What would happen if you were to go ahead and distill while its cloudy?
I went ahead with the 1 gallon ,slightly less, that I had already semi cleared. I only have a 1 gallon water distiller, and siphoned off the top and put in the distiller. About 45 minutes later ,the mash was 5c starting temp,, I started seeing some output. I capped off the first 20ml or so ,it was VERY sweet,, and continued. I output about 20oz and it tested about 70%, then pulled in an extra 12oz at 45%. The 2nd set has a much stronger 'paint thinner' smell to it. The first 20oz is drinkable as it is ,similar to taste to cheap 80proof rotgut vodka, but much stronger,. I think I got almost all of the ethanol out of it. I was computing at about 16% ,unfortunately I did not compute starting hydro weight so I am not 100% sure,. At 16% starting mash content, I compute about 19.2 oz ethanol ,120 oz starting mash,, and my result computes to 19.4 oz, so I think I got most of it.
So my observations were that the cleared ,but not clear, mash worked out just fine ,in my simple pot still,. Note while clearing with cold/time, I certainly DID see a definate clearing line within the containers ,they were clear glass,. I did not notice a 'bad' smell from the distillation, nor does the product smell/taste burnt.
Now, it is possible that I had cleared 'enough', but something like disolved CO2 or something like that was keeping things cloudy?
Also note, the 1 gallon water distiller does work, but I am sure that the hooch produced is far from the quality of a good fractional column. However, for me just starting out, I plan on multiple distilling and running through a 1.5m activated carbon column ,as documented by Gert,.
Jim.
