Distillery Diary
Publié : 08 mars 2006, 22:13
This is a rather technical and perhaps boring report from my forum diary from some time ago. It included some details on Two and a half times distilling.
We filled about 37 casks, ten at the strength it had been pumped up to the filling store at (70.8%) twenty at our normal filling strength 63.5% abv and seven at a reduced strength of 58% abv.
You never end a filling by managing to have the exact amount in the tank to fill a barrel. So the last (partially filled cask) is weighed and left in the warehouse to be filled next time. It's known as the Stock Cask and distilleries used to have a special lock up room for it. So our stock cask is sitting with a small amount of spirit at 58% and our next filling will be at 63.5% giving me a small problem of documenting accurately the final strength and volume in this cask.
Those of you who are observant and interested in the minutia might also realise that when we change cask filling strengths any alcohol that is in the pipes between the pump and the filling head will be at the strength of the previous cask.
Two and a Half Times Distillation
I said last night that we were going to distil the Low Wines in the spirit still and instead of separating Foreshots, Middle Cut, and Feints we would distil it all as one and the resulting spirit would then be distilled with the next batch of Low Wines. Effectively the first batch will have passed through the wash still and the spirit still and then the spirit still again (ie three distillations) and the second batch will be distilled twice as normal. This is usually what's known as a two and a half times distillation.
Today's distillation in the Spirit Still began with a charge of Low Wines/Feints of about 9536 litres at about 26.5%litres (2527 litres); it came into the safe at about 74%, ran for about six and a quarter hours down to 1%. This produced about 5500 litres at an average of 45.6%. (2508 litres of alcohol)
On Monday we will add the above 5500 bulk litres to the contents of the Low Wines and Feints Charger (5987 litres at 22.1% ie. 1323 litres. This is all Low Wines and is slightly weaker than the normal strength of 26% to 27% shown above because it contained none of the strong foreshot or weaker feints) So the approximate ratio will be 2 to 1 between alcohol which will have been distilled 3 times and alcohol which will have been distilled twice.
If you have read this far you must be as crazy as me.
So I'll leave you to guess what sort of strength our final distillation will end up at.
Also cleaned the Wash Still today. This involves getting inside in a chemical resistant suit and painting caustic on the inside of the copper leaving it for half an hour to soften and then power hosing it off. It's spotless but I need to do the same with the spirit safe just to give the spirit every chance.
Raymond
We filled about 37 casks, ten at the strength it had been pumped up to the filling store at (70.8%) twenty at our normal filling strength 63.5% abv and seven at a reduced strength of 58% abv.
You never end a filling by managing to have the exact amount in the tank to fill a barrel. So the last (partially filled cask) is weighed and left in the warehouse to be filled next time. It's known as the Stock Cask and distilleries used to have a special lock up room for it. So our stock cask is sitting with a small amount of spirit at 58% and our next filling will be at 63.5% giving me a small problem of documenting accurately the final strength and volume in this cask.
Those of you who are observant and interested in the minutia might also realise that when we change cask filling strengths any alcohol that is in the pipes between the pump and the filling head will be at the strength of the previous cask.
Two and a Half Times Distillation
I said last night that we were going to distil the Low Wines in the spirit still and instead of separating Foreshots, Middle Cut, and Feints we would distil it all as one and the resulting spirit would then be distilled with the next batch of Low Wines. Effectively the first batch will have passed through the wash still and the spirit still and then the spirit still again (ie three distillations) and the second batch will be distilled twice as normal. This is usually what's known as a two and a half times distillation.
Today's distillation in the Spirit Still began with a charge of Low Wines/Feints of about 9536 litres at about 26.5%litres (2527 litres); it came into the safe at about 74%, ran for about six and a quarter hours down to 1%. This produced about 5500 litres at an average of 45.6%. (2508 litres of alcohol)
On Monday we will add the above 5500 bulk litres to the contents of the Low Wines and Feints Charger (5987 litres at 22.1% ie. 1323 litres. This is all Low Wines and is slightly weaker than the normal strength of 26% to 27% shown above because it contained none of the strong foreshot or weaker feints) So the approximate ratio will be 2 to 1 between alcohol which will have been distilled 3 times and alcohol which will have been distilled twice.
If you have read this far you must be as crazy as me.
So I'll leave you to guess what sort of strength our final distillation will end up at.
Also cleaned the Wash Still today. This involves getting inside in a chemical resistant suit and painting caustic on the inside of the copper leaving it for half an hour to soften and then power hosing it off. It's spotless but I need to do the same with the spirit safe just to give the spirit every chance.
Raymond