DISTILLING DAY (PART 1)

[Music] welcome back distillers Brewers hobbyist winemakers and those of you who are just curious about what we're doing I'm George and today is distilling day so we're going to take a really really slow approach and walk through an entire distillation you can tell I've got my pipe jar that's for collecting the methanol inori beginning I'm going to show you all that so I'm not quite sure yet how many parts this will be but understand probably will not be just one take only because it'll be a while I made a mistake yesterday and that's when we wired up our 240 volt 220 volt whatever you want to call it from our feet our panel our circuit breaker panel I can't call it a fuse for some reason this is a circuit breaker not a fuse although in my mind it kind of does the same thing circuit breaker trips off and in whenever it hits that that amperage level where it's unsafe it clicks off on its own and a fuse just blows and you gotta replace a fuse so you know I use it interchangeably so that's my mistake for the for the end of this year and I just wanted to share that with you now don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so and share us with your friends join the almost 28,000 other subscribers in our community and please comment below so we can stay in touch otherwise you can call me there's my phone number and in the interest of transparency if you really have a hard time get in touch with me George Duncan 7/6 at gmail.com I'll answer your questions or will it can open up a dialog either way so now what I've got to do is I've got to get everything ready it'll take me just a few minutes and I'll tell you what else I'm gonna do I'm gonna put a clock on the wall back here so you can track the time it takes for me to do certain things but just understand that the the entire the total time for this is going to probably be most of the day look I'm retired I got all day to do something so guess how long it takes me yep all day so but I want to walk through this slowly and we'll explain a lot of tips and tricks and some science and some just some things that are really really interesting and things that you need to know so we're going to distill we're gonna filter and then we may flavor a little bit but we're also going to start the aging process and by putting it in a wooden cask by golly we got a lot to do today so sit back enjoy and let's get with it what I have here is five gallons of raspberry I'm sorry no blueberry of Mead and this is a finished product but this blueberry meat has a little bit of an aftertaste to it that we can't get rid of so instead of just dumping this we're gonna distill it so this will shorten our process a little bit because we'd have to go through any fermentation this is already ready this is also proof that mash does not go bad here's our first cap now an order for a mash to turn to vinegar two things have to happen one it has to be open to the atmosphere with oxygen and two you need the acetobacter virus or just another microbe that will invade that because remember yeast will eat sugar and the byproduct it will produce alcohol the acetyl bacter will eat the alcohol and produce vinegar so in order for that to happen you've got to make the environment correct for that just like you do you have to add yeast in order to make the alcohol you're gonna have to have something in there to eat the alcohol to produce the vinegar and trust me if it does take three days and I've heard everything from well you know you get your mash finished you got to do it within a day or two or it turns to vinegar well it it's impossible it does it just doesn't happen and for those out there who disagree with me look I understand I will respectfully disagree but a lot of people say well well it turned a vinegar because it tastes sour well it's supposed to taste sour there's no more sugar left well that's one way of testing it is just don't taste it and if you if you're a machinist sour all the sugar is gone so the only thing left is alcohol and of course the water so I just wanted to share that with you I've had this sitting here for oh my good it's it's probably been sitting here I've got two five-gallon buckets full that's been sealed and sitting out here in the shop for about Oh three or four months I've let them set as long as six months until I get to them even a regular mash so please understand that it's not gonna go bad I get that question all the time you can you can make your mash and let it sit until you get to it it's not going anywhere all right on to other things by the way that that masher that uh that mean that we're going to getting ready to run test it out at about fourteen and a half percent alcohol by volume ABV now remember that's a data point for me and I'll share that with you it tells us a whole lot about how our run is going to progress so we can use that data point to predict where and where some of our cuts should take place and I'll show you all that now oh we're going to use the eight gallon still because I've got a five gallon bucket of that Mead so I'm using eight gallon still and the reason for that is that I need enough headspace so never ever take an 8 gallon still and fill it with eight gallons it's it's just got an 8 gallon capacity but I would never put more than 6 gallons in there leave yourself that Headroom so so that vaporization and rise can take place just in case there you wind up with a boil you don't want that too to work its way up your column so give yourself that headspace if you fill it all the way up it'll yeah it'll probably work for a while and you may have