help on first malt wash

[Easydrinker]

I like it,Original or borrowed?
If original,then you have a talent there.

Robert.

[Icefever]

Robert...I would love to say it's original...but alas it's not, I wish I had that sort of talent. I found it somewhere on the net a while back and just copy/pasted in to a "scrap book" file that I keep just with bit of advice/info about this new hobby of mine.

[eattheliving]

well just done the stripping run on the wash and I have ended up with just over 2 litres at 75% proof.

is it worth me doing a spirit run or saving this to go back into my next wash?

also on the malt miller web site they used to sell 25kg bags of peated malt but have stopped.I have emailed them but got no response.

can I use any other malt(non peated) for single malt whiskey.

[Anavrin]

You can use any malt you want, stick to pale malts, darker gives more flavours and colour but the darker it gets the less starch is left for conversion to sugar in the mash, Marris Otter would be my choice, it's cheap and full of starch for a good conversion.

Or golden promise, same as Marris Otter, but organic and a little more expensive.

[eattheliving]

You can use any malt you want, stick to pale malts, darker gives more flavours and colour but the darker it gets the less starch is left for conversion to sugar in the mash, Marris Otter would be my choice, it's cheap and full of starch for a good conversion.

Or golden promise, same as Marris Otter, but organic and a little more expensive.

thanks Anarvin,

would you save the 2ltrs from my stripping run and put it altogether next time?

[Toper]

I must be missing something I think, but I would get nothing like 75% proof after a “tripping run”.
I know that cut-off points can vary, but I would be looking for nearer 30% or even less. I normally strip until I have parrot reading of below 10%, though I appreciate that this is considered low by some.
At 75% proof I would feel that I had left a lot unstripped.

[eattheliving]

I must be missing something I think, but I would get nothing like 75% proof after a “tripping run”.
I know that cut-off points can vary, but I would be looking for nearer 30% or even less. I normally strip until I have parrot reading of below 10%, though I appreciate that this is considered low by some.
At 75% proof I would feel that I had left a lot unstripped.

Hi Toper,

I ran it until there was nothing coming through the condenser so I thought it had finished???

[Toper]

There are those on here who know far more than I do about these things.

As I mentioned, I personally use a parrot spout to take readings of what is coming off.

When you sat “... ran it until there was nothing coming through .”, do you mean until no alcohol was coming through or, no fluid was coming through?

I don't know what the % reading of your wash was but, as I see it, to extract anything near all the available alcohol would bring your % reading of your strip well below 75% as you would have brought a significant amount of water over in the stripping process.

If you meant no fluid was coming over past the condenser. Either you had run dry, and your original wash would then have had to have been approximately 75% abv also, or you had some sort of blockage. I can imagine no other reason. I have never had a spirit run dry up on me.

You can calculate how much pure alcohol was in the wash by the volume of wash and its % reading, thereby knowing if you stripping it all off.

For the sake of simplicity, 20 litres of wash @ 10% abv indicates total pure alcohol of 2 litres
To strip as near as possible 2 litres of alcohol from 20 litres of wash would probably bring over some a total of something like 6 litres (including water) @30% abv., thereby stripping your 2 litres of pure alcohol, along with roughly 4 litres of water.

Mind you, my experience is limited to pot stilling, and reflux systems could well produce entirely different results to those which I am used to. Others here, who use reflux systems could possibly tell both of us what they think.

However, as you mentioned a malt wash, I assumed you wouldn't be using a reflux process.

[eattheliving]

no matey... not reflux but alembic head.

Unfortunately I didn't get the starting SG of my wash, but as you will see form my thread the ending SG was too high(1.010) to give me anything near required.

do you think it's worth firing up the still again as I haven't dumped the wash yet?

[Toper]

I would be inclined to run it through again but I still wonder why you reached a point where 'nothing' was coming through. Was it a blockage of some sort or, is there any othr reason related to the equipment you are using?
I do think that needs resolving.

Good luck,

[Easydrinker]

I may be speaking from the wrong orifice here,having no experience of an Alembic still,but I too am struggling to comprehend your results.
Are you sure that all of the distillate condensed,and the your gear didn't spring a minor vapour leak towards the end of the run?

Robert.

[Toper]

Pondering on this periodically since I last posted, the subject of temperature came to mind. Did you know what temperature you were running at?

Too low a temperature might mean that you managed to pull over a certain amount of alcohol and virtually no water. That might possibly explain the cessation of through=flow from the condenser.

Just how much was left in your boiler? Have you taken SG reading of it?

Easy drinker makes the point about an equipment related problem such as a leak. Having myself experienced a vapour leak caused by poor sealing/caulking (I use rye flour paste), I did get a significant drop in flow from the condenser, together with a massive drop in the alcometer reading in the parrot, but not a total stoppage. Whilst some higher vapours were leaking off, water was still coming through. He could very well be right though and definitely worth checking for I would think, using water only?

Good luck m8

[Almanac]

For a vapour leak to be at the heart of the problem here you would have a steam packed room and no doubt about the source and cause of the problem.

To end up with a batch of distillate with an ABV of 75% clearly indicates that the run was interrupted as the final ABV of any stripping run will gradually reduce as the amount of ethanol reduces and the volume of water in the distillate increases. This is in the normal run of things.

I would check your heat source as the most likely source of problem if the still simply stopped producing. In any pot still you will always get distillate as long as there is liquid in the boiler, heat to vaporise it and a condenser to condense it even if you're just condensing water.

In certain types of reflux stills the production of distillate stops under certain conditions but in a pot still this simply cannot happen unless either liquid, heat or condensing power are missing.

AM

[Toper]

When I had a vapour leak, I was using my garden shed, with open door and windows. No steam collected at all as the leak was directly pointed towards one of the open windows.

It was the sudden drop of the alcometer which first alerted me, then discerning the hiss of the escaping vapour At no time had I a steam filled shed. I think also, that a lot depends on how early in a run any such leak might occur as to levels of water steam and alcohol vapour.

I fully agree that normally, as long as there is liquid in the boiler, then there will be a through-flow from the condenser, as long as the heat source is active. As I see it, in a pot still, providing the heat source is sufficient to distil, then only a blockage of some kind would prevent this flow.

Whether blockage, leak or premature closure of the distilling process, I still think a test run is best. This done with water only, so as not to waste any possibly good wash. A careful monitoring of temperature and flow would be needed as, should there be a blockage of any kind, one would have to stop immediately to avoid a pressure build up. Search for any such blockage when cooled down.

I am however intrigued by aidanmac's comment, “...In certain types of reflux stills the production of distillate stops under certain conditions You did say you used an alembic head? Was this on what is normally a reflux still? If so, could aidanmac's 'certain conditions' have come into effect? I have no idea.

Given your original level of malt, both grain and extract in a 23 litre wash, and your high SG reading at the end of fermentation, it may well be that, at 1.5 litres of pure alcohol, you actually have most of any alcohol available, though I am still baffled as to how you managed to achieve this purity, in so short a strip run.

[eattheliving]

Hi all,

thanks for the words of wisdom.

I do have an update.

1: The still hasn't run dry, there must be at least 3/4 of liquid left in it.
2: I did see some small bubbles coming from the seal on the head and dome( not much at all TBH)no steam cloud
3: The head temp was running between 80 to 90 deg
4: The SG of the wash left is 1020. The reading was taken when the wash temp was 15.5 deg

I do have some spare time tomorrow so the question is.... do I fire the still up again and see if I can get anything else?

oh and just in case this is relevant:

it's a T500 boiler but I used a voltage regulator to reduce the boiling of the wash.

cheers all