What Happens When You Distill Hoppy Beer?

what happens if you take a hoppy beer and distill it well it'd make a nice whiskey what about the hop oils the bitterness will it ruin the still will the flavor get into the still and you'll never get it out that's what we're going to find out today how's it going chasers I hope you're having a kick-ass week I'm Jesse and this is still at the channel all about chasing the craft of home distillation and making it a legitimate hobby so today we are looking at beer guys can you distill the stuff so Cheers this is actually not the beer that I'm distilling now this is panhead a pretty awesome New Zealand AP a the beer that we're using is in fact an APA it is you know fairly substantially hopped although it's not dry hops so for those of you uninitiated that means it's hoppy but not crazy hoppy it does have a bit of bitterness and essentially it's a beer that didn't quite work out the way that it should have honestly it's not bad it's pretty decent but it's not amazing so here's the deal team I had 70 litres of this stuff and it was just under 5% so not a large ABV so I took 40 litres of the beer pop that I'm still still and run a stripping run honestly nothing special about it I just ran it through hard and fast to cut the volume down I then took those low wines and added them back into the still again along with the remainder of the beer and this time I distilled it with two plates now I know when you look at this still it probably looks like three plates but the bottom one there is is there just to make up you know height on the still so that I can get to the bench easily on the other side so this is the first time that I'm actually run with a D flag and it is a little bit of a balancing act between you know the the vapor speed with the amount of power you putting into the boiler and then the amount of coolant that's going into the D flag honestly I don't have the greater set up right now I'm still doing a work around for this crappy water situation we've got at the moment [Music] so these are the jars that I got off but still I clicked into individual jars I'm not gonna go into a full tasting sort of notes on everything that happened during the run because it was honestly nothing that's surprising to me so this is what I decided to keep guys and after making those sort of selection process and what I did want to keep and what I didn't want to keep the products came out at a little over 80% so I've proof that down now down to 55% so I think we should ever taste what do you reckon goes like I said guys 55% it's not crazy high but it was relatively high and I've done that ahead of time because that's spoil earlier I'm gonna stick wood into this that's the the ABV that I think it's gonna be [ __ ] tip oh people have been asking me where I get these little tiny wyden thieves from do they're not wine thief's they are stainless straws and they the best thing since sliced bread for doing like little tastings like this especially if you don't you know want to be using plastic what am i filling that as well I need one and the great thing is guys they're pretty damn cheap so I'll stick a link below an amazon link below if you're interested in them you can check them out there and see if they're right for you the next step up from something like this honestly is the guys at Belk Honus head and adjustable pipette so you can be like I want four and a half mil of that thank you and then I want two and a half miles of this for blending it's awesome I haven't got one yet but I think I'm gonna get one or I'll stick a link for that down below as well anyway all right let's have a taste of this so the first thing I noticed off the bat is there is something in there there reminds me of beer not whiskey or white dog or whatever the hell you want to call you know a spirit that's made from grain and it doesn't smell like beer it reminds me of beer and I've been struggling for a long time to put my neck like to really dial in what it is it's not a straight up hop character not a hop aroma because a hop aroma when you're smelling it as an aroma is quite bright and floral or fruity or zesty or you know any one of the the sort of hop characteristics that you can get that's not it it's more vegetal than that but it is related to hops that's I really can't put my finger on it it's like it's like hop hop stock almost like it's got this vegetal umami like vegetable you know it literally like a vegetable soup stock kind of thing for ages I thought that it was tailed z because it's similar to that it's similar towards the wet cardboard smell but I don't think that's it and then underneath that you've got the grain character and instead of being you know like beer grain character it's once again it's it's it's deeper it's darker it's grungy ER it's less bright you know when you're drinking beer you've got that carbonation through to lift it as well and it does I have had some beers that have this flavor that I'm trying to describe in it and it isn't great in beer I'll be honest and it's not something that I have ever run across in whiskey and whisky the only whiskey of heaven or spirits I've had and a spirits that are distilled from beer I have had commercial examples of you know it literally this like a one of them I've got a pilsner I've had one that's made from Pale Ale before I've had some from stouts and they've all got this flavor in it it's weird and it reminds me of beer it reminds me of like if I left this beer like if I drank it down to here and left a little bit in the bottom of it lift it here overnight and came back it smelt it tomorrow it would be like that it's kind of like an oxidized hop in an oxidized caramel malt got together and had a dirty love child somewhere a lot like hops that have almost gone cheesy and yeah I don't know it's bizarre and it's not necessarily a bad thing like now that I've been spelling it for a little while I'm almost enjoying it it has a really fun grain sweetness and I honestly wonder if that comes from the fact that these that the beer isn't fully fermented out because I get that on a lot of you know these products once again things that are made from beer it has an awesome sweetness not like a would sweetness not a vanilla almost like my like ally me is actually what it is like malts made from grain that's the sort of sweetness that I get from it there is also an oppression of bitterness there too and I can't tell if it's that part of my brain that is saying this reminds me of hops you know must be bitter or whether it actually is but I don't think it's not actually bitter but I think there is a flavor there that is very often associated with button bitterness especially in beer now that I'm tasting it like this I don't think I've ever really disassociated that flavor from the actual bitterness in beer because they almost always come hand in hand hold the press I'm gonna stop you for a second missus still it just saved the day I gave her a sample asked her what she thought it was she couldn't figure it out she said she kind of liked it kind of didn't but didn't know what it was I told her what it was and she said oh yeah that smells like when you used to brew in the