Some mistakes I made

[famousjorge]

Hello everyone,
I made my first batch with 21 liters of water and 6Kg of Super Market refined sugar. I used Turbo Heatwave as I live in a tropical country where the temperature right now is a blazing 34C. I used the Turbo Carbon and the Turbo Clear. The fermentation took about 4 days. Bubbling stopped and I let it settle for 24 hours after using turbo Clear.
After distillation I noticed a very strong smell but the taste was excellent. I used the Carbon Filter after diluting it to 50%. Still I had a very strong smell. So I filtered it again. Still the same. So I distilled it again. Smell improved but I am still not happy.
I have my second batch on and I decided to do a thorough cleaning. When I took the column apart I found that the inside was still wet from last time and copper saddles had turned black. So I soaked the ceramic saddles in Coke and the copper saddles in Citric Acid. I also thoroughly cleaned the column using Citric Acid.
I also noticed sediments and in the bottom of the boiler when I emptied the leftover wash.
So.

1. Make sure the column and the saddles are clean and have no smell. I made the mistake of distilling a bottle of Bacardi 151 for fun. The smell of Bacardi got in the still as well. T500 is excellent for making a clean vodka. So don\'t try to play around and get some nasty smells into your still and saddles.
2. I wonder if filtering the wash through a ceramic filter (without carbon filter) like Essencia a good idea, which will give me a clean wash to boil. Use two different ceramic filters. One for your wash and one for your spirit.
3. Distilling the spirit about 3 times through the still may make it much better. I will try that next.
4. Use less sugar. My refractometer showed Brix 22. I wanted to reduce it a bit. There are different qualities of Sugar. Getting this reading right before starting the fermentation is what will give you a perfect alcohol. Not all 6KG of Sugar will give you the same reading.
What else can I do? I know I live in extreme weather conditions. But I am looking at doing this large scale for commercial bottling 2 years from now. Of course with a much professional still. Any help appreciated.
Regards
Jorge

[Phantom]

Well, I certainly can't say for certain (no kind of expert), but while the yeast is designed for use in warmer areas/climates, I'd start with that.

Why ? Well if you read around the bazaars, you notice that some wine and mead makers like to use Lalvin's D47 for their products. And yes, while it's one of the wine yeasts that has a somewhat narrower temperature range, if it's used in a ferment that measures above about 70F (21C) it has a nasty habit of producing a lot of fusels.

It's equally possible that something like that is occurring with your ferments. Yes, they do work fine at the warmer temps, but at the same time, it's a complete, but not necessarily a "good" ferment.

Perhaps it's time to see if you can rig up some sort of cooler system for the fermenting to keep the temps down (wet towels etc for "evaporative" cooling as a minimum) ?

As for the saddles etc attracting odour/staining etc ? Well it's hardly surprising is it. The whole point of the copper inline, is to help remove any sulphur compounds from the hot wash, that come from the ferment (or other sources) and if you ran some over proofed Rum, well that's gonna have all sorts of compounds in it, some of which would have stayed in the boiler, but some of them will be light enough to carry up the column.

So your remedial actions of cleaning the saddles etc were probably worth your while, and perhaps something acidic to rinse round the inside surfaces of the column as well

regards

P!

[Capt-Cudellez]

Can't comment on fermenting in hot climates as I live in Scotland. I missed the Scottish summer last year as I was at he barbers getting my hair cut- it was a Saturday afternoon.

The ceramic saddles are a bugger for holding on to flavours. I steam clean the column after each spirit run just running without any cooling. But after doing a masserated gin, I still ended up with a load of liquourice flavoured vodka when I was wanting neutral.
My new column uses SS scrubbers and doesn't have this problem, so pretty sure the packing is the culprit.
The T500 is a great bit of kit for running clean washes, but I'd be wary of putting anything smelly in there.

[Phantom]

Can't comment on fermenting in hot climates as I live in Scotland. I missed the Scottish summer last year as I was at he barbers getting my hair cut- it was a Saturday afternoon.

The ceramic saddles are a bugger for holding on to flavours. I steam clean the column after each spirit run just running without any cooling. But after doing a masserated gin, I still ended up with a load of liquourice flavoured vodka when I was wanting neutral.
My new column uses SS scrubbers and doesn't have this problem, so pretty sure the packing is the culprit.
The T500 is a great bit of kit for running clean washes, but I'd be wary of putting anything smelly in there.

I do like Scotland. Wonderful people, excellent food (feel the arteries hardening by the mouthful, but it tastes brilliant) and picturesque scenery.......the only negatives being the cold and the fucking rain

Can you expand the "new column" thing ? i.e. built or bought etc......

And concur about it being a brilliant still for vodka or neutrals, but a PITA for different washes/mashes/worts etc....

[Capt-Cudellez]

There are some photos of it at the bottom of this topic http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=581

I bought the bits, a mate welded them for me. I modified the connection on the T500 to a triclamp style ferrule for flexibility, works a treat.