Actually, the sound is "phased" on one channel (the phase is inverted between the two channels) which means that it will cancel out if you use a mono device, and will sound really funky on a stereo device
VERY interesting! If I understood Soren, he uses distilling speed - at least to some degree - to manage barrel entry proof. Lower entry proof, run hotter and faster. Higher, slow it down. Along with that is hotter and faster equals grungier and more flavor. For better or worse. I have been a “low and slow” advocate until now. You just introduced a new style/flavor lever to play with. Thanks man!
Higher ABV = less flavor after dilution to drinking strength. Flavor should not change unless you run way too hot and scorch. Run Whisky and rums faster for more flavor, run neutral spirits like vodka slowly for less flavor.
Super video, do you think the biggest influence in the speed will be in the hearts not the heads. Reason for asking is when I play with power in the heads are alway close with ABV, but once the hearts come the ABV changes like crazy can change upto 15% depending on power in. On the 6l 38% run the hearts should be around 2l @80%.
I'm only playing with a 20l Chinese pot still, using a variable induction hob for a heat source, and until now it's been a "blast the stripping runs" and then "slow distill the collected distillate using just enough power" process. With such small volumes, there's not a lot of wiggle room in making cuts so the slow distilling path helps with that.
Interesting that the focus was purely on ABV. To me that is a secondary consideration over being able to differentiate between cuts and having a cleaner tasting spirit
The increased ABV is an example of how decreasing the heat input on a pot still effectively increases the reflux ratio, improving the ability to selectively distil a specific component out of a mixture. This same principle applies to all chemical components of the boiling solution. All of the flavor/aroma compounds will show the same concentrating effect as the ethanol being shown by ABV. Basically this will allow you to be more able to choose very specific flavors you want in the finished product by better concentrating them into specific cut jars.
"Is It Really Worth Running A Pot Still Slowly?" My answer is "YES!"... sometimes. Distilling slowly in a copper pot still is a pain in the butt and the difference you will see is minute at best, but real quality distillation requires serious temperature control. If the finest quality is your goal (you should probably be using a column still), taking your time is mandatory.
I find patience to be a waste of time but I find that there is no step in the process that doesn't work better if I take more time to do it... how long you take...what you keep...what you throw away...that's what makes your liquor your liquor
Does it depend on the heat input? No. Does it depend on the knockdown power of you cooling unit? No. Does it depend on vapor flow/theoretical plate #? No. Will a slower run create a higher ABV? Yes. Will faster run lower ABV? Yes. These are all dependent factors on the chemistry of the charge and the substrate of the vapor exchange medium. Will some garage warrior with an all stainless steel pot with a 0.6 meter tall Lynn arm make a Glenlivet even with a commercial 340L cask? I’d venture not. Will someone with a 1000L per hour output discharge, dual 20 meter tall pure copper Coffee still, make a Kentucky Bourbon? Yes. Everything is dependent on what goes into that still and the composition of the total components. Bonus round!: Age your distillate and blend from different runs. That way you can age a crappy run over an extended period and put several together with it for the best possible flavor profile.
Experiment idea - 60 lt wash into 3 runs (pot fast, pot slow, reflux). Strict 250ml cuts - blind tasting of cuts and see what conclusion drawn by senses only. Learnt so much from this channel btw so huge thanks for that.
I know this much for sure, if you run *too* fast and hot you WILL regret it. Once you've had a sip of some goofball's scorched liquor you will never forget it. Absolutely undrinkable.
There was a long debate with some experiments carried out on the homedistiller forum some time back. Essentially you're agreeing with their conclusions that the abv bump is a consequence of passive reflux, which would suggest that the warmer the stilling environment and the better insulated the still, the less significant this bump will be. The big question for me and others which was never definitively answered was the effect on congeners. Will a slower run, with or without passive reflux, result in less smearing of heads and tails through the run? Accepted practice is to run slowly to reduce smearing, but it would be really interesting to see if a blind tasting could pick up differences in the cuts. I'm hoping to actually do this experiment at some point, but for now I just don't have the time.
This is exactly what I’ve been talking about, specially with the t-500, it’s not a matter of high amount of heat or power, it’s the point where you can control both as one to stop scorching! either when running all grain or fruit or even molasses type mash! Yes slightly lower or controlled heat or power will alway give a better product and smoother distillation than running full bore uncontrolled heat! Even the old moonshiners that used wood fire stills had to control their fires! Great topic and will be interesting to see your further thoughts!
And i think this is where the misconception of 3 of more boiling points comes from. A lot of distillers think that there's multiple boiling points that "if i reach 173 and stay under 212 i'll get more alcohol than water, and if i go too close to 212 i'll get more water"
I mean you will result in a cleaner spirit definitely but if your making whisky you probably dont want it too clean , think about the diffrence between clean irish triple distilled and something delicious like springbank which is much more tasty dispite the new make sprit being quite harsh
@@StillIt yeah your bang on ☺️ it is an artistic decision , some people drive their stills hard and produce a master peice others produce hot chilly piss water , other drive their stills slow producing a clean symphony of flavour while others bland meh.
