Sator Square Distillery Posted April 11, 2023 Share Posted April 11, 2023 Hey all. If you purchased bulk GNS that was sold to you as already carbon filtered X times, would you reasonably assume that you would not have to do additional carbon filtration on it? I have some that went super cloudy right away adding distilled water, even after letting it sit for several days at 60%abv. There are also little patches of what look like perhaps fusel oils collected on the surface. I have not had this happen on GNS made in house. Just curious on your own experiences... whether I should just filter it myself again or if this was improperly made GNS. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castaway Fiji Posted April 17, 2023 Share Posted April 17, 2023 We have a come across a slightly similar issue, not cloudy but we had some proofed down spirit that had unidentified floaties in it that were not evident in the ethanol. Best advice pointed to some sort of fatty acids that were less soluble in water, the ethanol had been tested and was fine, we simply filtered it down to one micron and it cleared up- we make everything in house and never had the issue again but it did perplex us for a while Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pour Decisions Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 filtering should clear up the oils as well as the cloudiness, but you could also try aerating to help clear up. I found this works pretty well to clear too although wont remove the oils. I picked up some carbon filters and some GFC haze filters from TCW that should also work for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sator Square Distillery Posted April 20, 2023 Author Share Posted April 20, 2023 Here's a couple of photos. They could be clearer, but I was worried about dropping my phone in the mixing tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sator Square Distillery Posted April 20, 2023 Author Share Posted April 20, 2023 17 minutes ago, Pour Decisions said: filtering should clear up the oils as well as the cloudiness, but you could also try aerating to help clear up. I found this works pretty well to clear too although wont remove the oils. I picked up some carbon filters and some GFC haze filters from TCW that should also work for this. Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kindred Spirits Posted April 21, 2023 Share Posted April 21, 2023 I always recommend doing a slow filtration through activated carbon, all of my clients with the same issue you are having, no longer have the cloudiness after passing though the final carbon. I would recommend doing the filtration after a rough proof and before your final to ensure you have enough buffer to account for the carbon absorbing some of the alcohol in your mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sator Square Distillery Posted April 24, 2023 Author Share Posted April 24, 2023 On 4/21/2023 at 9:30 AM, Kindred Spirits said: I always recommend doing a slow filtration through activated carbon, all of my clients with the same issue you are having, no longer have the cloudiness after passing though the final carbon. I would recommend doing the filtration after a rough proof and before your final to ensure you have enough buffer to account for the carbon absorbing some of the alcohol in your mix. Thanks for the advice. I'll give that a go. I was just surprised that my own house-made GNS has never had this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pour Decisions Posted June 29, 2023 Share Posted June 29, 2023 Jason, did you get this sorted out? Curious as to what worked for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sator Square Distillery Posted July 27, 2023 Author Share Posted July 27, 2023 On 6/29/2023 at 5:25 PM, Pour Decisions said: Jason, did you get this sorted out? Curious as to what worked for you. Sorry for the late reply. I provided the supplier with photos and also sent them a sample of the distillate. They told me there was nothing wrong with it. Clearly, there is a lot of something falling out of suspension at around 60%. Anyhow, I did fix it with a few passes through a 0.5 micron absolute filter. I was prepared for filtering it, I was just very surprised how much junk appeared in this product vs literally nothing appearing in my own house-made NGS. Lesson learned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castaway Fiji Posted August 1, 2023 Share Posted August 1, 2023 We had a similar problem a while back, eventually we worked out it was fatty esters that became apparent at lower abv but I am surprised it occurred with a grain based spirit- filtering to 1 micron and carbon sorted it out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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