you turned the boiler on to run the wash you will have disturbed all the trub and leftover yeast that had sunk to the bottom, henceforth tainting your spirit.
If you syphoned only clear wash out of a fermenter into you're boiler then mabey you had a puke and got a bit of wash up the column, which will contaminate your spirit.

[Cherry1]

The wash was fermented in a fermentation container then siphoned off in to the boiler. As noted in previous post, the mash had settled well and no sediment was disturbed when transferring.
The mash was pinkish, not clear but certainly not cloudy.

[Lowie]

The wash was fermented in a fermentation container then siphoned off in to the boiler. As noted in previous post, the mash had settled well and no sediment was disturbed when transferring.
The mash was pinkish, not clear but certainly not cloudy.

I have found I always got an ever so slight tomato smell/taste with this wash. Sounds like you might need to leave yours a bit longer to clear too. As Peregian said, the FFV, IMHO is far superior and gives a slighty wheaty taste which you may not pick up with your reflux still - which isn't neccessarily a bad thing. If you continue to struggle with the TPW then try something different like Zak's cornflake wash, the Kale or the neutragrain wash.

[Cherry1]

The wash was fermented in a fermentation container then siphoned off in to the boiler. As noted in previous post, the mash had settled well and no sediment was disturbed when transferring.
The mash was pinkish, not clear but certainly not cloudy.

I have found I always got an ever so slight tomato smell/taste with this wash. Sounds like you might need to leave yours a bit longer to clear too. As Peregian said, the FFV, IMHO is far superior and gives a slighty wheaty taste which you may not pick up with your reflux still - which isn't neccessarily a bad thing. If you continue to struggle with the TPW then try something different like Zak's cornflake wash, the Kale or the neutragrain wash.

Cheers Lowie, may need to try a few others.

[Sam.]

How fast where you taking the product off in Litres per Hour?

Any what % ABV where you collecting at?

[PeterC]

Hi, I looked up your still and it has a similar boiler to the T500 but has a small liquid managed reflux still. I had something similar and it was finicky to run. What %ABV are you getting? You control the quality of this by the liquid take off and it needs to be slloooowwwwww. About 2 no more than 3 drops a second and you should be getting 90% or better. On mine I found the packing got fouled easily if you did not clean it out.

My thoughts are if you can remove the packing do a stripping run first where you can just let it run fast, like small steady stream. Then put you packing in and run again diluting your strip to below 40%

Even better put a pelican type pot still on it for stripping or a second run with DWWG or FFV (what is your preference Peregian?)

Read this thread viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10930

[Cherry1]

How fast where you taking the product off in Litres per Hour?

Any what % ABV where you collecting at?

Hi Sam
Didn't time but would be around 1l per hour, a drip not a trickle.
Collecting around 92%

[Cherry1]

Hi, I looked up your still and it has a similar boiler to the T500 but has a small liquid managed reflux still. I had something similar and it was finicky to run. What %ABV are you getting? You control the quality of this by the liquid take off and it needs to be slloooowwwwww. About 2 no more than 3 drops a second and you should be getting 90% or better. On mine I found the packing got fouled easily if you did not clean it out.

My thoughts are if you can remove the packing do a stripping run first where you can just let it run fast, like small steady stream. Then put you packing in and run again diluting your strip to below 40%

Even better put a pelican type pot still on it for stripping or a second run with DWWG or FFV (what is your preference Peregian?)

Read this thread viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10930

Cheers Peter.
Still is running bang on to manufacturers recommendation. As mentioned 92% and a steady drip.
The packing has been cleaned.
Intend to do a second run this morning after watering down.

[Cherry1]

Whatever went wrong first time around has been fixed up with second distilling. Smell has gone.
Will be starting fermentation on another couple of batches this weekend.
Any final thoughts on why the smell came through?
My only thoughts are that I did transfer some sediment over to boiler or the wash had not cleared enough?
Cheers

[ed9362]

im pretty sure i have the same still and i do get a slight tomato smell/taste on my first run. I always collect the first run as low wines water it back to 40% and then do a spirit run and the spirit comes out just fine after that. I just run my washes as soon as its finished, don't worry about clearing it too much. i always thought this was the cause of the slight smell on my first run