Your a mind reader Jesse! I'm running my 30 gallon right now.....I fill a quart jar about every 20 min lol less maybe. Its always good not fiery or mean. Works great for my set up
run a still at 200 degrees if ya like, makes no difference if you use a thumper. it does what it does, its the water flow that cools the vapour that makes it work.
A good video about the debate of ABV, but I was kind of disappointed that the subject of cuts wasn't taken up much. I understand your guest was someone who was very knowledgeable and likely had such a good idea of his product that he knows exactly where he wants the cuts, but for hobbyists and newbies knowing whether slowing a pot still would help to separate the various compounds and help to counteract the characteristic smearing of pot stills would have been really helpful.
I made a killer Bourbon using a gallon of non-vanilla corn syrup, 2 lbs of malted barley. Sugar. It made a great bourbon after having it with burnt oak chips for awhile. I did not carbon filter it. Everyone loved it. I made some using corn flakes. I went to a discount store and bought 8- 18 oz boxes for $1.35. When you stew it with the 2 pounds of malted barley it completely dissolves because it is already gelitenized. The biggest misconception is that people believe yeast eat sugar, yeast do not eat sugar. They eat the nutrients in the grains. Otherwise you could never get yeast to grow when you make bread with out sugar. Happy yeast make a enzyme that breaks down the sugar into CO2 and alcohol.
I am distilling a Banana Rum in my T500. The wash is fermented with cooked mashed bananas, Molasses and all the good stuff and is fermented out and settled before pot stilling. I only run the pot still once as the hole point of the exercise to to get as much of the flavor into my product as I can. I use a copper dome and a short column on top of that and a Boka pot still condenser. Inside the column I hang a horses tail of copper made from stripping a short length of very heavy welding earth cable and this is cleaned with Georges 551 cleaning solution so the copper is like brand new with many strands of fine filaments of copper hanging down. I use full throttle on the element to get the run going and drop the energy to almost 50 percent and run the still at 60 percent ABV. I can tweak the power toward the end of the run to extract all I can. I believe that fast is good, but is a tool like anything else, as if I wanted higher ABV I could re flux my rum to the point I would get pure spirit with virtually no flavor at all. My Rum is kick ass, jump up and punch you on the nose stuff. When you close your eyes and drink it you could imagine it being smuggled out of Jamaica in barrels by smugglers and pirates.
Hey, I am fairly new to distilling and have watched a lot of your videos. I was trying to do a stripping run on a vodka mash in my pot still and had something strange occur. From the start, i was getting straight water 0% abv. I ran it for a bit thinking it was just a weird fluke. After an hour of running I again tested the abv and it was still 0%. I decided to stop my run and check things out once it cooled down. After it cooled I checked the abv of the mash left in the still. My starting abv before distilling was 17%. After running it, the abv in the pot is 40%. Obviously this makes sense because I was only getting water out of the condensor. My question is, how does this happen? I somehow went straight past all of the alcohol and distilled only water. My best guess is that I had my still running too fast. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advanced!
Why on the show moonshiners they say it makes it more FIRERY..( BURN THE GUZZLE ) SAYS mark n digger.. my shine tends to always burn the guzzle.. 😆 I'd love to find way to make it lil smoother if this is true.. I deff need to slow mine down
Thanks so much for this! I always wondered this and figured more reflux time would give a higher ABV, but in practice I never got much difference. On a side note, I've heard of people adding sugar, honey or salt into the still to increase the boiling temp of the water. This gives a bigger difference between the boiling temp of the alcohol and the water.
I think there is certain amount of absolute alcohol in pot. So if you take it out with higher ABV, then you just get it in less volume. Or am I on wrong path? To my understanding speed will not change initial amount of alcohol in wash? But it would be interesting to see if there is difference in heads and tails? Witch speed will give you more volume of usable hearts? Will it change taste?
I run a double keg boiler and a 15 gallon keg thumper. Twin 1.5 over 1/2 Liebig condensers. Big copper pipe all the way thru. Lots of freezing water theu the liebig. On a 40 gallon run it takes me bout 5-7 hours to finish. Run slow is what i was always told and its never did me wrong
The word you're looking for here is reflux ratio. High reflux ratio means higher ABV and a "cleaner" spirit. Lower reflux ratio (arising from more power input for a still with a constant area) means lower ABV. A pot still has reflux, unless it is much better insulated than than the ones people typically used- that reflux is just less effectively contacted countercurrently with the rising vapour than in a reflux still. You can see this clearly in a lab glassware distillation apparatus. All that business by the professional distiller about "reaction time with the copper" is just nonsense.
