Pre-warming the wash?

by **swill** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 4:29 pm

Hi All
I\'m Swill, from Australia, new to the forum, and ready to start! I\'m a homebrew fan, so this is another aspect for me.
I recently bought an air still and I was wondering a couple of things...
Instead of putting the wash in cold and waiting an hour for the still to warm up can I just microwave the wash to hot and then pour it in the still to save heating time? (I\'m going to use a 25L wash with 6KG sucrose so I\'ll have to do a few runs.)
Next, when I distil the wash, how do I test for abv? Is it the same as for beer ie: use a hydrometer and subtract FG from IG and divide by 7.46? (I wish to double distil and then make faux cognac and whiskey.)
Thanks in advance

by **freelancement** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:56 pm

may wish to change sucrose to dextrose, it will ferment differently with the triple distilled yeast which im assuming you will be using with the air still as it comes off at 60%. make sure you use the highest quality wash ingredients when using lower % stills.
microwaving i would steer clear from, if you do .... becareful.

you must remember that they redesigned the new Still Spirits Air Still to have a lower wattage (mmm 340W? from 750W), to be slower, so you dont distill to quickly resulting in a poor quality product, increase the temp will reduce the %. they also reduced this as a result of burning the wash.
did you get an alco hydrometer with your kit? they act differently from the beer hydrometer (useful for finding when fermenting is complete and thats about it) the alco one will read the % of alco and water blend

by **Andy** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:16 pm

Welcome swill.

I started with an air still a while ago and looked into what you are wanting to do.

I was told NOT to pre-warm the wash as it will give some off tastes IF you over heat it.

I say (as above) use good stuff to make the wash IE: Triple Dis Yeast or Vodka Star NOT the Turbo Classic.

Be patient and you will be rewarded, try and push things and you will be disappointed.

Oh, dont be afraid to ask questions.

Everybody is here to help you along your journey.

Cheers

Andy

by **swill** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 5:32 pm

Thanks for the replies Andy and Freelancement. Good advice, I\'ll stay away from the microwave idea!
The yeast (I\'ll give the Triple Dis a go next time) I bought is a UK one called Samuel Willard\'s original temp tolerant yeast. The LHBS said it was the one they used themselves, and they had all the SS ones there too.
I didn\'t get a kit as such, just the \'air-pot\', so next time I swing by the LHBS I\'ll grab an alco-hydrometer too.
Cheers

by **freelancement** » Fri Jul 23, 2010 7:19 pm

Samuel Willard\'s original temp tolerant is on par with the still spirits classic to memory. yeah, you will have a few issues with the high metho and filtering it and may notice a strange background taste, wont notice it if you mix it with liqueurs. but the triple distill has 1/10 of the impurities of the next grade down (classic), thus better when using 60% yield still, that said i use it with my T500 which is 95% not that it makes a huge difference to the quality when using the triple distilled

by **swill** » Sat Jul 24, 2010 3:12 pm

OK, so what would be the minimum reasonable temp to ferment this SW yeast at to avoid stalled ferments. I\'m happy to let it go for say 2 weeks before distilling. And I\'ll get that triple distil next week and get it in the other fermenter (when the double draught is done!).

by **Phantom** » Sun Jul 25, 2010 4:40 pm

Well here\'s a little thought......
There should be no problem with pre-heating the wash, but I\'d suggest that you do it in a large pan on a cooker - use a thermometer though as if you go too high then you\'ll lose some of the alcohol.
I\'d suggest that you start warming the wash to something like 50 or 60 degrees C, no more and at the same time, if you then just warmed the boiler section with some boiling water (so there\'s no loss in temp when the wash is poured in), then in theory, it should be quicker to get up to distilling temperature.
As for testing for %ABV of distillate, I\'d suggest that you get a \"spirits hydrometer\" and a sample test jar (you can spend thousands on very technical test kit, but a standard spirits hydrometer is accurate enough for most of us.....)

by **optic** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 12:54 am

I have in the past pre-heated the wash using an electric kettle to the temps that Phantom suggests and it does knock a fair bit of time off the warm up before the run starts,but as someone on here pointed out it works out cheaper to use the still from cold rather than the couple of minutes in the kettle,these days I run the still on a timer set for 2 1/4 hours to do the stripping run,I have had no problems doing it this way and you can get on with other things,and then I am with the still all the time doing the real fun bit-the spirit run.
Optic

by **swill** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:21 pm

Hi All
So I got myself an alcoholometer the other day (ta Phantom). The wash has been on 4 days and it\'s finished fermenting already! Couldn\'t believe my eyes when it checked it. (My beers often take around 2 weeks). Anyway I\'ll leave it to clear for a week or so before I distil it.
Say Optic, how much of your 4L wash does the 2 1/4 hour \'stripping run\' yield? I was also thinking of double distilling if it means I get a better product. I guess you just take the heads cut out when you do your final spirit run.. right?

by **Jimmy** » Wed Jul 28, 2010 9:29 pm

That\'s what I do Swill - take about a litre in a stripping run. I collect each batch and put them into two glass demijohns - once the first runs are done, I top each up to 4 litres with water and run them again, this time taking off heads. This has two advantages - one, it\'s simple and improves quality, and two it allows me to use the spirit alcometer before the second runs to work out pretty accurately what I\'m putting in and therefore what I can expect to take out. You can do this by measuring the specific gravity before you ferment, then measuring again after it\'s done and doing the calculations but I\'m lazy so I skip that part as I know I\'m doing the stripping runs.
A \'traditional\' stripping run would take a lot more than this, basically collecting as long as there is any ABV remaining. It\'s horses for courses - I waste more like this, but it gives me good quality results and it suits me.

by **swill** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 2:57 pm

That sounds pretty cool Jimmy. I suppose your final spirit is running out at around 80%?
I\'ve got 24L of wash sitting in the fermenter right now at around 20%. So when it clears in a week I\'ll do 6 runs, collect 6 litres in all, split it in two lots of 3 litres, add around a litre of H2O to each and run them through again, this time collecting (after removing 100mls heads), say 2 litres at around 80%. Sound about right?

by **Jimmy** » Thu Jul 29, 2010 7:17 pm

Yeah, if you measure the ABV before the second run then you can use the calculator to work out an exact yield and it tends to be pretty much accurate in my experience. If I triple distill I have got it up to 87% or so which isn\'t bad, obviously depends on what you put in at the beginning but 65 - 80% is reasonable for a cheapo tomato wash.

by **swill** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:12 am

Righto, I\'ll do it that way for sure. When you say calculator is that an online one somewhere or just a hand held one with a formula? Forgive me for asking all these questions but what\'s the formula?

by **Jimmy** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:28 pm

No problem, ask as many as you like!
The best way is to check here:
http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/smartstill/ ... martstill/
There is a link to the calculator but also the correct settings, about halfway down the page.

by **swill** » Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:56 pm

I changed my mind this afternoon and ran off 4 litres as an experiment. I discarded the first 100mls and collected 700mls. It came out @ 60%. Clear as rainwater and no smell at all. I added 300mls to make a litre @ 40%, took out 300mls and added a Samuel Willard\'s Kafe express pre-mix. (Safe). Wow! So good.
Then I took off another 700mls and added it into the next run. Distilling now. I\'m gonna make some SS classic premium whiskey. I\'m pretty fussy with scotch (no mixer, sometimes ice) so I\'ll let you all know how it goes.