Distilling to 190

[Paul45]

Hello,

When I got into the distilling business I was told a column with a minimum number (21) plates is necessary to practically achieve 190, so a 21 plate column is what I have. I know a lot of small distilleries making vodka distill without a column, with a pot and 4 plates or with a column having less than 21 plates. I assumed these distilleries are yielding 190 (painfully slow and not efficiently) or processing NGS. Recently, a couple of prospective distillers asked me to try and achieve 190 with my pot and 4 plates. A domestic manufacturer has assured them they will reach 190 with 4 plates. After a couple of tries with a +60% ABV charge in my Carl Still, four plates and a lot of cooling 187 is as high as it gets. The results I get contradict an established still manufacture unless I am distilling improperly. Therefore I ask, have you yielded 190 with only 4 plates? If so, how do you do it?

Thank you,

Paul

[coop]

Hello,

When I got into the distilling business I was told a column with a minimum number (21) plates is necessary to practically achieve 190, so a 21 plate column is what I have. I know a lot of small distilleries making vodka distill without a column, with a pot and 4 plates or with a column having less than 21 plates. I assumed these distilleries are yielding 190 (painfully slow and not efficiently) or processing NGS. Recently, a couple of prospective distillers asked me to try and achieve 190 with my pot and 4 plates. A domestic manufacturer has assured them they will reach 190 with 4 plates. After a couple of tries with a +60% ABV charge in my Carl Still, four plates and a lot of cooling 187 is as high as it gets. The results I get contradict an established still manufacture unless I am distilling improperly. Therefore I ask, have you yielded 190 with only 4 plates? If so, how do you do it?

Thank you,

Paul

Paul, after almost three years of using our 16 plate AH still, running as slow as possible we were never able to to reach the 190 either. How we have to do it is we make a stripping run of our wash which gives us about 120 proof. We use only the 4 plate columns to do striping runs. We have two columns, one is 12 plates and the other is 4. Then we do a rectifying run which we can get a 194 to 197, if we run it slowly using both columns. This means that it is taking 20 plates to make Vodka. One has to remember they are sales people wanting you to purchase their equipment. I suspect as you do that their is a lot of NGS being re distilled. I also do not think that you can make Vodka with a pot still unless you distill it over and over and over. Coop

[JohninWV]

We strip through 4 plates then distill twice more through 19 plates to get to proof. So, it really goes through a total of 42 plates. I think we could do it on one pass through the 19 plates, but I've been doing it this way and I'm happy with the results. I'm a bit nervous to change.

[Collin]

Same at our distillery. Stripping with less -- otherwise the stripping runs would take forever -- then finish with 2 distillations on 20 something.

[JarHead]

I do a stripping run with a simple pot still to get the low wines to about 38% and then put it in a 100 gallon still that I had Jesse at Trident Welding make for me. It has a 1.6 meter column with stainless packing (the industrial stuff, not scrubbers) and a dephlegmator on top. The run takes about 8 hours plus 90 min for heat up and I get 190.5 proof for the hearts. It only takes 10 minutes to change out the column if i just want to use it as a pot still. The still looks great and costs about 1/6th of the price of the 20+ plate monsters from Germany. I only mention this because I think its a shame that as artisans we're so ready to buy a manufactured solution (in Euros no less!) when there are plenty of artisan fabricators in the U.S. that can deliver to us a fantastic, cost effective solution (if you know what you want). Just one man's opinion.

[Panama Jack]

Any chance you could post or e-mail me photos of your still and columns?