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"As I read through the forums I tend to find what I find as a conflict of opinions. Can some of the more experienced people weigh in and clear this up for me the best they can?
I read that when you are running a full reflux column it does not matter how you create your distillate. I interpret many of the posts as stating that the bad flavors will not be present when you are making the pure stuff from the reflux column. I then read a column where someone talks about throwing out a batch because the taste that came out of it was horrible.
So here are my questions:
Does reflux distillation remove the flavor (bad or good) for a 'tasteless' final product?
Are people simply referring to pot stills giving the bad flavors when something goes bad?
If you produce something with a bad flavor in a pot still, can you fix it by running that through your reflux column and removing the flavors?
Thanks,
Blaztaz"
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 Rank: Senior Member Groups: Registered, Moderator
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" Originally Posted by: blaztaz  As I read through the forums I tend to find what I find as a conflict of opinions. Can some of the more experienced people weigh in and clear this up for me the best they can?
I read that when you are running a full reflux column it does not matter how you create your distillate. I interpret many of the posts as stating that the bad flavors will not be present when you are making the pure stuff from the reflux column. I then read a column where someone talks about throwing out a batch because the taste that came out of it was horrible.
So here are my questions:
Does reflux distillation remove the flavor (bad or good) for a 'tasteless' final product?
Are people simply referring to pot stills giving the bad flavors when something goes bad?
If you produce something with a bad flavor in a pot still, can you fix it by running that through your reflux column and removing the flavors?
Thanks,
Blaztaz The thinking is a reflux tower will indeed lessen the actual flavor profile of the likker thats put through it. Since we dont know how a certain person uses the still he has then the results will be subjective to one's own opinion as to the 'tasteless' opinion. You can get much more flavor careover with a gooseneck tower or what one refers to as a potstill. Flavor careover --good or bad again is subjective. To me that flavor may suck but to you it may be heaven. Again if you re-run your likker through a reflux tower it will lessen the flavor profile if the still is used in the proper fashion, but.....and this is the biggie, I have never seen any likker that is ""tasteless"". Neutral - yes and if thats what you are refering to then yes it will clean it up, but tasteless is ones own opinion."
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Rank: Senior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 9/14/2012(UTC)
Posts: 515
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Originally Posted by: blaztaz As I read through the forums I tend to find what I find as a conflict of opinions. Can some of the more experienced people weigh in and clear this up for me the best they can?
I read that when you are running a full reflux column it does not matter how you create your distillate. I interpret many of the posts as stating that the bad flavors will not be present when you are making the pure stuff from the reflux column. I then read a column where someone talks about throwing out a batch because the taste that came out of it was horrible.
So here are my questions:
Does reflux distillation remove the flavor (bad or good) for a 'tasteless' final product?
Are people simply referring to pot stills giving the bad flavors when something goes bad?
If you produce something with a bad flavor in a pot still, can you fix it by running that through your reflux column and removing the flavors?
Thanks,
Blaztaz Hi Blaztaz, I haven't run any pot stilll runs yet so I can't really help there. I have done a few reflux runs. If you run a reflux still correctly and if you had no problems with your wash you should end up with a very high proof neutral spirit. If you drive your reflux column to hard, run too much heat, try to run it to fast you could have several problems. You could burn your wash or smear heads, hearts, and tails. On my first alcohol or cleaning run I used mix of about 6 gallons of old wines and tap water. During this run due to my inexperience I mistakenly thought I had lost control of my rsc controlled heating element. This caused me to run with too much heat. The end result was a product that was cloudy, smelled, and tasted terrible (smeared heads, hearts, and tails). The only real solution was to toss it in with my next run and hope for the best. Thanks to the very helpful members on this forum I did learn alot about my rsc and its proper use. On my next run I had issues with my wash. I hydrated a turbo yeast (very bad) and when the wash got stuck I threw in way too much yeast energizer. Even though I took great care to distill properly, both of these still caused off flavors and smells. A couple of times thru a carbon filtering system and some time just sitting in bottles was the fix for this. This has resulted in a product that regularly beats a $30 premium commercial vodka in blind taste tests. Hope this helps you out. Maddawgs
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Rank: Senior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 1/27/2012(UTC)
Posts: 526
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As Heeler says "Taste " is a subjective thing. Besides that you can not get a completly tasteless product unless you can run a 100% pure product, which is not possible with the common stills we are dealing with.
If the wash/mash stresses the yeast to much then the yeast will produce an abundance of Cogeners creating off flavors which will be carried over in distillation. Also if the wash/mash is not cleared before distillation the residuals, whether yeast particles or mash particles or the combination will produce off flavors and may leave a burned flavor.
If the still is run to hard/fast/hot, whether in pot or reflux, then your heads/tails will be smeared across the whole run. Again causing off flavors.
The flavor of your wash/mash also determines the flavor of the end product. So if your wash/mash sucks then so will your product. Been there done that. Running it through reflux will clean it up some but not completly.
Carbon filtering is known to be able to clean up most of the poor flavors in a bad run. But the best cure for a good product is to start with a good product, learn how to run your still for the flavor profile you want.
