Not real happy with my results

by **TJM** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 12:38 am

Hey fellas iv got a little problem, I'making neutral spirit it's coming out between 90 to 95% depending on how fast I run it. It smells fairly clean when it's at this percentage but as soon as I diluted it to 40% with tap water it brought out a shitty mashy smell. Any suggestions would be great.

by **R-sole** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:54 am

Without knowing anything about your equipment, wash, fermentation conditions, procedures or methods...

I can still say, make a clean wash at 12-14% abv.

Strip it as fast as you like and collect the distillate, water it down to 40%. Add 1 tsp per litre of baking soda, and when you have enough for a boiler charge leave for a week.

Charge your boiler and bring it up to temperature, if it has the ability to boil slowly without taking anything off, then turn the heat down low and let it equalise for an hour, bleed foreshots and heads (should be tween 10-20% of your total content in the boiler) at a couple of drips a second. Collect in small bottles, when all traces of sweetness and taste of heads is gone, collect a little faster in bottles a little larger till you have collected all the hearts, once tails are reached be quick to monitor taste and temp and switch bottles out.

Keep only what tastes good from the small bottles when watered down 1 tsp of spirit ti 1 tsp of water. If there is a slight hint of tails discard it into the collection pot for your next run. Any heads taste should have it kept out too.

Water down to 40% using an online or paper calculation and using bottled spring water.

by **TJM** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:45 am

Wow thanks for the reply. Looks like there is a lot of things I'm not doing. Cheers mate

by **SBB** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:00 pm

5Star wrote:Strip it as fast as you like and collect the distillate, water it down to 40%. Add 1 tsp per litre of baking soda, and when you have enough for a boiler charge leave for a week.

Is it good idea to do this with all stripped neutral washes ??? Im pretty happy with what I'm producing now, but there is always room for improvement.
SBB

by **MacStill** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:02 pm

I reckon it is SBB ;)

by **Heffers** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 6:17 pm

G'day TJM,

I had the same problem a couple of months ago after running my first TPW. It smelt terrific at full strength but would burn the shit out of my nostrils when diluted to 40%. I ended up putting it on carbon for a week and that cleaned it up well enough to flavour and drink. The next batches of TPW got stripped and run through again which produced a perfect spirit without the need to filter.

After speaking to a couple of the boys on the forum, I reckon that it was the water I was using to dilute (5Star elluded to this when he mentioned using bottled spring water for dilution)

Anyway mate, I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in the problem that you have encountered.

Cheers, Heffers

by **TJM** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:05 am

some great info guys. I ended up with almost ten litres of between 90-95% so i might distill it again and dilute with spring water. What does the baking soda do to the stripped washes?

by **R-sole** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:16 am

Compresses the heads volume.

by **Stephen** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:39 am

I realize this is an old thread. But is the baking soda trick pretty much a standard distilling 101 standard across all flavors, or just for plain vodkas?

by **R-sole** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:54 am

Only for neutral mate.

by **Stephen** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 12:09 pm

Sweet, thanks

by **adama** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 5:52 am

Even though the tap water here is good, I only dilute with water that I've boiled and cooled down.
Sometimes I buy water if in a hurry.

by **law-of-ohms** » Sat Jun 30, 2012 2:07 pm

+1 on the baking soda!

Only got a pot still going ATM and need to tripple run my neutrals.

It gets the baking soda treatment both times.

Turns out pretty good @ 70% off the still, below that I re-run again, and again and again.......

Most of the run the third time comes out above %80