Feints Cleanup Run

[PeterC]

I had collected about 11 litres of feints from various runs including Angel yeast experiments, sugar washes etc. and was running out of demijohns to store it. I recently read about the addition of carbonate or caustic to the boiler in spirit runs to clean up the mixture with a hydrolysis reaction converting esters to acids and alcohols. So I added 1 gram of caustic soda per litre of liquid to the boiler and gave it a try. It seems to work very well. Running on 5 plates and a packed section I took 300ml foreshots, 1.2 litres heads and a nice 6 litres of hearts. I then got about a litre or more of tails but these were very rough compared to the normal. Might ditch the tails. This is much better than my previous attempts where the hearts collection has been much lower.
Cheers.
Peter C.

[RC Al]

I gave this a go recently with sodium carbonate, sure dose work.. totally killed any flavour in the heads n hearts, got a slight aftertaste, but it was only run through 3 plates and out at 90%
Dont do this to flavoured washes
Im kinda peeved, i like my feints runs... this lot has no character at all :doh:

[Wellsy]

Thanks for the heads up RC.

[PeterC]

I gave this a go recently with sodium carbonate, sure dose work.. totally killed any flavour in the heads n hearts, got a slight aftertaste, but it was only run through 3 plates and out at 90%
Dont do this to flavoured washes
Im kinda peeved, i like my feints runs... this lot has no character at all :doh:

That's what I wanted, clean neutral for gin. Feints from sugar washes and a mixture of different grain runs are never going to be a good thing.