some challenges but let's avoid all of those in the remember there's no right way to do the wrong thing six gallons is about the max now I'm going to use a three-inch column and I'm going to use both of these and I'll explain why three inch column versus a 2 inch column of which I've got both and the purpose the reason I'm you use the 3 inch column is because it's a little bit more efficient than the 2 inch column it doesn't have nothing to do with the alcohol the proof to strength the flavour or anything it is purely an efficiency event so the purpose that and the reason is because of the the size of itself called this circumference I've called it every off called a diameter I've called on everything in the past the bottom line is is that there's a lot more space in here as a matter of fact in a 3 inch column there's twice the amount of space as there is in a to each column and so what that does is that allows for more vapor to travel and it's a bit more efficient when it's on top of still because you've got a lot more vapors that can travel as opposed to a two inch column that'll be a little bit smaller and therefore it kind of restricts the amount of those vapors that can travel up and down your column because remember you're gonna get some activity that takes place in here that you can't see but it happens and that is the vapors start to rise and they tend to start to cool off a little bit and in the most volatile substance alcohol continues to rise and everything else drops back out now if we were to use this as a reflux which is another topic all in itself we're gonna run it as a pot still we would try to in we would try to force that that activity to take place which is to rise drop rise drop rise and drop and again the most volatile substance is continuing to rise and those things that you really don't want to drop out but we're not going to do that today we're going to do just a straight standard pots till now additionally your still is very sensitive trust me it I understand that I get these calls a lot as well is that you're having a hard time managing the head temperature and when you manage the head temperature you know what you're doing is you're measuring the vapors as they exit from the column into your Liebig condenser and this is where your distillate will come out and of course you know you got cold water goes in and cold water comes out and you just run that full force but what you want to do is you want to measure that vapor at the point where it transitions from straight up into the column and goes across into your condenser and now that's where you want your vaporization point and it's scientifically it's like 173 degrees Fahrenheit my gosh it each still is a little bit different and where you measure makes a big difference but please don't worry don't get stuck I'll use that as a point as a target but if you're measuring from here it may be a little higher or maybe a little bit lower than if you're measuring from up here so it all depends so if you've got your thermometer in there your your thermocouple as I would use with my PID and it starts to produce in a heart and seventy by golly I know that now I know that that's where that's at that's where it produces and that's where I'm gonna keep running it if it takes it to a 180 I'll know that well I'll measure it at a point where 180 is the right place so you're looking for two things you're looking for production and you're also looking for temperature but you'll be in the ballpark looking for that temperature uh it's not that critical it's only critical as you match it with production and production should be a drip drip drip pour pour you follow me okay a few more things now I'm gonna use this if I used this as a just a pot still on top of my 8 gallon I would just put the lead condenser right here on this one piece but what I can also do is see this is the part for the reflux and these are the these are the tubes that the cross-sectional tubes that go through and they also make them with a jacket both are just as good they're efficient and what this does is it pre condenses this would go on top so you'd have like a 42 inch stack this and this precontent it pre condenses those vapors and they start to drop out and as they start to rise again the most volatile substance as we talked about earlier being alcohol rises again and it gets past these tubes and as it starts to pass these tubes it starts to pre condense and drop out again and then it transfers into your Liebig condenser now and this action takes place it's a cycle and what that does is it strips every bit of the flavor strips all the fusel oil it strips everything out of that that that vapor and it produces a very very high proof vodka or gin that's and that's what a reflux is designed to do so unless you're making luckier gin I probably would use a reflux so I'm gonna use this but I'm not going to connect these tubes I'm just gonna use it as an extra long column so that I can stand next to it and talk with you at the same time as things are going on in here and also I'm giving myself plenty of time for all those vapors to travel up and travel across so now 42 inches that had been asked this the shortest is probably better somewhere around 18 18 to 20 inches for a short stack or just a standard pot still if you're gonna use a column 42 to 45 or so 46 inches it's probably about your max remember there's there's a point of no return we're a fishin see distance and size will become an enemy so keep that in mind all right let's move on we've got a few more things to cover the column as I was going to say earlier