StillSmart

Hi all, was just wonder if anyone out there is PH adjusting the strip before doing the spirit run?
The theory goes, that Acid + Alcohol + Heat = Esters, depending on the acid you get different ester and therefore flavour.

I'm currently trying out adjusting the strip back to a neutral PH of 7 to try and increase my hearts cut, and also see if I can run a bit faster without noticing the difference in quality.
(I have found I can collect at 2l/h @ 95+% but it is noticeable in quality to when I pull 95+% at 1.2l/h - its still good just not completely neutral)

Has anyone played about with this? I currently have 25l of 45% strip to run sometime soon.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:Hi all, was just wonder if anyone out there is PH adjusting the strip before doing the spirit run?
The theory goes, that Acid + Alcohol + Heat = Esters, depending on the acid you get different ester and therefore flavour.

I'm currently trying out adjusting the strip back to a neutral PH of 7 to try and increase my hearts cut, and also see if I can run a bit faster without noticing the difference in quality.
(I have found I can collect at 2l/h @ 95+% but it is noticeable in quality to when I pull 95+% at 1.2l/h - its still good just not completely neutral)

Has anyone played about with this? I currently have 25l of 45% strip to run sometime soon.

Was wondering how you are going to adjust the PH of the strip?.The thing is my main hobby is brewing all grain real ales,and an important element of AG brewing is treating the brewing liquor prior to the mash so as to get a correct PH,to do this I use Brupaks CRS and various salts depending on the profile of my tap water on my brewdays which changes considerably day to day(a water treatment calculator is included in "beer engine" a free download),so would treating the water to a certain PH before starting the wash give you a PH in the strip close to what you are looking for,although the fermentation and the strip run will alter the PH it may be closer to the neutral PH you are looking for.

cheers Optic

optic wrote:Was wondering how you are going to adjust the PH of the strip?

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I'll be using food grade calcium carbonate, and a calibrated bench-top PH meter. I'll treat it in the boiler prior to running - if using bicarb, you need to leave it a few days - and you need alot more of it.

I would also be happy using potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide although food grade is quite expensive and they are hazardous products so shipping is expensive in the UK.

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optic wrote:so would treating the water to a certain PH before starting the wash give you a PH in the strip close to what you are looking for

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I'm treating the stripped distillate rather than the wash, as the yeast seems happy sub PH 5.5 and often get down in to the 3's by the time it's finished - my washes get progressively acidic through the fermentation, so I'm happy just to let it do its thing then clean it up after stripping.
You also don't want to go higher than a PH 7, as it will start eating any copper in the still.

I'll maybe have to do 2 spirit runs, one treated, one untreated from the strip I have - the strip smelled so neutral this time, I gave it a little taste and it, just a bit of really nice light heads + tails to it, the wash tasted almost like water going into the still - I think I may get a wider hearts cut from this good ferment anyway - so the only way to test this would be 2 runs - even then a slight variation in running the still could throw the results - tricky one.

Hey CC, what are you using to reduce the acidity of the strip before the spirit run?

Last week I made a complete mess of a VS - of all things - I normally have to add 1tsp of Citric Acid to the wash to compensate for the high ph of our water which is normally 7. When I was getting the boiler ready to make up the wash I got a phone call and had to go out so I asked my son to watch the boiler and he ran the water and sugar in to the fermenter when the water was hot enough.

When I returned to take over again my son told me the wash was ready for pitching but I didn't realise he meant that literally - he had adjusted the ph but that never occurred to me so I added the usual 1tsp of acid.

The wash was so acidic it died after 72 hours and smelled of acetic acid and smelly feet. I stripped it and the strip will be added to a rubbish wash I'm going to run as a first strip in my new 50Lt Pot Still.

Just shows, you're never too old to screw it up

AM

I did it once or twice and didn't bother doing it again - the "hot" spirit I referred to in the original post was due to running too fast - the treatment made no real difference when running correctly (for my equipment) as far as I could tell.

However where I have found treating with calcium carbonate to work is in doing an all heads run - I water down my heads to 30% and treat, then these get stored away in a keg - and when it gets nearly full I run it.
It produces really smooth neutral but it needs to sit a month or so in glass with some head space that you change the air weekly, as it has a whiff of heads (only on the nose, not in taste) but this seems to fade.
Another distiller with more experience is convinced treating concentrated heads works - and he does seem to be right from what I've tried.