StillSmart

I recently recall reading a thread about the brag's/boasts in Smirnoff ad's etc.

I couldn't recall what the thread title was, or which forum it was in (and a bit of a search didn't get me any nearer).

So my point is about the alledged purity etc as I recall seeing or reading "Distilled 3 times, filtered 10 times" - apparently for purity.

Now, I know that the basis of the forums was originally the ability and results from "smart stills", but a lot of us have moved on and got better (both ability and equipment).

Hence, it's like this.......

If the difference between a bottle of some super expensive brandy and the cheapest of supermarket vodka's is less than 1% (that's the ingredients/contents that isn't water or alcohol/ethanol), that makes the difference, then why doesn't my neutral spirit just taste the same as a commercially produced vodka ?

It got me thinking. So, if I make a batch of wash i.e. a sugar turbo, then the water and alcohol parts should be the same i.e. just that, the same as any water and alcohol that's been made from grain, corn, potato, etc etc. Now when that's been through the still (my T500 in this case), then it's (turbo sugar wash) been coming out at about 93.5 to 94% ABV.

So if I then let it back down with water, and I'd be thinking of using either distilled or Reverse Osmosis water (local tap is very hard round here, plenty of calcium and magnesium salts in it to have the potential of giving some "off" flavours). I digress...... let it back down to between 30 and 40% with the water, then redistilled, yes that would still put me back to the 93.5 to 94% ABV, but the non-water/alcohol differences, would surely be reduced, as more of them would be left with the water/waste in the still.

And if this process was then repeated a third time, the differences would be reduced further? surely ?

The same would apply, maybe ? if it was carbon filtered each time it was let down to the 30 to 40 %ABV mark ?

Because I've read about the bits in the carbon filtration hand book that suggest carbon does a better job of filtering at 40% than it does at 90% ?

Then further to that, if I then ran it (the finished product) through a .25 micron filter (fine enough to remove individual yeast cells as well as other possible contaminants), surely I'd have something approaching the purest possible neutral spirit base for anything I wanted to flavour it up as (or even just as "Vodka")

Am I talking/thinking out of my arse ? Or is there some merit to this

I'd be more than happy to read your thoughts on this.......

regards

P!

Hi Phantom - with regard to the triple distilled malarkey, I reckon it's down to most of the commercial guys using pot still or plated columns, pulling off about 80% or less over the whole run. Doing multiple distillations is the only way to get a relatively pure product in this process, with a T500 you're doing better from the first run.

As to why it doesn't taste like commercial vodka, I think it must be the wash. A lot of the flavor does carry over in to the final product. I got really lovely rum from a molasses wash, stripped once then the spirit run pulling off 93-94% and it was still full of flavour. So unless your doing a grain wash, your final product wont taste like a grain vodka.

In the past I have had to 3x some washes to get rid of an unwanted taste. I'm trying at the moment to try and brew a better beer, as I'm sure this will pay dividends with the final product.

Sure, I can see where you're coming from CC, but given that the actual alcohol part of any spirit is identical to others, what with the actual differences being less that 1%, which is where the various colour, flavour and aroma elements lie with any spirits drinks type, even though most of them have different base materials in the manufacturing process, it's got me wondering.

Hence if I ran a batch and got 93%ABV, then let it down to say, 30 to 40% with reverse osmosis water (hence not adding any kind of waterbourne impurity, or at least a minimal amount), then ran it again, and then repeated the process, surely the non-alcohol and water elements would be reduced each time, increasing the purity of the water and alcohol elements ?

The idea being, that either as pure neutral spirit/vodka, there's less likelihood of there being any off flavours present and that would give a better idea of which of the various flavourings taste best (at least, too me).....

I'd have guessed that the big commercial makers, would be using something like a bubble plate still, with a couple of different columns in line, and even automated collection/storage to allow for letting it down with distilled/RO water, as I understand that a lot of base flavour can be carried over with those columns - well a hell of a lot more than with standard reflux columns. As they also allow for greater efficiency, which would benefit commercial production etc etc.

