Maple Vodka and a new way of making cuts

[Anavrin]

I spotted some 1lt bottles of maple syrup for sale today in Costco, can't remember the exact price but they were about £8.50

I was searching around for a spirit I could make using the maple syrup as a base sugar and stumbled across this place that makes maple syrup into vodka.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-cult ... 105229981/

Interestingly they discribe their distilling process as follows

To make the Gold, he starts with something between sap and syrup, since sap is only 2 or 3 percent sugar and syrup is at least 66 percent, while about 20 percent is best for fermentation. The distillery ran its own sugaring operation at first, but it was "a huge project," so now they buy syrup in bulk and dilute it with spring water. The mix is fermented with yeast in a temperature-controlled tank for roughly a week.

"At that stage it's about 9 percent alcohol, so we call it a beer, although it's not a particularly good one," he said. The first distillation stage separates the heart (ethanol) from the heads (other compounds) of this "beer," and the heart continues into a "fractionating-column still" for evaporation. The third and final distillation refines any remaining compounds (tails) out of the alcohol.

Seems they don't simply strip before a spirit run with all the cuts but make a heads cut during the strip, then run through a packed column, then make another run to cut the tails!

Sounds an interesting way of making cuts for a neutral, any thoughts?

[YHB]

I would not use Maple syrup at that price for making vodka. It may be worthwhile in Northern America or Canada where it seems readily available and relatively cheap. But to make Vodka and then try and strip as much of the flavor out as possible is not for me.

I have seen reports of Maple syrup being added to the boiler for a Rum Spirit Run, I have never used it due to the cost and I confess to substituting treacle which tastes nice but I am sure the Maple syrup would be better.

I believe that the method of making cuts that you describe revolves around having three types of still, each with its own advantages of dealing with a different portion of the cut. If a hobbyist is limited to one still I cannot see the advantage over triple distilling and cutting heads and tails each time.

[KerryW]

In Canada Maple syrup is readily available, but at 8 dollars for 500 ml it is expensive to use in bulk quantity,
I would collect the maple sap from the trees in the spring and then use 5 gallons as the liquid in a rum like wash

[Anavrin]

I guess it is overly expensive to use maple syrup, I was probably more exited about finding a method to remove heads before the main spirit run, I have an idea how in going to try it but I'll be making it up as I go along.

First I want to strip four 25 litre washes, collecting down to 30%

This should get me about 20 litres at over 50%

Then water my strip back to 30% before figuring out how best to compress and remove the heads.

I'm thinking the required setup is to use my boka with a packed column, have the boka cooling on full and the takeoff valve wide open, then have a second CM style cooling coil above my packed column but below the slant plates with the water flow to the CM coil on full.

The method would then be to use as little power as possible and slowly reduce the water flow to CM coil allowing the vapour temp to slowly rise up to a point just below where I expect the hearts to start and hold it there by adjusting the CM water flow if required, until the output from the boka slant plates stops completely, in theory this is the vast majority of my heads removed.

I would then close the boka output value, turn off the CM cooling and allow the column to stabalise before opening my VM takeoff and collecting my hearts, still collecting in cuts but hopefully the majority of what I collect will be clean hearts

I'm open to any ideas if you think my method will work or if you can see a better way of removing heads