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Loss of abv while carbon treating


vodka2014

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Could anyone advise if carbon treating should results in loss of alcohol percentage. We have treated a few times and found that we have lost percentage. I am wandering if it is because our system is open and we are losing it to the atmosphere. Any advise on this would be greatly appreciated.

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You might have a temperature difference?

You might not have de-dusted your carbon, so you might have carbon dust in suspension. That would make you solution thicker, making it seem like it lowered the proof with a hydrometer. Let it settle out, there will be a super black film on the bottom of your vessel.

Active carbon works by ADsorbing (like static electricity, or an eletro-magnet). A sponge works by ABsorbing.

Take care!

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  • 2 years later...

 

 

 

 

 

The proof drop is why TTB requires that you cut to final bottling proof after you have completed the filtering.  

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  • 1 year later...
2 hours ago, BeSocial said:

can you provide reference to this requirement?

Good call - insist on citations.  From me, from TTB, from everyone.  When it comes to regulation, advice that begins, "I think ..." should be suspect.  Sometimes we have to figure out what is required by "reading between the lines," but these regulations were updated in 2011 and the basic requirements go back to 1980.  TTB has had a lot of time to iron out the wrinkles of ambiguities.

Sec. 19.353  Bottling tank gauge - When a distilled spirits product is to be bottled or packaged, the proprietor must gauge the product after any filtering, reduction, or other treatment, and before bottling or packaging begins. The gauge must be made at labeling or package marking proof, and the details of the gauge must be entered on the bottling and packaging record required in Sec. 19.599.

 

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7 hours ago, daveflintstone said:

My understanding of that regulation is you must gauge your spirits after filtration, not cut to final proof after filtration.

You can adjust proof after filtering, although you will likely want to use filtered water of as good or better quality.

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Let's agree to this -  the rule is you make the bottling gauge after the cut to bottling proof, i.e., when the spirits are ready to go into the bottle with no further changes to them, i.e., everything but bottling is completed. 

 If you cut to bottling proof before filtration, then any loss of proof after filtration, is going to bring you out of compliance, because the spirits in the bottling tank must be at bottling proof.  Because there is no tolerance, you are going to have to add spirits to the filtered product to get back to the bottling proof, then regauge.  The tolerance is only for evaporation loss in the bottling process.  That is a wonky distinction, because I do not think TTB would tumble to the wonky problem, if the bottled spirits were within tolerance, but it is nevertheless the requirement.  The easy solution is to reduce after filtration, but TTB does not prohibit adding spirits to bring filtered spirits back up to bottling proof.   

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  • 3 weeks later...

If the carbon is fresh, it may be adsorbing some ethanol and water in appropriately sized pores. The carbon manual people like to pass around has a couple paragraphs on the mechanics of that, but I don't have any numbers to say how much ethanol would be adsorbed by any given activated carbon.

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  • 4 years later...

Dehner Distillery,
Interesting.  Any idea how many gallons of vodka you pass through how many pounds of carbon before you change out the carbon? 

Also - unrelated to this thread but something I've observed, and just started researching is the exothermic reaction that occurs when 190 proof is passed through [dry] activated carbon.  Something about Gibbs Energy of Adsorption and the enthalpy of the ethanol.  Has anyone gone down the rabbit hole on this to learn what is actually happening to the ethanol after that much energy is changing hands with the carbon?

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  • 1 year later...
On 10/14/2021 at 7:42 AM, Hammer Spring said:

Dehner Distillery,
Interesting.  Any idea how many gallons of vodka you pass through how many pounds of carbon before you change out the carbon? 

Also - unrelated to this thread but something I've observed, and just started researching is the exothermic reaction that occurs when 190 proof is passed through [dry] activated carbon.  Something about Gibbs Energy of Adsorption and the enthalpy of the ethanol.  Has anyone gone down the rabbit hole on this to learn what is actually happening to the ethanol after that much energy is changing hands with the carbon?

We had an array of 12ft tall carbon columns that were apparently designed for filtering vodka and when we first introduced the spirit they became so hot you almost couldnt touch them , same thing in just a bottle, but way out of my chemical league, it turned out to be completely useless

As for carbon depending on what you use it has a massive capacity something like an area of 32000sqf in one gram. We have used various methods and our current method is fairly agricultural but produces a  great finish, it is not under pressure and we change out the carbon as it becomes less effective so far we are at around 25,0000 litres per 25 kgs of carbon, but I would imagine a lot depends on your method.

Has anyone used any of the Pall carbon systems?

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