house and that is exactly what it is it smells like when you first put the hops into a boil when you're making beer that's what it smells like you know how that doesn't smell like beer it's got that weird like hot break thing going on it's kind of soupy and umami ish but still reminds me of beer because there's one of those that's exactly one of us would I recommend making this no yes I don't know it's not like any good whiskey I've ever had and every time I have any sort of spirit that's made from beer with hops on that I am always left feeling this way I'm left feeling like I don't like it but I can't tell you exactly why and I've had some spirits made by people that I know make good product I love their other products and it's not that they made badly it's just that I don't like it so that is a personal I'm going to put a pin in that guys and say that it's a personal preference thing it's it's an a perhaps an acquired taste perhaps something that I will grow to like in the future perhaps something that is going to get better with age and with wood going into it I'm thinking with that sort of perceived but in this thing going on with the sweetness upfront with that lingering sort of vegetal umami hop ness to it and I'm gonna go with French oak for this but I am going to char it really heavily so that's the plan for this product what about the still come on guys if you've been in the home distilling world for any amount of time if you've been reading forums and those sort of things god dammit is actually growing on me I can't make my mind up I really I don't anyway if you've been in the forums for any length of time you would have seen people ask about distilling beer and you would have seen people say don't do it you're ruining is still the hot boils are gonna get stuck in the still you'll never get them out and everything will end up tasting like you know like beer that you make from there and then I was happy to put my still on the line and test it for you guys cuz you know for science so here's what I did as soon as I finished distilling the stuff I literally just open the drain pulled up on the bottom of the still drained everything out filled it up with 20 litres of water and some faints that I had kicking around up to about 6 percent ABV and the boiler and then started running it like I didn't clean it I didn't rinse it nothing like there was still chunky bits sitting around in the bottom sight glass from an almost puke I had on the spirit run beforehand so this is like the first drops that came out after I did there and verse smells pretty heavily like this and to be honest that doesn't smell good it smells like tails II and funky and we that get that smell that I was saying is almost like tails and this is really concentrated than that in fact that's the thing I pick up most alright so after that I ran another five hundred mils of this and then took another sample which is this I'm not gonna drink that because you know now this smells more like this but a lot more subtle and tastes pretty similar to be honest but I can I can smell and taste a little bit of wheat and I think some of the molasses from one of the runs I did you know it's a different base spirit but I can definitely still smell some of this this is about 250 mils later on down the track I think I can just pick up some of it just just a little bit of it on the nose flavor-wise it is just there but I'm losing all of that sort of funky almost tails like thing that I've got going on here after I did this I drained the still again I gave it a rinse out and I let everything fall out because remember these are bubble flakes right so the stuff that goes up once it hits the plate it doesn't you know come back down entirely so what I wanted to do was flush all of that out like rinse it with water all the way down load the still again once again 20 litres of water and a little bit of this other stuff and that's what this is this is I took you know the some crap off the top and then I'm left with this and honestly I get absolutely nothing like that's had not even related to this stuff and that was almost no cleaning like oh you can call it a rinse in a half-assed alcohol sacrificial run like not even like I didn't even run it past here I just stopped the X as I oh that's pretty clean and I and I gave up so to go back and answer those first questions you know we had right back at the beginning of the video can you distill hopped beer oh yeah you can I just did it like you can't tell me I didn't i distilled it I got an alcoholic beverage out the other end of it you know full stop I don't think there's any way you can that point is it delicious can you make it delicious up to you really is there's no major thing that changes from distilling anything else it's sort of distilling things that are going to taste good for you to distill your product your way all of those things that you know we hold dear and sort of champion and the home distilling world and I hope that I've shown you that you really don't need to stress too much about you know missing you're still up I mean sure maybe you you know you use a little bit of those faints you've been holding on to to run a sacrificial run you know it's gonna take you half an hour an hour whatever give it a go maybe you'll love this stuff and ever since my wife told me that the smells like brewing you know like brewing in the house I'm suddenly a whole lot more partial to it like I can put my finger on what it is now and it's become more meaningful just realize the need to swap that gasket out yep it is so good to be back to stilling again even if it is a bit of a weird workaround we got to be doing a whole lot more of us coming up soon guys so buckle up for that I also need to say a huge huge huge thank you to these patrons guys these are the people that make this stuff you know possible so if you do find value in these videos and you would like to ensure they keep on happening feel free to jump on over to this link here that's my patreon page you can suss it out and see if it's the sort of thing that you would like to sign up for as well so I hope you guys had as much fun watching this as I had making it because it was an absolute blast if you liked the video please guys make sure you give it a thumbs up that does a whole lot of good and 20/20 on the YouTube world also people have been complaining about not getting notifications on YouTube I'm sorry guys there's like there's just out of my hands that's the algorithm if it is a problem for you and you do want notifications please sign up to the still it newsletter you can do so on the chase the crafter websites home page and I send out a couple of emails a month sort of summing up everything that's happened anyway guys keep on chasing the craft I'll catch you next time see ya

Channel: Still It

Views: 169,797

Keywords: Distilling beer, distilling hoppy beer, distilling APA, hop oils, hop flavour, can you distill beer, what happens if you distill beer, is distilled beer good, making whiskey, tasting distilled beer, Jesse, Still it, Chase the craft, Home distilling, distilling, home brewing

Id: 6uzUAl2LgWA

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 05 2020