Micro distillers and moonshiners typically lacked the extra time and money.Ī thumper keg is a simplified secondary still to extract higher alcohol concentrations. Achieving a higher concentration requires multiple pot stills, which would be expensive, or multiple distillations, which would take more time. What Is a Thumper Keg?Īs mentioned above, pot stills can only produce a maximum alcohol concentration of 35% from the first distillation. Industrial alcohol distillers use multiple sets of massive pot stills or column stills to enable constant production. Low wine can be run through additional distillations but will top out at an alcohol concentration between 60% and 80% alcohol. The distillate produced from the first distillation is called “low wine.” Pot stills produce a distillate with an alcohol concentration between 25% and 35% alcohol, with the remainder consisting of water and other impurities, referred to as “congeners.” Congeners are mostly metabolic byproducts produced by yeast during fermentation and are the primary cause of hangovers. When distillation is over, the still must be cleaned out and refilled with wort. Pot stills are used for batch distillation, in which a set volume of wort can be distilled at any one time. Most flavored beverages like whiskey, tequila, rum, brandy, and vodka are distilled in pot stills. Pot stills were originally invented in the late 8th century CE as a development of an older distilling apparatus called the alembic. Pot stills are related to this article’s topic. There are two primary types of still used in alcohol fermentation, pot stills, and column stills. The condensed liquid is called the “distillate.” Pot Stills The leftover wort/must is discarded, often sold to farmers as animal feed. The ethanol vapor is then routed into a condenser (usually copper tubing) when it condenses into its liquid state. As long as the internal temperature of the still is kept between those two temperatures, the ethanol will boil out of the wort while most of the water stays behind. Copper stills are still used by some small-scale and tradition-minded distillers. Stills were traditionally made out of easily workable copper, but most modern stills are stainless steel. The wash is transferred into a container called a still. Once the wort/must is fermented, the alcohol has to be extracted. In the spirit industry, the fermented wort is called “wash.” Alcohol Distillation Explained (Hard Liquor) Spirit producers distill the wort to extract the alcohol. Wine, beer, and malt liquor producers filter the now ethanol-infused wort/must to remove leftover solids and yeast and bottle the remaining distilled spirit as their finished product. What happens now depends on what alcoholic beverage the producer is trying to make. When the alcohol level in the wort nears or exceeds the yeast’s alcohol tolerance, it either dies or goes into an inactive state. Brewers’ yeast can only tolerate an alcohol concentration between 6% and 15%. Fermentation is often accelerated by heating the container.įermentation is a self-destructive survival strategy for yeast. The yeast multiplies rapidly and soon exhausts the oxygen left in the container when it starts fermenting. The container is closed once the yeast is introduced. The water and food source mixture is called the wort (“must” in winemaking). Wine and brandy producers use grapes or other fruit, most beer producers use barley and/or wheat, tequila producers use blue agave, and most whiskey and vodka producers use cheap grain. The important part is the ultimate byproduct of fermentation: ethanol.Īlcohol producers introduce yeast to a closed container full of a sugar-rich food source and water. But when yeast is placed in an oxygen-deficient environment, they switch to a different metabolic process called “fermentation.”įermentation uses a different and less energy-efficient enzyme path to break down sugar into more simple molecules. That’s essentially how human metabolism works as well. Under normal conditions, yeast ingests and metabolizes sugar and releases carbon dioxide, among other metabolic wastes. They can actually be used interchangeably. The yeast used in alcohol production is closely related to bread leaven. The alcohol in alcoholic beverages is produced by microscopic single-celled yeast, relatives of fungi. The hot vapor can then be cooled, condensed, and collected to produce a purified form of that liquid. If one or more fluids in a mixture have a lower boiling point and the mixture is heated to that temperature, the constituent fluid(s) with the lower boiling point will evaporate. Shaker & Spoon - We bring the bar to you! It's the perfect home happy hour□→ Get Your Drink Boxĭistillation is performed by heating a volume of mixed fluids to the boiling point of one of them.
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