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Vodka from Corn-Based GNS


Greg McAllister

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We're looking to use 190 proof corn-based GNS to make vodka and wonder what issues/experience others have had using that particular base. Any issues with clouding when proofing to 80 and, if so, how to overcome? Many thanks.

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I've made a lot of vodka with corn GNS and never experienced anything coming close to clouding. If what you receive is actually 190 I'd be pretty damned surprised if clouding were an issue, provided you weren't using lake water to proof it. I've proofed with municipal water on an inline granular activated carbon column and had pretty good results all around.

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Corn is cheap without question and you will not have any issues. If you're buying GNS you should try it from different grains or even sugar before you decide which to use.

You will find that they all taste different. So try them all then decide.

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Ok, I've tried proofing with our RO system water which had 19ppm TDS (to start, but bleeding the system dropped it to 7ppm); then store bought RO water at 3ppm; and finally distilled water at 0ppm. All clouded to some degree with the distilled being the least. Is it technique?

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Doesn't make sense. Are you using the equipment to make anything else? Is there a chance that you are seeing residual oils or tails coming through as you alternate distilling product? I'd imagine there would be a noticeable organoleptic impact as well. What else is going on? Are you going through any other sort of filtration or carbon after it leaves the still? Is it possible your bottles are dirty or fouled?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have you checked what type of hose you use to transfer? We had a problem with clouding but it turned out to be our hose. Once we changed our hose we never had a problem again.

when it did cloud it was like this---------

regular filtered water= all cloudiness became clear with in 48 hrs because the cloudiness settled to the bottom.

RO and distilled water = all cloudiness stayed suspended and never was cleared until massive filtering.

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You need to check the input water TDS versus the output against the rejection rate of the RO membrane to get a good idea of whether your output water is in-spec. If source water is very high in TDS, an output of 7PPM might be realistic (excellent even).

Some of the low-pressure/high-flow rate (or lower cost) membranes have rejection rates as low as 90%, new, right out of the box. With 70ppm input water, you'd realistically get 7ppm output water.

Running a higher-end membrane with a 98% reject rate, you'd probably have an output TDS of 1, but if your source water is very high TDS, say 300 or so, then your output would move to 7. No free lunch.

True zero (or very low) TDS water is tough to achieve, you might need to add deionization stages to the mix to get there. If you are a water geek, you'll probably be doing this anyway.

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