it's very very sensitive and it's also hi people call and say George I can't maintain the temperature it keeps fluctuating up and down I just well if you're outside in a breeze and you've got a breeze going across that's gonna pre it's going to cool this column if you've got a heater next to and it's going to heat the column you've got you open the door shut the door this thing is pretty that your still is very very sensitive and it's looking for a sweet spot and so it's going to react oh so what I'm gonna do and I've recommended this to other people you can do this many many different ways you can you know wrap fiberglass around it some insulation or whatever you could I've got some pipe wrap and I'm just gonna pipe wrap these so that just in case my heater pops on or I need that out here and I've got that current of air flowing across it doesn't affect the overall temperature all right good enough now I'm gonna start wrapping this up and we'll be right back well we've got these things wrapped now this uh this tape this is just regular pipe tape and it's a foam insulation with silver on the back it's it's got it's a it's a tacky side to it that wraps around so it comes off real easy so don't worry about it sticking to your tear columns but it's a really good thing to have is it absolutely necessary out no no absolutely not so I've got them both wrapped and I'm also going here's me but here's what I used I used it's called MD MD pipe wrap and it's two inches wide by 30 feet long it's not think I've paid like ten bucks for it and it is rated up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit so we should not reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit in column well we might we might just rate up because 204 is my shut off for head temperature and a lot of times it'll be less than that because III will shut my still down based on temperature production and proof some folks will go all the way down as far as like sixty proof that remember when you down to sixty proof it's thirty percent alcohol so that means seventy percent of what's coming out is going to be from the wash itself water and all those other fusel oil Xand things i'll we usually shut mine off it probably a hundred proof maybe ninety but it all depends on what the production is going to be like now additionally for those who are who are concerned about having copper in your system and i know there's a long long litany of discussion about whether it's it's absolutely necessary or not i'm of the opinion that it's better to have it not need that need not have i have not found a difference between using it and not using it with the exception of it is a packing which increases the proof because it increases the efficiency of your column so if you have just a straight column all you get is them all you get is the vapor it condenses and comes out very very little activity takes place in there but if you put scrubbers in and this is just this is like 24 inches of copper mesh now you can use copper mesh you use marbles use rashing rings you can use pennies and remember i think it's a pre 1964 pennies or 99.9% copper you you can bend those and stick them and put a handful of those in there if they're it's it's readily available so you can reuse these over and over again as soon as you're done pull them out rinse them off if they have a little odor to them put some vinegar in water just let them soak for a little while rinse them off they'll be fine you can use them over and were and over again now here's the interesting thing about packing for every four inches of packing that you put into a column is a number a plate is a physical thing and it's also a measurement so think about that if you have a and you've seen some of those stills where you have a big window here and windows that go up those are of course they're real expensive they're usually four inch columns to six to eight inch calls but they got the big windows and inside you'll see what's called a bubble plate and it's normally made of copper some are made of stainless steel but this what this bubble plate does is this bubble plate gives that distillate and opportunity to rise condense drop bounce around and bubble most volatile substances released and the non Wanted substances continue to drop and read it still until it finally drops it back into the kettle but so you'll have multiple plates which actually strip all the flavor strip everything out of it make a very high proof a very good distillate and very clean so that's a plate it each time you have a plate you can almost you can it correlates to a distillation think about this if you've ever picked up a bottle and it said triple distilled now let me ask this question from an efficiency standpoint I already know the answer but from an efficiency standpoint and from a production level cost an overhead do you truly believe that someone is taking a substance distilling it putting it back in distilling it and putting it back in and distilling it is that possible well yeah that is possible but every time you distill remember you got a really high alcohol content you've got to cut it you put it back in the kennel you cut it and you bring it back down to a manageable level which is you know somewhere right around 30 maybe 30 to 35 percent ABV and then you run it again and then you do the same then you run it again all right there is another alternative to that and that is plates so if I have one two three plates in my column then I'm actually distilling the equivalent three times it kind of begs the question can I legally say that yeah absolutely because that's just