Now add a thumper to your system and I screws this all up. It Can be done but you need to watch temp on the thumper because if your pot gets to cool your thumper won't have enough heat to work
hmmm. The possible confusion in all this is that there is only a particular quantity of alcohol in the mash/wash/spirit being distilled. So it is literally impossible to create higher abv OVERALL, right? Because it doesn't exist. This is therefore an attempt to manipulate where in the distilling period you take more abv. it does make sense that more/longer contact with copper may make the distillate smoother. But does seem a whoooole lot of experimentation would be required to make it predictable.
Typing before actually watching. My guess is this is some advice that mattered more when caps were held on with weights or friction, and sealed with flour or mud. Too much heat outside will reflect on pressure inside, and a thicker mash bubbling inside might be more prone to blocking. I don't know that it makes for better product so much as valid operational concerns in days of yore @ 8:50! wrong is wrong
Jesse, have you ever tried varying the temperature during a run? I am a chemist, though not a distilling expert, I know this is done to get a better separation for a certain thing. It may be not applicable, but I am kind of intrested if you tried it.
I would just like to add that the way you conduct your distiller also depends on the quantity of your boiler: if distill 1 liter gin will be different from 50L gin.
There are various spelling mistakes in the Afrikaans writing. Swear in stead of swaer and hong instead of hond. Come on dude this is a language video - get the spelling right at least
I just had a thought that I wanted to run by you. Maybe you could make up a batch of Applejack and then distill it. I'd just like to see that if you haven't already done it.
Soren is a legend. I remember talking to him when he was doing a 1919 promo, quite a few years ago. More recently, I've ordered botanicals from him. Great to see him doing so well.
It's basic science, even can water evaporates at say example temperature 10c it's about the environment it's in dry or humid and since a still is pretty damn humid in there water will come of a lot quicker at a higher temperature so if you run it colder, Not FASTER 🤣 The ABV will be higher every time of the day, all good things come to those who wait, and yes you can run it hotter to get more flavours, but the real trick is when to turn it up or down, to get the flavours you want trial and error real science, colder run still a more pure alcohol, a hotter still a dirtier alcohol so too speak, I got all A, s in Science and distillation is a fairly basic process, if you like know of the tolerances of rate of evaporation temperatures,! Not boiling point there is a big difference, just like when they make Fuel ie, petrol you don't want the diesel coming over with the petrol so you need to run it at a tolerance temperature or evaporative rate, otherwise you'll get a dirty mix 👍🏻
Mmm, the jury is out, does a lower temperature lower the excitement and therefore lower the van der waals forces therefore not attract the higher and lower volatile's giving a cleaner spirit. As propanol has more mass and therefore requires more energy to excite them, propanol will require a higher boiling point. But as the experiment is under pressure and refluxing how would that effect the result. Sorreeeee.
If you halve your power going in, can you reduce your condensing water (to save water) too or does that defeat the whole purpose of slowing down the run off?
does this mean that i can also save on cooling water through the condenser by running cooler because id have less water vapor going through the condenser with the ethanol vapor?
Im run pot slowly when cutting heads, when i cut hearts i put power so the spirit comes out in a small stream. When im close to tails i cut the power again
Another nice video Jesse. I'm glad he mentioned speed in relationship to flavor. Whiskey and rum need that flavor to be carried over, while with neutrals, one would want very little flavor carried over. This in itself should dictate how fast the still is run. I have not done it yet, and wouldn't because of the legality here in the states of course, but a fast stripping run of rum followed up by a slower run with some backset included into the mix to bring the ABV down to a reasonable distilling ABV, sounds like an interesting experiment. Keep up the great work buddy. Hey to Beaver for me if you guys ever still chat. -- den
More to the point is like most things the Foundations are key, your wash! The quality of it, and how you ferment it all have an influence, then from this comes the type of still and power to achieve a great finished product. Then the wood comes into play. Great video Jesse.
I've found (more importantly than abv) , the distillate is much smoother if you run as slow as you can get it so for personal consumption, I run as slow as I can to get the most smooth distillate I can. I think it's worth it
Zdravím z české republiky. Při druhém pálení je nutné se změřit na pomalý nástup tepla mezi 85 a 90 stupni celsia. Protože se oddělují lépe ruzně vařící složky tedy metyl alkohol se uodpařuje dříve velký výkon ho strhává s alkoholem sebou u Brendy.
When running REALLY slow, there's a point where the boiler TEMP shoots up (I know, I know). On strips I start watching abv a lot more and stop relatively early. On spirits, I just stop it when it shoots up, the flavor drops drastically. It seems. Still learning.
