Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

sp0rk wrote:

jacobraven wrote:Metho is just 95% ethanol 5% methanol essential the reason you remove foreshots to rid the wood alcohol. The poison is methanol.

If you're buying Digger's metho (it's what most places in Aus sell), as per my link to their MSDS it's only ethanol and water

woodduck wrote:Why are you buying metho? Don't we produce it every time we run the still? I've got that much methanol/ heads I don't know what to do with it :wtf:

1 2many wrote:The one down side to this SSP is that it won't be any good for removing sulphides. ;-)

1 2many wrote:Can you tell me how you make your washes with out sulphides in them :think:

hoochlover wrote:

1 2many wrote:Can you tell me how you make your washes with out sulphides in them :think:

You can make washes low in sulphides, I don't think sugar washes are laden with it and I only want to make neutrals. As to the detection rate of sulphides in a good wash vs the copper flavor, maybe it's personal taste. Not sure yet.

Personally I really dislike the copper taste I got when distilling water in the copper rig I have, which means that even if I'm at 96% purity, 4% remaining water has some copper in it. I don't have the alcohol taste buds developed enough like a lot of people here...... and I couldn't taste copper in my alcohol from same rig, but I could in the water.

Knowing what I know about copper and that it is very there in distilled water, if I can remove it's use I will seek that. I can only really finding out by removing its use in a batch and seeing what happens. I'm still trying to find the fermentation setup I want to commit to.

Sam. wrote:So you don't mind the rotten egg smell from a TPW with no copper in the still?

Sam. wrote:Well mate you might want to wait before posting results from things that you haven't actually done.

Obviously the stilling bug has bit you hard but you might want to slow up a bit :handgestures-thumbupleft:

hoochlover wrote:

Sam. wrote:Well mate you might want to wait before posting results from things that you haven't actually done.

Obviously the stilling bug has bit you hard but you might want to slow up a bit :handgestures-thumbupleft:

What results did I post prematurely? :)

I have opinions on certain things but I try not to post results or form strong conclusions unless there is strong enough evidence. I want to try copper free because that is what the best russians do so I'm going to copy them and see if it works.It's possible it may not, maybe Russians don't have the sulfide sensor in their tongue or something. ;)

bayshine wrote:Have to agree with Sam on this one :handgestures-thumbupleft:
All distilled water tastes like crap to me and they say its due to no oxygen in it
My neutral always had a slight metallic taste with staino scrubers to me but when I went to mac's copper mesh its never taste better :handgestures-thumbupleft:

hoochlover wrote:

bayshine wrote:Have to agree with Sam on this one :handgestures-thumbupleft:
All distilled water tastes like crap to me and they say its due to no oxygen in it
My neutral always had a slight metallic taste with staino scrubers to me but when I went to mac's copper mesh its never taste better :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yeah well I can't really detect it in my Vodka I made through the same still but it's extremely easy to taste it in the water. You guys with copper rigs should try distilling some water and seeing how it tastes. :) It could just be my still, who knows. I've only tried one copper distillation unit.

There is a lot of evidence that copper helps removes hydrogen sulfide in the distillation process. I'm not denying that at all. And maybe for brown spirits a copper still is the best when it comes to taste, I have no idea. For me personally, just me and my neutral desire, if I can find a way to not use copper at all by removing the hydrogen sulfide another way I will be happy.

Ken recommends using Sodium Carbonate to reduce the amount of fusel oils present ..

.. try sodium carbonate @ 4.5 grams/ litre, add it when the wash temperatire is at 35-40 degrees C, add slowly then continue with your distillation in the normal manner. Sodium Carbonate is used in the production of soap and it combines with the oils to form a compound that does not evaporate at the normal distillation temperatures that we are using. Voila, cleaner spirit, less carbon treatment needed and more happy faces.

Mike warns though ..

It's OK to add baking soda or other alkali to a STRIPPED wash, but NEVER put it in the primary ferment and then distill. If you do, and your still contains ANY copper, you will severely corrode the copper, and get blue, ammonia-smelling distillate. Not fun!

Rob details the bicarb advantage too:

Assumptions and facts:
1. A well run column distillation will separate a mixture into fractions based on the boiling points of the components.
2. There will be some overlap in most real-life stills.
3. ethyl acetate can be smelled at very low concentrations
4. acetic acid cannot (it has a higher flavour threshold)
5. under neutral or acidic conditions acetic acid will esterify to some extent in the presence of ethanol.
6. sodium acetate is not volatile
7. sodium bicarbonate will neutralise acetic acid.
8. sodium bicarbonate may hydrolyse ethyl acetate to a greater or lesser extent.
9. Adding sodium bicarbonate at some point between a stripping run and final distillation has the effect of decreasing the volume of fractions collected which smell of ethyl acetate.
10. Adding sodium bicarbonate at some point between a stripping run and final distillation has the effect of making the main fraction "cleaner smelling"
11. without bicarb the main fraction _can_ smell of ethyl acetate (ymmv)
12. Sodium acetate is not esterified by ethanol.

Questions:
1. Why is there ethyl acetate in the fractions after the heads? (no NaHCO3)
2. What does NaHCO3 addition do?
3. How do we best (read easiest) use it?

Rob's Answers/Opinions (currently!):
1. During distillation (after column stabilization) ethyl acetate is being formed in the boiler/column. This is why it continues to be present even after heads removal. (see assumptions 1, 5, 11)
2. Bicarb addition neuralises acetic acid, preventing ethyl acetate formation, distillation of acetic acid, and hence future esterification. (see assumptions 6, 7, 9, 10, 12)
3. Bicarb addition can hydrolyse ethyl acetate, thus decreasing it's quantity (see assumptions 8, 9)
4. There is actually a tiny amount of ethyl acetate about, but it is highly noticable (assumption 3). Using bicarb (as opposed to hydroxides) actually has a rather small effect on the amount of esters in the mix. What it does (primarily) is to prevent further formation, and hence allowing the still to do its job without the moving target of continually increasing ester concentrations in the boiler.
5. Based on this lot, adding bicarb at the start of the final distillation is sufficient, as neutralisation of acetic acid is instantaneous.