Plus it occurred to me that it's an easy way of improving the purity, as it would be cheaper/more cost effective use of existing kit, than trying to build something that will hit the mythical 95.6% ABV etc...

Any thoughts on this, well I'd be interested to hear/read them.....

Phantom, you are correct with the repeated processing you will improve the quality. I guess I mis-understood the original question "Why doesn't my neutral taste like commercial vodka" which I'm sure will be down to the wash.

We can make a product that is more neutral than even the best store vodkas, but i always find with sugar washes there is a resulting "sweetness" to the spirit that you don't get in grain vodka. I'm not saying either is better, just different.

Re-runing time and again you will lose product on each run, and the time and energy used is also a consideration. I do 3 strips in an evening, then a single spirit run which takes me all day, recently I got some advice to let the column equalise on a really low power for 2 hours then pull off the heads really slowly, I do this the night before, then when I fire up the boiler the next day I'm straight into the hearts.
If I'm after vodka for drinking neat, I'll let down the cut spirit to less than 30% then re-run it for an excellent product. Could get away with a single run, but I'm quite picky.

Hum? Yes I suspect that you're spot on with that. I suspect I'll just run it twice, then it should reduce the apparent sweet hint in the spirit some, which is the object of the exercise.

I haven't bothered to experiment to work out how to use the T500 for stripping, as I'm happy with it as it is, but am hoping to be able to used the home built one as both a reflux and pot, that way I can process 2 batches at once and then just do a single spirit run.

Does that make sense ?

Makes sense to me.

Phantom - I came to the same conclusion about where the taste was about 4 months ago - it's in the 6% difference from the 94% ethanol and the 100%.

My process goes strip run, cut back to 40% with filtered water, spirit one (compress heads/remove foreshots), cut back to 40% with filtered water, spirit two (really compress heads...) and take aggressive cuts.

My thinking is that the re-dilution of the low wines each time back to 40% should decrease the flavours from the original wash.

Just to make it very simple say you collect ten litres from spirit one. Of that 10 litres just 600ml is 'taste' but you then add 13.5 litres of water to get 23 litres of wines for spirit two run.

So in the low wines for spirit run two just 2.5% is 'taste'. If the ratio of taste to water is maintained through the second spirit run then just 15ml of 10 litres will be 'taste' - or next to nothing.

But - and here is the big BUT. You take cuts (I hope you take cuts??) where as I suspect the big distillers will take less conservative cuts to maximise the output from the wash so they will get a broader spectrum of heads and tails in their output.

Filtered commercial vodka has more 'taste' than my triple 'D' non filtered 40%...

Taking tight cuts is the only way to go IMHO. Getting a SS keg that I was able to store the product that didn't make the cut in, was one of the best moves I've made.
After quite a few runs you can do an all feints run, I've been told the key is to water down to less than 30% and this has worked for me. You recover a surprising amount of good alcohol so don't think of making the tight cuts as losing out, you're only delaying getting hold of it.
Works really well for neutral, and really really well for flavoured spirit, an all faints run of rum heads and faints has made one of the best rums I'm made (to date)

This topic could be called "In pursuit of perfection" I suppose, as I'm told the very best vodka should be tasteless. Not being a big vodka fan I'm not the best judge but those with in my circle that are fans really do like that slight hint of sweetness in what I produce. So my question would be is it really worth all that extra energy to remove a hint of uniqueness that seems to appeal to most vodka fans.

Opus

Opus 27 wrote:This topic could be called "In pursuit of perfection" I suppose, as I'm told the very best vodka should be tasteless. Not being a big vodka fan I'm not the best judge but those with in my circle that are fans really do like that slight hint of sweetness in what I produce. So my question would be is it really worth all that extra energy to remove a hint of uniqueness that seems to appeal to most vodka fans.

Opus

Yes, I quite agree. Though its my thought, that the whole "system" is designed to be able to make something "acceptable". So if the spirit is as neutral as possible, then there's also gonna be less residual sweetness when the spirit has been favoured as well, and logically closer to the way the flavouring is supposed to make it taste......

I suspect that I'm thinking of how to make it consistent, like "they" manage to do with commercially produced stuff.....

regards

P!