I still don't quite get how the avarage speed depends on the size of your still. You said on a small still "just drops" is fine, and on big ones more like a pencil stream. Does it depend on the amount of liquid inside of my still / or purely on the size of my still? I usually do small batches, 8-10 liters, in a 35 liters pot still.
Speed does not matter one bit...It's the "Rhythm" and the synchronicity of all the components that are involved!....Silly Wabbit...Tricks are for the new comers...nothing beats experience like a scrambled egg...lol
Great video Jesse. What I would be curious if it's total yields at the different take off speeds. Lower power input would allow for great yields, since separation occurs more. Just a thought.
Yeah good point. I guess thats what Soren was getting at when saying he drops power again near the end of the run. Squeeze out a little more hearts. Be interesting to see how that compares to just running slower the whole time.
Hi jesse I love your channel and it's very informative but I still have a question When I'm going to do the spirit run do I dilute the alcohol from the stripping run with water or can I use the dunder from the stripping run and dilute the alcohol to around 35-40 % ???? Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱😀
All about that reflux baby. The speed of your distillation, how fast your run it, really only matters when it comes to making your cuts. Running it slower drives greater reflex and makes the difference between your heads, hearts, & tails sharper.
I understand his concept. But he refers his still is boiling the mash. He ain't boiling shit. You are comparing apple and oranges. A Dude that packs a column with a bubblers and a reflux aint boiling. Your gunna get a solid 187 to 130 for half the run. about the condenser keep the water cool. The tough part is the reflux water temp control and flow. The dude is good at what he does but Jessie your questions and follow ups sucked. You are awesome don't get me wrong I do this as a hobby too. Dude is good at what he does. But you asked the wrong questions. More people will be all confused.
Craft Distillery owner here. You definitely want to run full speed in the stripping run. I had done about 600 distillations so far. I started off running it slow but with a pot still it makes an inferior product. One of the main reasons is you want to go deep into the tails are there are great flavor compounds there. If your doing a spirit run and you back off the power at 50% abv for half an hour then go full speed down to 20% you will end up with a project that has great flavor and with a final abv of 52%. This is the ideal ABV for barreling. If you barrel from between 40 to 45% the aging process can produce methanol. Its best to barrel between 48 and 53% abv. Especially if your using small barrels.
Nice solid simple test to answer one of the most common questions.
I'd be curious to know how much time each run took, respectively.
you may need to re-upload this video, the squarespace bit doesn't have any volume...
It did have volume but it was only coming out of the right side channel so if you only have left channel audio you could hear nothing
Actually, the sound is "phased" on one channel (the phase is inverted between the two channels) which means that it will cancel out if you use a mono device, and will sound really funky on a stereo device
VERY interesting! If I understood Soren, he uses distilling speed - at least to some degree - to manage barrel entry proof. Lower entry proof, run hotter and faster. Higher, slow it down. Along with that is hotter and faster equals grungier and more flavor. For better or worse. I have been a “low and slow” advocate until now. You just introduced a new style/flavor lever to play with. Thanks man!
Would be interesting to see how the flavor changes between the two. If the ABV changes I assume that the flavor would change as well.
Higher ABV = less flavor after dilution to drinking strength. Flavor should not change unless you run way too hot and scorch. Run Whisky and rums faster for more flavor, run neutral spirits like vodka slowly for less flavor.
It tastes like burning!
Super video, do you think the biggest influence in the speed will be in the hearts not the heads.
Reason for asking is when I play with power in the heads are alway close with ABV, but once the hearts come the ABV changes like crazy can change upto 15% depending on power in.
On the 6l 38% run the hearts should be around 2l @80%.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Me personally I like keeping my still at about 80-85C
I'm only playing with a 20l Chinese pot still, using a variable induction hob for a heat source, and until now it's been a "blast the stripping runs" and then "slow distill the collected distillate using just enough power" process. With such small volumes, there's not a lot of wiggle room in making cuts so the slow distilling path helps with that.
Interesting that the focus was purely on ABV. To me that is a secondary consideration over being able to differentiate between cuts and having a cleaner tasting spirit
Was wondering the same thing
The increased ABV is an example of how decreasing the heat input on a pot still effectively increases the reflux ratio, improving the ability to selectively distil a specific component out of a mixture. This same principle applies to all chemical components of the boiling solution. All of the flavor/aroma compounds will show the same concentrating effect as the ethanol being shown by ABV. Basically this will allow you to be more able to choose very specific flavors you want in the finished product by better concentrating them into specific cut jars.
Faster means more heat it's gonna effect oils if the temp is higher
"Is It Really Worth Running A Pot Still Slowly?" My answer is "YES!"... sometimes. Distilling slowly in a copper pot still is a pain in the butt and the difference you will see is minute at best, but real quality distillation requires serious temperature control. If the finest quality is your goal (you should probably be using a column still), taking your time is mandatory.
