Distillation - making moonshine
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Q: Can I ferment more than
25 litres by scaling up the recipe of a Turbo Yeast?
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| A: Not easily, no. But
if you are willing to experiment a little, ok - it can often be
done. Here's a summary for our turbo's: |
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| ALCOTEC
24 : Forget it. This turbo produces so
much heat when fermenting so scaling up (and thereby producing even
higher temps "inside") just doesn't work well at all. Some people
may still use it for 50 litres or more and get a "good" result. But
what they don't realise is that they would have got the same result
(1-3 days fermentation, final alcohol around 10-11%) with a cheaper
turbo. Also
- if you add, say 12 kgs of sugar into 50 litres and then get
10% alcohol in a few days - there is a lot of residual sugar left
and this is unnecessary (will cost you money and produce a
not-so-good distillate). Better then to use a different turbo (AT48)
and aim for lower alcohol to start with, i.e. add LESS sugar than
recipe. This way you get no residual sugar, less impurities,
cheaper. |
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| ALCOTEC
48 : Can be used with larger volumes but
you need to cut down a bit on the sugar level. If you simply scale
up the recipe there is a risk the wash overheats (due to the smaller
surface/volume ratio). We don't issue guidelines here - you will
have to experiment a bit - but it can be done. |
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| ALCOTEC
8 & ALCOTEC 6:
These are both less temperature tolerant than the
modern recipes above, so it is not a very good idea to scale up
recipes here. If you have to do it you MUST
cut down on sugar content, plus cut down on the amount of turbo's
below 1 sachet per 25 litres. We don't give any recommendations
here. |
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| LARGE FERMENTATIONS:
That would be, say 100-500 litres. Using AT48, you
will need to cut down on the sugar here, you would also preferably
want to cut down on yeast but not nutrient. Now this is difficult
because the turbo is pre-mixed (yeast + nutrient). So you will have
to cut down on both unfortunately which will give you a non-optimal
result. You can use simple cooling (throw in a number of frozen 5L
containers of water some 12 hours from start) etc. See our website
for more info, turbo-yeast. |
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| VERY LARGE FERMENTATIONS:
500 litres plus, often in the industry up to 10,000
or 50,000 litres. Cooling MUST be
provided (normally water cooled mantle tanks) and then you can
actually scale up our recipes to 100,000 litres and they work fine.
We provide the alcohol industry with bulk turbo mixes for very large
fermentations. The main reason they use our products is to produce
up to 18% alcohol in one fermentation. |
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Q: My alcohol turned blue
after distillation. What's going on here then?
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| A:
It is very likely ammonia reacting with copper somewhere (your still
probably). It is not dangerous, you can usually filter it off with
activated carbon. But it shouldn't normally be there - unless you
have changed the recipe in some way (at least for the "modern"
turbo's AT24, AT48 and VodkaStar).
See the Q&A about neutralising wash below. |
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Q: You have heard about
neutralising wash by adding sodium bicarbonate - what about it?
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A:
Not a good idea. Bottom line here is very simple. Don't do it. If
you add sodium bicarbonate, you will produce ammonia. If you do not
add it, you will not produce ammonia. Ammonia in a copper still will
make your spirit turn blue.
The modern Alcotec's (AT24, AT48 and
VodkaStar) are all designed to produce a slightly acidic wash to
keep yield of ethanol high and glycerol low and also to protect
against any bacterial contamination.
The recipes themselves will
NOT produce any ammonia (a common
misconception though). They would have done so if they had been
basically diammonium phosphate and some vitamins like some of the
very early turbo's - but modern turbo recipes are much more
sophisticated. |
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Q: But I've heard that an
acidic wash must be neutralised!
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A:
This is not true in general. The modern ethanol producing industry
today uses acidic washes as an important part in producing more and
cleaner alcohol and we are using the same technology for home
fermentations.
It is of course important to control the level of acidity in the
wash - it cannot be allowed to bee too high. All modern turbo's do
this as an integral part of the recipe and it is important that the
users do not interfere with this. If you do - it is very likely you
will move away from the optimum wash.
If you have a reflux still - no acidity at all will
be carried over from a turbo yeast wash. If you use a pot still
instead, some acidity will be carried over - but an extremely low
level which will not affect taste or your health in any way.
Neutralising the wash by adding ammonia will produce more impurities
than it will remove. |
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Q: Should I use a pot
still or a reflux still - what's the difference?
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| A:
A pot still is not as good as a reflux when it comes to
producing clean ethanol. The pot still is a simple thing, heat up
alcohol solution, collect the vapours and cool them down. Some
impurities will travel with the vapour and end up in the final
spirit. The only really good use for a pot still is when you make
Whisky etc and you actually want some impurities carried over.
A reflux, uses one vital component the pot still
doesn’t have - the column. The idea behind the column is to put
obstacles in the way of the rising vapour, preferably cold
obstacles, so the vapour condenses. But because hot vapour is still
coming up from underneath, the condensate will be heated up and boil
a second (third etc) time as it travels higher and higher in the
column - and finally falls over the edge. This process removes more
impurities. |
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Q: Copper still or
stainless steel? What's best?
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| A:
Stainless steel stills - definitely our favourites. It's true that
the Whisky industry and other distillers found copper parts to be an
essential bit when designing the optimum still - but we are talking
here about very small copper parts in a very well designed stainless
steel still.
Common home-stills can very well be 100% copper (and of a
not-so-perfect design really) - and that's not very good at all. If
you can - go for a stainless steel still and preferably a reflux.
However, we know there are a
lot of people out there with a massive amount of copper in their
stills. So - for you it is ABSOLUTELY VITAL
that you do not add anything to neutralise your wash. Addition of
sodium bicarbonate will result in the formation of copper ammonia
salts (blue in colour) when wash comes in contact with the copper.
You may find it is better to use a "Pot Still Turbo" (i.e. one with
a pure fermentation) - the Alcotec
VodkaStar is one of the most
extreme in purity you can find. It is not just another "Pot Still
Turbo" (often meaning just a bit slower), but a very innovative and
new way of using nutrients to control a pure fermentation |
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