the way it works out so for every four inches of SKUs of packing that you place in there its equivalent to a plate so when I put these two in here I'm actually going to distill twice plus the initial would be three times distilled no I got that one backwards I'm sorry yeah it would be twice distilled so I can call this a twice distilled spirit and that's perfectly okay now to pack these they should be loosely packed and once you get them in and of course you gotta have a screen in the bottom of it or some sort of device to keep it from dropping in the kettle once you place them in there the way to test it to make sure and this includes whether using rashing rings whether using marbles or the pennies or whatever medium you're using if you want to make sure that you've got them in and it's correctly packed as if you can breathe through it if you can breathe through the pipe then it's packed correctly if you have any any problem breathing through the pipe it's packed too tight and you just like to pull them back out loosen it up a little bit and pull them back in there alright we're getting ready to put this puppy together and I've got a few other things that I wanted to cover and let's do that right now because remember we talked about let me set these aside for right now and this is my try clamping gaskets and what we're gonna talk about that moment I got a point we had the 14 and a half or so percent we're going to call fifteen just for the sake of argument we're gonna give ourself that extra half a percent and we're going to do the real quick math and I'm going to show you how to determine the volume of which you can't anticipate and what the cuts could potentially be stick with us now let's do some real quick math remember I told you about that data point that fifteen percent ABV I'm going to tell you I'm going to show you why that is a very important figure and it can tell us a whole lot let's go slowly you're ready we've got five gallons of Mead now every gallon has 128 ounces so five times 128 equals 640 ounces that is like about 19 liters now remember and I'm actually rounding these off just to make them simple now if we multiplied that because 15 percent of that is alcohol of that 640 ounces by 0.15 15 percent that means we've got 96 ounces of alcohol in our still hmm or like three liters now let's take that 96 96 ounces from there because we know that's how much alcohol we have well that's that would be pure alcohol and we're not going to be running pure alcohol we're going to probably run this at about 80% efficiency which would be like 160 proof so if we multiply that by point a zero we know we're only going to get about eighty percent of that alcohol because the rest of its going to be laid dormant inside that would actually equal seventy six point eight bounces or 2.3 liters now here comes the good part we're gonna really know a whole lot more than just this we know that seventy six point eight ounces is our eighty percent efficiency level if we reach that and that's so like it's just a target if we take that seventy six point eight ounces and we know that when it comes out forty percent of that or so because it's a hundred and sixty five hundred sixty proof is sort of like my target forty percent of that we've got to add the water that's going to be that's going to drag along with it during its process so if we multiply that times 0.4 0 that means of that not of that but in addition to the seventy six point eight we were gonna add thirty point seven ounces of water or 0.9 liters see in this one here of course yeah 2.3 liters alright we're just about there so if we take that seventy six point eight ounces and you can round this off just say 70s or 77 and we add that to the water we're anticipating 30 points 7 ounces which is 0.9 liters and this is 2.3 liters gives us a grand total of one hundred and seven point five two ounces or three point one eight liters guess what that is what I anticipate drawing off the still that's actually point eight gallons so I'm gonna collect about again all just shy of a gallon and I always say that you know anytime you draw three courts off of a five gallon batch you've done very really well but remember this figure is always going to be connected to this figure your ABV your alcohol by volume will always indicate what your potential volume will be when you're finished everywhere this is going to be at and I'm guessing the 160 proof which is 80% alcohol and of course we're gonna cut that down so this point 8 gallons is going to turn into oh and I'm gonna take a stab at this there's gonna turn into probably about one in three-quarter gallons or as I like to say seven big quarts of smooth goodness and a lot of fun later on you can share I hope that really makes a lot of sense cuz that's that's as simple as it really gets now one last thing of that I'm going to show you this we use the same sheet of paper here the the the heads the four shots and heads that I always collect together I believe that they come out together it's gonna probably be somewhere around Oh probably two to five ounces and well how do you test that well just take a spoon get you a couple of drops at the very beginning of your run it won't will do that light it and if it burns yellow it is methanol you continue to do that until when you put a couple of drops in there and you light it it's either transparent or blue and you've got ethanol so that means all your four shots and the majority of your heads are gone now the heads do let's just sake of argument I always put four shots and heads together now now we're getting into our