I find patience to be a waste of time but I find that there is no step in the process that doesn't work better if I take more time to do it...
how long you take...what you keep...what you throw away...that's what makes your liquor your liquor
Great video man. I was wondering about the details of this exact question last week. Cheers 🥃
Cheers, can't wait to come see that beautiful big still of yours in person!
Does it depend on the heat input? No. Does it depend on the knockdown power of you cooling unit? No. Does it depend on vapor flow/theoretical plate #? No. Will a slower run create a higher ABV? Yes. Will faster run lower ABV? Yes. These are all dependent factors on the chemistry of the charge and the substrate of the vapor exchange medium. Will some garage warrior with an all stainless steel pot with a 0.6 meter tall Lynn arm make a Glenlivet even with a commercial 340L cask? I’d venture not. Will someone with a 1000L per hour output discharge, dual 20 meter tall pure copper Coffee still, make a Kentucky Bourbon? Yes. Everything is dependent on what goes into that still and the composition of the total components.
Bonus round!: Age your distillate and blend from different runs. That way you can age a crappy run over an extended period and put several together with it for the best possible flavor profile.
Ahhhhh ? Ok ?
I am a commercial distiller on the bigger stills it makes a bigger difference. David's distillery Morrisville PA.
Slower is cleaner, faster is more headsy 👍🏻🇦🇺
Experiment idea - 60 lt wash into 3 runs (pot fast, pot slow, reflux). Strict 250ml cuts - blind tasting of cuts and see what conclusion drawn by senses only.
Learnt so much from this channel btw so huge thanks for that.
I know this much for sure, if you run *too* fast and hot you WILL regret it. Once you've had a sip of some goofball's scorched liquor you will never forget it. Absolutely undrinkable.
There was a long debate with some experiments carried out on the homedistiller forum some time back. Essentially you're agreeing with their conclusions that the abv bump is a consequence of passive reflux, which would suggest that the warmer the stilling environment and the better insulated the still, the less significant this bump will be. The big question for me and others which was never definitively answered was the effect on congeners. Will a slower run, with or without passive reflux, result in less smearing of heads and tails through the run? Accepted practice is to run slowly to reduce smearing, but it would be really interesting to see if a blind tasting could pick up differences in the cuts. I'm hoping to actually do this experiment at some point, but for now I just don't have the time.
This is exactly what I’ve been talking about, specially with the t-500, it’s not a matter of high amount of heat or power, it’s the point where you can control both as one to stop scorching! either when running all grain or fruit or even molasses type mash! Yes slightly lower or controlled heat or power will alway give a better product and smoother distillation than running full bore uncontrolled heat! Even the old moonshiners that used wood fire stills had to control their fires! Great topic and will be interesting to see your further thoughts!
Agree 100%.
the old moonshiners actually ran thumpers to account for the fact that you cant control heat all that well when using a wood fire
Low and slow for me.
Yo fam, your ad didn't have sound
5:19 sound issues. Maybe it's a 'Muerica thang.
Alcohol percentages will extract different vanillins? Id like to hear about those profiles.
And i think this is where the misconception of 3 of more boiling points comes from.
A lot of distillers think that there's multiple boiling points that "if i reach 173 and stay under 212 i'll get more alcohol than water, and if i go too close to 212 i'll get more water"
Hay, 5:18 to 6:28, no sound🤔 lol 😆 I'm not a technical either, thought you'd like to know tho. Thnx
Cheers for the heads up. I just went and checked on 3 pc's and 2 phones. Its fine for me 🤷♂️
@@StillIt I got the same thing. Maybe it's a 'Muerica thang.
I mean you will result in a cleaner spirit definitely but if your making whisky you probably dont want it too clean , think about the diffrence between clean irish triple distilled and something delicious like springbank which is much more tasty dispite the new make sprit being quite harsh
I totally agree. Thats what we were getting at saying its a artistic decision. I guess I could have made that a little clearer 👍
@@StillIt yeah your bang on ☺️ it is an artistic decision , some people drive their stills hard and produce a master peice others produce hot chilly piss water , other drive their stills slow producing a clean symphony of flavour while others bland meh.
@@StillIt i know run my wash/ low wines off as fast as i can without it foaming
Your a mind reader Jesse! I'm running my 30 gallon right now.....I fill a quart jar about every 20 min lol less maybe. Its always good not fiery or mean. Works great for my set up
Meant to say a little less instead of lol less....autofixxer
Also should mention that I use a propane burner for my heat source. Very adjustable with the regulator
Part of this has no sound
More than ABV I'm interested in how much of the flavour from the wash is carried through.
run a still at 200 degrees if ya like, makes no difference if you use a thumper.
it does what it does, its the water flow that cools the vapour that makes it work.
