Lab (glass) setup suggestions

Warthaug

As part of my goal of improving my distilling I've bought a small-scale lab-type still (1L boiling flaks, Vigreux reflux column, Liebig condenser, 0.5L receiving flask) which I am using mostly to test some gin recipes at small scale, and to play with some unusual yeast to see what they may add to a product. So far I've been quite happy with it, but for two things:
Because there is no copper in the system, some of the distillates have a pretty strong sulphur aromaThe vigreux column doesn't always give as much reflux as I may wantI was wondering if anyone here has had any experience with these types of systems and had found good ways to resolve these issues? I've tried adding a bit of copper mesh at the top of the column, where the vertical column meets the condenser arm, which ironically seem to improve the reflux without stripping much sulphur.
Thanks
BBrewer for decades, dabbler in distilling trying to get better at the craft.

NZChris

You should clean up the sulfides while making the base spirit, not when making the gin.  On the few occasions when I've forgotten to put copper in my SS mini gin stills, I haven't noticed any sulfides in the finished product.

Warthaug

That's what I'm trying to do - e.g. copper mesh at the top of the column when doing the stripping run. But even with that I'm getting a lot of sulphur, and it persists even if I leave the copper in-place during the spirit run.Brewer for decades, dabbler in distilling trying to get better at the craft.

NZChris

I’m not surprised. It’s the wrong still for making the base spirit. It has no copper in the boiler or condenser for the stripping run and no copper in the boiler for the spirit run.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 0450.x/pdf

Warthaug

Thanks for the link. I wonder if adding copper mesh to the boiling vessel, plus the stuff already in the column, would be a fix? The goal is to keep a lot of this stuff small-scale until I hit upon combo's I like, so I'd like to stick with the existing scale for now.Brewer for decades, dabbler in distilling trying to get better at the craft.

NZChris

Trying to make enough clean spirit for gin trials in a 1l still would be very hard work.  I do a lot of small gin runs, but the base spirit is made about once a year in a much larger still.

howie

the base i use is only heart of hearts, made in my reflux still, i don't think you should be 'cleaning' anything up on a small run.
i keep a couple of 5l jars with 95% HofH neutral, ready to dilute for gin runs in the glass lab.
i played with the vigreux column and refluxing, but i don't bother with it now.
it does raise the abv by 6-8%, but a little 300mm column doesn't do much.
i make sure my neutral is good first.

Warthaug

Damn, not what I wanted to hear. I'm doing a lot of these small runs using odd yeasts that produce (hopefully) gin-complementing flavours. About 10% are good...the others range from a bad sugar shine through to toilet cleaner. Don't really want to be making more than a few liters of the base with them until I know if they'll be good or not.Brewer for decades, dabbler in distilling trying to get better at the craft.

Tummydoc

In my hands cuts were difficult even with a 5 gallon still. Much easier with a keg boiler. With a 1 liter still and a 30% ABV spirit run you'd be lucky to have 75cc of non smeared hearts.

howie

i don't quite understand what you are doing, but i'm a novice too.
for my gin neutral i make 100l of FFV, strip it in pot still mode, then do a spirit run with my reflux column.
only then do i choose the neutral for gin making.
as far as i know, most commercial gin makers use GNS, i use heart of hearts from the spirit run.
i may be wrong, but i'm not aware of any 'gin-complementing' yeasts, what are they?

Warthaug

In my "other life" I'm a brewer, and I've focused a lot of my brewing on the use of wild and other odd yeasts. Many of these produce esters and phenolic compounds that may complement the flavours of gin (citrus, tropical fruits, black pepper, clove, etc). I've been trying to produce base spirits with these yeasts on a small scale (4L ferments), to then distill to something more like whitedog than NGS for use in gin preparations (I'm using oden's recipe as a base for everything). I'm trying to stick to small scale for now so that I can test as many yeast as possible and then scale up once I've got one (or a few) that I like.Brewer for decades, dabbler in distilling trying to get better at the craft.

howie

In my "other life" I'm a brewer, and I've focused a lot of my brewing on the use of wild and other odd yeasts. Many of these produce esters and phenolic compounds that may complement the flavours of gin (citrus, tropical fruits, black pepper, clove, etc). I've been trying to produce base spirits with these yeasts on a small scale (4L ferments), to then distill to something more like whitedog than NGS for use in gin preparations (I'm using oden's recipe as a base for everything). I'm trying to stick to small scale for now so that I can test as many yeast as possible and then scale up once I've got one (or a few) that I like.ok, sounds like an interesting experiment, keep us all posted.
are you using sugar or AG washes?
i've heard of different yeasts complimenting different beers, but never thought of applying it to gin.
closest thing i've done to a brewing crossover was a hopped gin with Columbus hops a few weeks ago, that turned out nice.

Warthaug

Wow, did I drop the ball on replying to this. I've tried this a few times, using kveik yeasts which throw citrus character and pot/minimal column distillation to try and keep some of those flavours around. I was reasonably successful at capturing these flavours using a stripping run + 1 run through a modest-length column. I won't claim my distillations were steller - my cuts could have been better - but I was able to capture some of that citrus-like character in the distillate.
The captured flavour disappeared completely into the gin - it simply wasn't strong enough to stand out against the herbals plus the final distillation. Maybe someone with a better palate could find the notes, but to my palate it tasted basically the same as my previous gins using a "cleaner" distillate.Brewer for decades, dabbler in distilling trying to get better at the craft.

Saltbush-Bill

Learn to make really clean base spirit using a larger reflux still....once you can do that successfully add flavours by running again through the small glass still......trying to get flavour into gin by using different yeasts is the wrong way imo.