T500 with rye, barley, corn, wood aging

by **Jph** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:48 am

Hello everyone! I have a question and really would appreciate help and opinions.
With the T500 is there any point to getting sugars from barley rye or corn... Fermenting it then distilling that... Does this still strip all the flavors from a wash?
Can this still make whiskey worthy of aging in oak?
Any way to do it?
Thanks a bunch!

by **Andy** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:55 pm

Welcome to the forum.

The T500 is a great still congratulations.

The bad news is yes the T500 being as good as it is will remove \"most\" of the flavor from the wash.

I use the SS Classic bourbon flavor and wood chips and everybody enjoys it.

I have just purchased an oak barrel of 9 litres and filled it with my normal mix 2 weeks ago, I will be trying it tonight to see if its changed for better or worse.

by **Jph** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:59 pm

Thanks Andy,
Is it because of the saddles that so much flavor is taken out or just because of the design? I\'ve never used a reflux before. Will running without the saddles make any difference?
Thanks again.
Jeremy

by **MrCat** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 6:46 pm

What a reflux column does is lots of re-distillations in the column to get a high ABV.
Home Distiller has a much better description than I could type of the differences between a pot still ~(which keeps flavour but does not produce such high ABV) and a reflux column
http://www.homedistiller.org/types.htm#reflux
There is a section on reflux design
http://www.homedistiller.org/refluxdesign.htm
Quick answer - remove the packing and you will have fewer re-distillations and retain more taste but you will get a lower ABV.
Bit more detailed answer.

If you are getting an ABV of about 94% on a single run (without putting the wash back through the T500 again) then you have about 8 or 9 redistillations happening as the vapour moves up the column (the vapour condenses on the column packing, loses some heat, gains a bit more from vapours coming up the column and when it evaporates again increases in purity)

The fewer re-distillations the lower the ABV and the more taste.
The way I\'ve started to think about it (and this might not be right but makes sense to me) is that ethanol is ethanol. It\'s clear and it\'s flavourless. Your wash contains the flavours. If you have 94% ABV then you only have 6% flavour. If you have 50% ABV then you have 50% flavour.
So the lower the ABV you get out the more flavour, the higher the ABV you get out then the less flavour.
Does that make sense ?
Hope this helps.

by **Jph** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:28 pm

Makes a bunch of sense....
So now correlating that to what I currently do with my \"hillbilly\" style pot still... I usually start getting 70% than go down to 50% then stop collecting... With a final product around 63ish... Which is then aged in some kind of oak than cut to 45% with purified water and turns out a spectacular product.... The reason I want to go T500 is because I hate my method with bread doe seals, such small quantity produced, clean up is terrible ect... But I still want the good product and don\'t want to spend the coin just to test and see...
So....If I get the t500 and do not pack it except with maybe 1 copper Brillo pad.. I wonder what alcohol content I would get and what flavor would remain... Unfortunately I\'m only a whiskey drinker and not interested in using the essence packs.... So what\'s the chances it would be good for what I want?
Further help is appreciated

by **MrCat** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 3:44 am

If you can lay your hands on a s/s super reflux then that will probably do what you want. It\'s the forerunner to the T500 with quite a small coolant management column - you can run them without packing and with water only to the condensor. Or with a small flow to the reflux column to up the ABV.
I use mine for stripping runs prior to running the low wines through the T500. Typically from a 22 litre wash I\'ll get 2 gallons of about 40% abv with a lot of taste.
No hassle, all the fittings you need, easy clean up and should be quite a bit cheaper than a T500.
What I\'m wondering is what would happen to the T500 if you ran it without packing.. Some of the fittings at the top of the T500 are plastic and may not like 90 degree+ vapour.
One question for you - why don\'t you collect down to your final ABV ? Seems you are letting quite a bit of product pass you by when all you are going to do is to water it down anyway. Can\'t you separate the \'additional\' you collect and add it to the boiler next time to recycle it??

by **Jph** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 5:24 am

Good question and remember everything I know is either from books or trial and error... I\'m a noobie for sure... I was stopping at that level thinking the stuff under 50 would be poor quality and have more impurities.... I have collected tails for recycling ... But your saying I could keep going until the total abv reaches my desired level and not even use water ? I don\'t know why I thought the lesser abv level would be lesser \"quality\"... I never filter anything either if that matters.
Thank for the suggestion about the stills too... Need to make up my mind tonight because I plan on going to a shop tomorrow to get one...

by **Jph** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 6:53 am

So I talked to a guy who suses this still for similar resons and what he said he does is use 1 copper brillo pad in the collumn and thats it.... lowers the alcohol, increases flavor.... I\'m leaning toward buying it tommorrow... Excited!