Make your runs "LOW and SLOW"= low heat and slow production.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/1/2013(UTC)
Posts: 77
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" Originally Posted by: heeler Neutral - yes and if thats what you are refering to then yes it will clean it up, but tasteless is ones own opinion. I don't have the terminology down yet :) Yes I did mean neutral. So running properly through the reflux tower will remove flavors that people tend to find 'offensive'? That is interesting and makes me wonder why there are all the different recipes for sugar washes. Why add the tomato sauce/paste? Is that to help in the fermentation process? Thanks, Blaztaz"
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the tomato paste(not sauce) is used for nutrients for the yeast and yes refluxing will remove flavors
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
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I will be using electric heat ( I am in an apartment) so I am thinking 'low and slow' will be easier to achieve! I am sure I will have a ton of questions when I start to run the still a bit and get some hands-on experience. It is funny how I read through the forums for so long while waiting for my still to arrive, but once I received it, there are so many things that make more sense to me now that I can visualize the makeup of the still.
Thank you all for your answers!!
Blaztaz
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Rank: Advanced Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 6/1/2012(UTC)
Posts: 157
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" Originally Posted by: blaztaz As I read through the forums I tend to find what I find as a conflict of opinions. Can some of the more experienced people weigh in and clear this up for me the best they can?
I read that when you are running a full reflux column it does not matter how you create your distillate. I interpret many of the posts as stating that the bad flavors will not be present when you are making the pure stuff from the reflux column. I then read a column where someone talks about throwing out a batch because the taste that came out of it was horrible.
So here are my questions:
Does reflux distillation remove the flavor (bad or good) for a 'tasteless' final product?
Are people simply referring to pot stills giving the bad flavors when something goes bad?
If you produce something with a bad flavor in a pot still, can you fix it by running that through your reflux column and removing the flavors?
Thanks,
Blaztaz I have the Brewhaus PSII HC column and had the same questions when I first started. It will become clearer as you develop your own process. Flavors are lost in reflux. I know this because I first used my unit in Pot Still mode and tasted the results. When you run hard and fast, the entire output is mixed (fores, heads, hearts and tails) which is okay if you're eventually going to rerun in reflux, which I do. Low and slow on reflux will distinguish the various parts of the distillate, fores, heads, hearts, tails. This is why it's important to make the 'cuts' to extract the end product. The slower you run your unit the better the output will be if you're going for taste (Pot Still mode). I run hard and fast, when processing sugar washes, the low-and-slow when refluxing the combined output. Works for me. Regards to all."
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Originally Posted by: blaztaz makes me wonder why there are all the different recipes for sugar washes. Many of those recipes are all variations on theme: give the yeast some nutrients (using household goods). Birdwatcher's (tomato paste), Wineo's Plain Old Sugar Wash (WPOSW), Gerber, All-bran, even Deathwish Wheat Germ (DWWG) are all just different ways to get some nutrients into the wash for your yeast since sugar + water lacks those nutrients. Some of the recipes can be run through the pot still to get some flavor carry-over ... like with DWWG or All-bran. I've never tried a gerber yet, but I would think you could bring some flavor forward if you picked the right variety. In any case, when you're running your column there will certainly be bad flavors that come across. But the idea is for the column to separate them into nice compact fractions so when the good stuff comes across all of the bad stuff has already been drawn off (heads) or won't show up until all of the good stuff is already in the jar (tails). Regards, --JB
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/17/2013(UTC)
Posts: 78
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Originally Posted by: blaztaz I will be using electric heat ( I am in an apartment) so I am thinking 'low and slow' will be easier to achieve! I am sure I will have a ton of questions when I start to run the still a bit and get some hands-on experience. It is funny how I read through the forums for so long while waiting for my still to arrive, but once I received it, there are so many things that make more sense to me now that I can visualize the makeup of the still.
Thank you all for your answers!!
Blaztaz Wait till you run it, then the penny will drop, no better learning curve than running a still :-). All you have to remember is the more a still can reflux and refine your wash, the better the result will be. Pot still, flavors, lower abv around 60~80 recent. Needs a strip run then a spirit run. Reflux/boka/t 500ect no flavors, strip run needed for best results. High abv around 90~95 percent. Bubbler/plated column, 3 plates, full flavors like no other still can produce, abv around 90~96 percent with single.run, no strip runs needed. 5 plates upwards, no flavors, best neutral you can produce, ABV 90~96 percent.
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Rank: Senior Member Groups: Registered, Moderator
Joined: 7/25/2009(UTC)
Posts: 2,209
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Originally Posted by: blaztaz I don't have the terminology down yet :) Yes I did mean neutral. So running properly through the reflux tower will remove flavors that people tend to find 'offensive'?
That is interesting and makes me wonder why there are all the different recipes for sugar washes. Why add the tomato sauce/paste? Is that to help in the fermentation process?
Thanks,
Blaztaz Good thinking but remember that all those recipes are not for neutrals but rather some sort of a whiskey. If you want neutrals use a sugar wash. If you have grains available verry cheaply then using grains or other items such as potatoes to produce a neutral is ok too.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/1/2013(UTC)
Posts: 77
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" Originally Posted by: scotty Good thinking but remember that all those recipes are not for neutrals but rather some sort of a whiskey. If you want neutrals use a sugar wash.
If you have grains available verry cheaply then using grains or other items such as potatoes to produce a neutral is ok too. Sorry Scotty, you have confused me a bit here. Which recipes are you saying are for some sort of whiskey? When I do searches for sugar washes on this forum, it shows me the Gerber, Tomato Paste, and other that were mentioned previously. Is there a difference in those and other sugar washes I should be using to make neutrals? Thanks, Blaztaz"
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"I used the toe-mato paste one (From this site) for a sugar wash.I liked the recipe and, I could scale it small to learning's sake.
There are different sugar washes (Here and other distiller sites), but it's still just a sugar wash. The tomato and others are just using differ'nt yeast nutrients is all, from what I can suss." |
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