hearts about the last 10% of your one is gonna be your tails and so I'll know that I'll take 10% off of this look I'll take 10% off of that and I'll know that probably about oh maybe point to gallon or maybe a pint or so I know are going to be tails I know that so but when I get to about Oh three quarters of a gallon a little over half a gallon that's when I'll start sensing tasting and smelling for my tails so I know that I've got plenty of time in the beginning I could just run and run and run until I get to about oh about a half a gallon over half a gallon then I almost start testing real closely to make sure that I don't mix the tails with my run I really hope that makes sense we lay this up one more time and if you'd like to just go ahead and ponder over that if not let's move on we're wrapping up now and we're getting ready to get started I know it's been a slow process but we want to explain as much as we possibly can as we go through this process and we've got a lot to cover later so we're going to do a part two so make sure you stay tuned here is what I've got I've got a cooler here and I've put about 20 25 pounds of ice in it fulfilled it with water and I'm gonna use that for the condenser I'll put around here somewhere I found it alright this is gonna be the Liebig condenser that I attach to the top of the still and cold water goes in the bottom hole and it comes out the top and that way so it cools from here all the way back and goes back into the cooler now the here's the reason why I use ice please it's not absolutely necessary I know that I'm gonna run this is going to take me hours to run this now I could use just regular cool tap water but if if I use cool tap water I'm running that for that what two or three hours why don't I just recycle the water so if I get it super cooled with ice as that water goes in and it starts to it will heat up it will come out warm it's later on as the water cools warms it will come out hot so because it's dissipating all that heat that's gonna be in that condenser so what that'll do is my ice will eventually melt and the water will start to feel a little bit warm it's not like tepid you know you can stick your finger in there you'll feel this getting a little bit warmer I've got the exit hose will be extremely long and just lay inside here and what I'll do is I'll pull that hose out and I'll stick it out the door let that hot water escape go outside I'll refill it with some more water while it's running and I'll throw about another 20 pounds ice in it so I can do it with 3040 pounds of ice easily and it's it's gonna run me about three bucks so that's the only reason why we use ice water we don't use ice water for any other reason than to preserve water the amount that I use because I only go through maybe two of these and I don't have to run water constantly all the time I'll also use my parrot and what my parrot is is just a device that goes on the end it gives you a high cool points when your friends come over you're like yeah check this out you'll put your proof and trail hydrometer inside here and as it fills so here's the scape hole if you ever make one of these make sure you put the vent up to top or else so you'll have challenges it'll it'll back up on you so if my spirits were running in here and they'll start to fill from the bottom to the top and then they'll come over the top into this Cup and then run back out into my jar my collection jar I'll use this after I collect the first two five ounces and check to make sure that I'm running ethanol instead of methanol and but what will happen is is that my proof and trail hydrometer will float there it'll give me a data point instantaneous to what the stills producing so I'll always be able to tell and see that's another one of those I know that I'm gonna start off at about 160 proof and remember we did the math there's nothing precise about that it's just a good ballpark figure so it gives me some ideas of time that I have and what I've got to do so I'll track that because I'll start off at about 160 maybe maybe 165 who knows it depends on how efficient my process is now that will that will progressively start to drop and my head temperature will progressively start to rise because it will take more heat to separate that alcohol from the mash because the volume in the mash is changing so therefore when that changes its boiling point changes and the temperature of course is gonna have to start to rise so I never go over 204 and I rarely go under a hundred proof 92 sometimes but I'll rarely go under a hundred proof so we've got those data points we're anticipating point eight gallons - just a little bit so you know three quarters of a gallon makes me a happy camper and of course we're gonna go through the process of cutting that we're gonna go through the process of filtering it and then we're going to start the aging process so I got a whole lot of day left and it's gonna take me the rest of the day so stay tuned part 2 is coming up and we'll be with you happy distilling

Channel: Barley and Hops Brewing

Views: 203,511

Keywords: neutral spirit, sugar wash, barlerandhops, hops, home, Sugar (Ingredient), sugar mash, distilling, barley, corn sugar vs cane sugar, corn sugar mash recipe, making a wash for distilling, running a still for the first time, first distillation, using yeast, mooshine, whiskey, making rum, making vodka, bourbon, baby step bourbon, making bourbon at home, neutral spirits, vodka, sugar, distilling mead, running a still

Id: jTLgVE9frWw

Length: 35min 12sec (2112 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 21 2018