Proofing down filtered GNS

[Sator Square Distillery]

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

[Castaway Fiji]

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

[Pour Decisions]

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. 

[Sator Square Distillery]

Here's a couple of photos. They could be clearer, but I was worried about dropping my phone in the mixing tank.

[Sator Square Distillery]

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.

[Kindred Spirits]

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.

[Sator Square Distillery]

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.

[Pour Decisions]

Jason, did you get this sorted out? Curious as to what worked for you. 

[Sator Square Distillery]

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.

 

[Castaway Fiji]

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