We are specifically talking about pot stills here. So there is no thumper and there is no active reflux condenser.
A good video about the debate of ABV, but I was kind of disappointed that the subject of cuts wasn't taken up much. I understand your guest was someone who was very knowledgeable and likely had such a good idea of his product that he knows exactly where he wants the cuts, but for hobbyists and newbies knowing whether slowing a pot still would help to separate the various compounds and help to counteract the characteristic smearing of pot stills would have been really helpful.
I made a killer Bourbon using a gallon of non-vanilla corn syrup, 2 lbs
of malted barley. Sugar. It made a great bourbon after having it with
burnt oak chips for awhile. I did not carbon filter it. Everyone loved
it.
I made some using corn flakes. I went to a discount store and bought 8-
18 oz boxes for $1.35. When you stew it with the 2 pounds of malted
barley it completely dissolves because it is already gelitenized.
The biggest misconception is that people believe yeast eat sugar, yeast
do not eat sugar. They eat the nutrients in the grains. Otherwise you
could never get yeast to grow when you make bread with out sugar. Happy
yeast make a enzyme that breaks down the sugar into CO2 and alcohol.
I am distilling a Banana Rum in my T500. The wash is fermented with cooked mashed bananas, Molasses and all the good stuff and is fermented out and settled before pot stilling. I only run the pot still once as the hole point of the exercise to to get as much of the flavor into my product as I can. I use a copper dome and a short column on top of that and a Boka pot still condenser. Inside the column I hang a horses tail of copper made from stripping a short length of very heavy welding earth cable and this is cleaned with Georges 551 cleaning solution so the copper is like brand new with many strands of fine filaments of copper hanging down. I use full throttle on the element to get the run going and drop the energy to almost 50 percent and run the still at 60 percent ABV. I can tweak the power toward the end of the run to extract all I can. I believe that fast is good, but is a tool like anything else, as if I wanted higher ABV I could re flux my rum to the point I would get pure spirit with virtually no flavor at all. My Rum is kick ass, jump up and punch you on the nose stuff. When you close your eyes and drink it you could imagine it being smuggled out of Jamaica in barrels by smugglers and pirates.
Watching your video about temperature and speed, my question is wouldn’t the condenser size and column size be considered in the equation?
Hey, I am fairly new to distilling and have watched a lot of your videos. I was trying to do a stripping run on a vodka mash in my pot still and had something strange occur. From the start, i was getting straight water 0% abv. I ran it for a bit thinking it was just a weird fluke. After an hour of running I again tested the abv and it was still 0%. I decided to stop my run and check things out once it cooled down. After it cooled I checked the abv of the mash left in the still. My starting abv before distilling was 17%. After running it, the abv in the pot is 40%. Obviously this makes sense because I was only getting water out of the condensor. My question is, how does this happen? I somehow went straight past all of the alcohol and distilled only water. My best guess is that I had my still running too fast. Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advanced!
Why on the show moonshiners they say it makes it more FIRERY..( BURN THE GUZZLE ) SAYS mark n digger.. my shine tends to always burn the guzzle.. 😆 I'd love to find way to make it lil smoother if this is true.. I deff need to slow mine down
Thanks so much for this! I always wondered this and figured more reflux time would give a higher ABV, but in practice I never got much difference.
On a side note, I've heard of people adding sugar, honey or salt into the still to increase the boiling temp of the water. This gives a bigger difference between the boiling temp of the alcohol and the water.
I think there is certain amount of absolute alcohol in pot. So if you take it out with higher ABV, then you just get it in less volume. Or am I on wrong path? To my understanding speed will not change initial amount of alcohol in wash?
But it would be interesting to see if there is difference in heads and tails? Witch speed will give you more volume of usable hearts? Will it change taste?
I run a double keg boiler and a 15 gallon keg thumper. Twin 1.5 over 1/2 Liebig condensers. Big copper pipe all the way thru. Lots of freezing water theu the liebig. On a 40 gallon run it takes me bout 5-7 hours to finish. Run slow is what i was always told and its never did me wrong
The word you're looking for here is reflux ratio. High reflux ratio means higher ABV and a "cleaner" spirit. Lower reflux ratio (arising from more power input for a still with a constant area) means lower ABV. A pot still has reflux, unless it is much better insulated than than the ones people typically used- that reflux is just less effectively contacted countercurrently with the rising vapour than in a reflux still. You can see this clearly in a lab glassware distillation apparatus. All that business by the professional distiller about "reaction time with the copper" is just nonsense.
