Triple Distilling, or My Latest Experiment

[chill]

This is just for the purposes of education, experimentation, and discussion. I am not advising this as the be all and end all of AirStilling. I recently ran some mistakes through the still a couple of times and noticed a different in the end result.

I distill inside. My wife lives inside too, she insists on this. She has what I might describe as a rather sensitive nose. I do not. There have been a rather large number of comments (no, NO! not nagging, I assure you) around various displeasing odours. Happily none of them emanate from me personally. Well, not consistently anyway. The smell of tails in particular is misery making for me. So I started running my strip runs to just before it starts taking off heavy tails and causing marital discord. For most of my washes, that is about 3:15 on the timer. That has dropped my strip yield a bit, probably a bit over 1L per wash. It has also resulted in what I perceive as a better over all product and easier tail end cuts.

So I started thinking, what if I did it again? Each half a wash is producing about 3L of strip at a relatively high ABV (I forget, over 60%). I put this in the still, topped up to the Fill line and this time ran for 4:15 on the timer. There was less this round at a higher ABV. What was left in the still was rank. As is, the double strip tastes decent. No cuts have been made. I am not advocating drinking it as it, but most of my low wines I would not want to even sample. Next week, I will do the final run and make the cuts. I am interested to see if this reduces the sweetness I find in AirStill product and produces a better spirit. One of the ones that I will finish next week is a "mostly grain". Typically, I find these taste overly grainy. The double distilled one was much better and I have high hopes for the third distillation.

Previously, I could run 1/3 of a wash through the still in one day, so three days to get ready for the spirit run. With these shorter run times, I can do the first distill in two days and the second in one, so I am losing a bit of product but not time.

An even better way would be to make cuts on both the second and third distillations, but that would require a lot more time.

Chuck

[Anavrin]

Hi Chill

I've just stripped a batch made from 6kg of Demerara sugar on my airstill, I had 24 litres and ended up with about 8 litres after 6 x 4 litres strips, I've got 4 litres in each of two demijohns, it's a perfect amount to go straight into the airstill again, I'm planning on striping each one again to double distill it, I'm also going to make some rough cuts just to remove the fores and tails, before the final Tripple distil for the spirit run, I'll post how I get on once I get round to doing it

[Icefever]

Interesting...will follow and see what you guys think about it all.

[Almanac]

Following with interest. I'd actually forgotten how much work the Airstill requires. Bigger stills do have their advantages if you have the space!

I've just realised Ihaven't run my Airstill in the last year except to clean Heads for future use

AM

[Easydrinker]

It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
The only time that I triple distilled with the Smart still was when I had made cuts on the second runs,poured the hearts together and decided that it wasn't right.
Running a third time and making more cuts certainly produced a superior product.
I guess running Odin's easy gin through it is also a third distillation,but different.
Robert.

[chill]

A whiskey and a vodka are done now.

The whiskey was various grains that I had sitting around including rice, hominy, buckwheat, and uh, I forget, corn, the usual suspects, all mashed with enzymes. I added some sugar as I am greedy. Let's call it Miscellaneous Whiskey. It was better going onto the wood than anything that I have ever made. It had none of that "boiled grain breakfast cereal" taste that I usually get. It will be months before the verdict is in, but I feel very optimistic.

The vodka had some odd results. The taste is good, but I got a LOT less yield than what I was expecting. About half of what I was expecting, 2.2L @ 50%. I've had that happen before I started triple distilling, so I will withhold judgement until I have some more done. I will do another one or two distillations next week.

Chuck

[chill]

Tasted the vodka today after carbon filtering. To my taste buds, it is identical to the double distilled version.

[Easydrinker]

Maybe not the result that you expected,but honestly reported.
Well done.

Robert.