Hello,
I've been using a T500 for a while and tested different washes recipes.
I'm not very happy with results: for me there is too much taste/odor (mainly the the odor in the head & tail). Compared to turbo yeast mash, it's very light. But compared to an industrial vodka, I find it too much. I would like to know if upgrading to longer column (made with china parts, like this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32844022262.html) to increase the height/diameter ratio to 20:1, to reach a higher purity like 95 ABV instead of 90-92 ABV is something that would help me.
Or should I try to polish it with a carbon filter to remove more congenere.
I also tried rdistill a second time hearts from a first reflux but I didn't detect a noticeable difference.
I applied a lot of tricks I gathered on this forum. do a quick stripping (dilute to 20% after stripping) run before spirit run. collect slowly (max 600 ml /h, often less) to have ~ 91-92 % vol. compressing heads tested different washes to get a clean ferment. I think it is wash enough clean: no strong taste (not like a turbo wash) As a homebrewer, I also made several hard seltzer (like a low gravity wash, mine where 5-6 ABV) which requires
a clean fermentation to be drinkable TPW (not easy to do exactly the same recipe in europe as we don't have canned TPW). sugar wash yeast: EC-1118 Ferment at a low temperature (start at 18 °C and rise progressively to 20 °C). O.G: 1.072 pH correction (mesured) for nutrients: some DAP as inorganic nutrients. as organic nutrient, I try (not all at the same time, try different) boiled bread yeast add some crushed barley (10 %) whole wheat grain (10 %)Thanks in advance for any tips!
I don’t see anything in your process about making cuts. How did you do your cuts?
A bad cut is the usual culprit when a spirit tastes too much of heads or tails.Otis’ Pot and Thumper, Dimroth Condenser: Pot-n-Thumper/Dimroth
Learning to Toast: Toasting Wood
Polishing Spirits with Fruitwood: Fruitwood
Badmotivator’s Barrels: Badmo Barrels
I collect everything into small jars. I wait a few days (sometimes weeks) before making cuts.
Most of the time I don't aerate them (apart opening & closing the jars quickly).
I smell the jars, starting from the middle, to detect hearts/tail transition.
I also taste by diluting to different strength (like 20 et 40 ABV) because I have the feeling some components are more noticeable at some specific strength (or taste differently).
Would a longer column (increasing the number of equivalent plate to remove more congenere and by consequence increasing ABV from 92 to 95) make an important difference or would it be barely noticeable ?
Copper "chip" are placed on the top of the column, close/in the dephlegmator/reflux condenser.
However, I recently clean them and compared two distillates (dirty copper one & clean copper one). The latter is better.
I'll try to improve my T500 column by two upgrades: add more copper near the dephlegmator, like copper SPP packing extend the column by adding an extra element to reach 20:1 height ratioDo someone know which of these two upgrades will have the more impact on purity ?
Can I mix two types of packing (like SPP and the one provided with SS T500 column (stainless steel) without a risk of flooding ?
Many thanks for your help!
that's exactly what i started with.
condensors are good.
you need to add another 600mm 2" pipe to make it about 1.1m.
it needs insulation on the 2" pipe (clark rubber in Oz)
edit - on the reflux run
i have 4 x rolls of copper mesh (4 x 100mm = 400mm)
the other 700mm is packed with about 15 x S/S scrubbies (Mr Clean)
do you have a power controller?
i have no problem pulling 96% very clean neutral out of this set-up.
before these upgrades, the product was not the best.Last edited by howie on Sun Dec 18, 2022 11:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Both.
If I were you, I would use the charcoal treatment after the stripping run. This way you would (a) remove a fair amount of the low wines' stinky fats and fusels and (b) still have the possibility to cut the [newly] forming aldehydes up in the beginning of the spirit run.
Making the packed part of the column longer will also lead you to a desired effect. If only a normal counterflow of steam and reflux was maintained, without local choking and voids.
Hehe. That's the thang I was about to offer. But! Redistilled at what concentration?
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Look. At your first (stripping) run you get somewhat 30% to 40% AbV.
During your second (spirit) run you carefully cut the heads (ester-aldehyde fraction) off.
The final finer (third) run - no need to proof your "middle run" product down. Seriously. That's the way to leave the fusels on their bottom. But change the vessels thoroughly closer to the end of the run: 1 ml of concentrated sh!t could screw up all your work.
Cheers, VV
Take a look at this pillar: it is directed straight to the sky, and therefore offends the feelings of the individuals with insufficient potency.