Now add a thumper to your system and I screws this all up. It Can be done but you need to watch temp on the thumper because if your pot gets to cool your thumper won't have enough heat to work
Simple: if you run it faster, it will increase your temp faster and you will be collecting the tails earlier, having shorter hearts.
hmmm. The possible confusion in all this is that there is only a particular quantity of alcohol in the mash/wash/spirit being distilled. So it is literally impossible to create higher abv OVERALL, right? Because it doesn't exist. This is therefore an attempt to manipulate where in the distilling period you take more abv. it does make sense that more/longer contact with copper may make the distillate smoother. But does seem a whoooole lot of experimentation would be required to make it predictable.
Typing before actually watching.
My guess is this is some advice that mattered more when caps were held on with weights or friction, and sealed with flour or mud.
Too much heat outside will reflect on pressure inside, and a thicker mash bubbling inside might be more prone to blocking. I don't know that it makes for better product so much as valid operational concerns in days of yore
@ 8:50! wrong is wrong
Jesse, have you ever tried varying the temperature during a run? I am a chemist, though not a distilling expert, I know this is done to get a better separation for a certain thing. It may be not applicable, but I am kind of intrested if you tried it.
Low and slow is the way to go.
That’s the beauty of running on electric , so easy to dial in a constant heat requirement .
I would just like to add that the way you conduct your distiller also depends on the quantity of your boiler: if distill 1 liter gin will be different from 50L gin.
Why you think that is?
It’s not all about ABV ..... i find the slower i run a still is a BETTER TASTE . I would like a lower ABV to Gain a Better taste.
There are various spelling mistakes in the Afrikaans writing. Swear in stead of swaer and hong instead of hond. Come on dude this is a language video - get the spelling right at least
I just had a thought that I wanted to run by you. Maybe you could make up a batch of Applejack and then distill it. I'd just like to see that if you haven't already done it.
Soren is a legend. I remember talking to him when he was doing a 1919 promo, quite a few years ago. More recently, I've ordered botanicals from him. Great to see him doing so well.
I use my pot still as a double boiler, and it much easier to control the heat, can hold a constant 195 degrees f to 200 degrees f
Even a section for mimes. Something for everyone. Lol no sound for a second, but.. interesting.
Hello, would you insert Polish subtitles? You have a lot of fans from Poland, and we like to distil something from time to time. Cheers
It's basic science, even can water evaporates at say example temperature 10c it's about the environment it's in dry or humid and since a still is pretty damn humid in there water will come of a lot quicker at a higher temperature so if you run it colder, Not FASTER 🤣 The ABV will be higher every time of the day, all good things come to those who wait, and yes you can run it hotter to get more flavours, but the real trick is when to turn it up or down, to get the flavours you want trial and error real science, colder run still a more pure alcohol, a hotter still a dirtier alcohol so too speak, I got all A, s in Science and distillation is a fairly basic process, if you like know of the tolerances of rate of evaporation temperatures,! Not boiling point there is a big difference, just like when they make Fuel ie, petrol you don't want the diesel coming over with the petrol so you need to run it at a tolerance temperature or evaporative rate, otherwise you'll get a dirty mix 👍🏻
Mmm, the jury is out, does a lower temperature lower the excitement and therefore lower the van der waals forces therefore not attract the higher and lower volatile's giving a cleaner spirit.
As propanol has more mass and therefore requires more energy to excite them, propanol will require a higher boiling point. But as the experiment is under pressure and refluxing how would that effect the result. Sorreeeee.
Recently purchased a turbo 500 with a copper column can you run it without the saddles in the column
If you halve your power going in, can you reduce your condensing water (to save water) too or does that defeat the whole purpose of slowing down the run off?
what about taste man? sometimes ABV is not everything. Even a sugar mash can taste different depending on yeast and how its run.
I wanted to know if slowly running the still will help with the bite that the liquor of a buddy makes cuz its fiery you just feel the burn
does this mean that i can also save on cooling water through the condenser by running cooler because id have less water vapor going through the condenser with the ethanol vapor?
the audio on your ad read was much quieter and had an echo. sounded to me like you forgot to apply your post processing on that clip.
Has anyone else tried stills from hooloo. Damn what crooks they are. I wish someone would have warned me not to deal with them
Some people don't really understand thermofynamics.
Im run pot slowly when cutting heads, when i cut hearts i put power so the spirit comes out in a small stream. When im close to tails i cut the power again
Halfway through you lost some audio. But then it came back.
its how much energy you put into it PER UNIT of TIME.
Another nice video Jesse. I'm glad he mentioned speed in relationship to flavor. Whiskey and rum need that flavor to be carried over, while with neutrals, one would want very little flavor carried over. This in itself should dictate how fast the still is run. I have not done it yet, and wouldn't because of the legality here in the states of course, but a fast stripping run of rum followed up by a slower run with some backset included into the mix to bring the ABV down to a reasonable distilling ABV, sounds like an interesting experiment. Keep up the great work buddy. Hey to Beaver for me if you guys ever still chat. -- den
It's about pushing the tails or other undesirables into your hearts run. That's why you can't run it too hot.
