Damnit, I wrote a nice explaination to your problem, or situation as it may be and damn it I erased it!!! Have another shot!! Anyway, here is my thoughts and proceedures that I have found that works for me, take it for what its worth.
1. Doing a sugar wash, make sure to let the brew completely ferment. Once you think its done, wait another couple days. Then when you get ready to pour it into the pot, take a syphon hose and carefull put it in the wash above the yeast at the bottom. Blow, or bbetter yet hook it up to an airsupply, and degas the wash thoroughly, say five minutes, or three beers which ever comes first.
2. CLEAN, CLEAN CLEAN your still!!! Are you using coppen scrubbers in the column? If so, do they coime out black and smelly at the end of the batch? I used them and then got some good grade of copper mesh and it still came out foul. Sooooooooo, I went to the cermic rings and use only a small pad of good copper on the bottom of the column to hold the rings in place. Made all the difference in the world in my batches. Putting excessive rings in the bottom of the pot helps hold the temp even also. My pot is ss beer keg and the column is all copper, soooooo I really don't need the copper mesh inside it for taste flavor etc.
3.Filtering, Stone carbon, boil it first when you get it to get the chemicals from manifacture out and then I run about five gallons of boining water thru it before using, when that all runs out and nothing is dripping on the bottom of it, I run the product. Takes about two hours for a gallon of product. DO NOT CUT THE PRODUCT BEFORE FILTERING!!!!! You willhave to boil the carbon every third time or so to remove the fusal oils from it. Remember the carbon has microscopic cell which trap and hold the fusal oils in it. Good way to tell if its working is to smell the boiling pot when you are washing the carbon, will stink to high heaven. oils lkeaving!!!
4. I put oak chips in my jar of finished, filtered product before cutting and leave them in there, On white liquors, I don't use the oak, because it will color it brown, don't bother me but gin is not supposed to be brown!!!
Thats about it, thats what I have learned to do and it works for me. Oh, is your still ss or copper? The one area that I did not cover is the welds on ss. They need to be acidized to remove all the welding flux on them or you will get a very,very bad taste. If you bought the still, that should have been done but look it over to make sure. Steam will not get it all out. Use nitric acid on the welds and then soda and lots of water and wire brush, perferable a motorized one that will polish the weld.... hope this helps a little, we all need to share our experiences with others in order to advance our own knowledge...good hootch is hard to come by.....Jimbull