In addition to everything, the pillar is also white...
i've never done copper in the pot, and i'm not saying it's wrong.
but ages ago, i started to put just 2 x rolls of copper in the column on the stripping run.
this dramatically reduced the sulphur compounds in the low wines, and as the final product can't really get any cleaner, i never bothered with copper in the pot.
my personal choice, YMMV
so my stripping setup is pot still mode with just 1 x 500mm column and 2 x rolls of copper.
I've never not had copper in the pot. My research said it should be there, so it has been there from day one.
I've read plenty of opinions on the net from people who think that copper in the vapor path is enough, but the only research documents that I've found didn't come to the same conclusion. I don't feel any need to eliminate copper from a pot to experiment with newbie stiller's and Youtuber's claims that SS boilers topped off with some copper scrubbies will do the job, as the researchers I found already did those experiments for us.
Don't like copper in my condencer during the stripping run (due to blue-ish snot from the spout), as per pot and vapor path - both are OK for me.
But the TS-guy has his main problems with higher monohydric alcohols and not sulphur: imo, T500 is kinda teeny-weeny short-short still, with a bad grade of fractionating, as for "the neutrals".
Take a look at this pillar: it is directed straight to the sky, and therefore offends the feelings of the individuals with insufficient potency.
In addition to everything, the pillar is also white...
huh?
i run pure copper mesh in my riser and NEVER EVEAR have had blue stuff coming out of my still. Stripping or spirit.
I think you might have other issuesMy fekking eyes are bleeding! Installed BS Filters - better! :D
huh?
i run pure copper mesh in my riser and NEVER EVEAR have had blue stuff coming out of my still. Stripping or spirit.
I think you might have other issuesHe said condenser, not riser.
huh?
i run pure copper mesh in my riser and NEVER EVEAR have had blue stuff coming out of my still. Stripping or spirit.
I think you might have other issuesHe said condenser, not riser.now why would that make a difference?
Top of the condenser would be same temp as top of the riser - so what magic happens to create the 'blue snot'My fekking eyes are bleeding! Installed BS Filters - better! :D
It's a good question, buddy... very likely, the point is we have vapors in our risers. And we have kinda condensing liquid down the spout. Thus, we wash away the deposits of sulfur compounds from the walls of the copper cooler. The same sh!t would happen in our risers, too. But those drop back to the pot, if any.
On the inner pipes of my stainless "revolver" such deposits simply do not form. Or they do not settle, because they fly further in gaseous form all over my room.
But once'gain, the TS-fella has to do mostly with fusels, imo.
Take a look at this pillar: it is directed straight to the sky, and therefore offends the feelings of the individuals with insufficient potency.
In addition to everything, the pillar is also white...
It's a good question, buddy... very likely, the point is we have vapors in our risers. And we have kinda condensing liquid down the spout. Thus, we wash away the deposits of sulfur compounds from the walls of the copper cooler. The same sh!t would happen in our risers, too. But those drop back to the pot, if any.
On the inner pipes of my stainless "revolver" such deposits simply do not form. Or they do not settle, because they fly further in gaseous form all over my room.
But once'gain, the TS-fella has to do mostly with fusels, imo.VLAG - i'm a bit confused. If copper in the riser would cause the particulate to fall back into the boiler, the surely you would see those particles in the boiler when you open it up after a run? I have never seen that.
After reading some posts about adding copper mesh to the condenser - i tried it - made no difference that i could tell, and definitely did not puke blue snot.My fekking eyes are bleeding! Installed BS Filters - better! :D
Don't wanna be the reason of your confusion, mate. But I'm sorry to say that never looked a lot onto my spent lees allgrain backset. Normally it looks like a cooked beer and smells sour. It's hardly possible to find any blue or green sulphur scurf there. This bloom should dissolve in that acid bog at all.
I have nothing against the copper condenser during my spirit runs. As for the strips, especially of smth. like Scottish Ultra 80 Peated by Crisp, I don't like to shovel dried snot outta the spout. And I don't soak in acid or backset my copper parts after every run. I like the patina on the internal parts of both my dome and condenser. They make the product not so sharp. That's why I use copper scrubbies and the stainless still for my stripping runs. Saving my Cu-dome and Cu-condenser for a finer work.
Cheers
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Take a look at this pillar: it is directed straight to the sky, and therefore offends the feelings of the individuals with insufficient potency.
In addition to everything, the pillar is also white...
and i thought this forum was for sharing experiences.
my experience was that 2 x rolls of copper eliminated almost all of the sulphur in my S/Sstill (note the "my personal choice YMMV' bit)
unfortunately i couldn't get my hands on a Turbo-matrix 40 trap headspace autosampler , a 500 gas chromato-graph (GC) or a Sulphur Chemiluminescence Detector, so i had to use my nose
Post time 2022-12-17 15:17:31
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