More to the point is like most things the Foundations are key, your wash! The quality of it, and how you ferment it all have an influence, then from this comes the type of still and power to achieve a great finished product. Then the wood comes into play. Great video Jesse.
Good show, this was a really interesting overview of controlling taste & ABV by controlling speed/heat.
I've found (more importantly than abv) , the distillate is much smoother if you run as slow as you can get it so for personal consumption, I run as slow as I can to get the most smooth distillate I can. I think it's worth it
The way to go. I like using the first run. More flavor.
Technology say that best speed on 100 liters is 5liters per hours.
Great video, Jesse. But how to you advertise your goods on UA-cam?
Would be interesting to compare power consumption difference. Running fast at full power versus running longer with less power.
The difference is probably within a standard deviation.
your ad for squarespace is messed up. the audio is basically muted.
what was the difference in taste?? any bad after tastes on the high power run??
I imagine a slower output would make cuts easier to dicerne and fine tune
Zdravím z české republiky. Při druhém pálení je nutné se změřit na pomalý nástup tepla mezi 85 a 90 stupni celsia. Protože se oddělují lépe ruzně vařící složky tedy metyl alkohol se uodpařuje dříve velký výkon ho strhává s alkoholem sebou u Brendy.
When running REALLY slow, there's a point where the boiler TEMP shoots up (I know, I know). On strips I start watching abv a lot more and stop relatively early. On spirits, I just stop it when it shoots up, the flavor drops drastically. It seems. Still learning.
Oh, and it makes cuts a lot easier
I let it rip last night and came out hot but lower proof than expected for the apparent heat.
Anyone know what's happend to ģeorge at barley n hops?
Less energy = pre-aging
Jesse if you made a copper coil that wrapped around your copper dome you could cool that dome
Gave the slow style a go and seen a massive increase in initial %
Hi Jesse!
I would like to know witch one had the biggest energy outtake in combination of what you did.
You mean like how many wat hours for each? No idea sorry mate. I don't measure.
I still don't quite get how the avarage speed depends on the size of your still. You said on a small still "just drops" is fine, and on big ones more like a pencil stream. Does it depend on the amount of liquid inside of my still / or purely on the size of my still? I usually do small batches, 8-10 liters, in a 35 liters pot still.
Evaporation inside the still is heavily dependent on surface area. The smaller the still, the smaller the surface area, and the smaller the outflow.
Flavor change in a slow run like in a brandy
Hey mate, you have some sound problems at 5:29.
Speed does not matter one bit...It's the "Rhythm" and the synchronicity of all the components that are involved!....Silly Wabbit...Tricks are for the new comers...nothing beats experience like a scrambled egg...lol
Great video Jesse. What I would be curious if it's total yields at the different take off speeds. Lower power input would allow for great yields, since separation occurs more. Just a thought.
Yeah good point. I guess thats what Soren was getting at when saying he drops power again near the end of the run. Squeeze out a little more hearts. Be interesting to see how that compares to just running slower the whole time.
I guess main difference is the proof coming out
I would really love to see you run a traditional all copper alembic still.
It’s what I run and hard to find good quality info on you tube. There are a couple but…
Hmmm I would need to get one first! haha. Il look into options :)
Hi jesse
I love your channel and it's very informative but I still have a question
When I'm going to do the spirit run do I dilute the alcohol from the stripping run with water or can I use the dunder from the stripping run and dilute the alcohol to around 35-40 % ????
Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱😀
All about that reflux baby. The speed of your distillation, how fast your run it, really only matters when it comes to making your cuts. Running it slower drives greater reflex and makes the difference between your heads, hearts, & tails sharper.
Could use an amp clamp… maybe.. idea..
I understand his concept. But he refers his still is boiling the mash. He ain't boiling shit. You are comparing apple and oranges. A Dude that packs a column with a bubblers and a reflux aint boiling. Your gunna get a solid 187 to 130 for half the run. about the condenser keep the water cool. The tough part is the reflux water temp control and flow. The dude is good at what he does but Jessie your questions and follow ups sucked. You are awesome don't get me wrong I do this as a hobby too. Dude is good at what he does. But you asked the wrong questions. More people will be all confused.
Craft Distillery owner here. You definitely want to run full speed in the stripping run. I had done about 600 distillations so far. I started off running it slow but with a pot still it makes an inferior product. One of the main reasons is you want to go deep into the tails are there are great flavor compounds there. If your doing a spirit run and you back off the power at 50% abv for half an hour then go full speed down to 20% you will end up with a project that has great flavor and with a final abv of 52%. This is the ideal ABV for barreling. If you barrel from between 40 to 45% the aging process can produce methanol. Its best to barrel between 48 and 53% abv. Especially if your using small barrels.
Thanks Jessie. i got heaps out of that vid