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Distilling Alcohol to Remove Off-Taste from Batch in Progress
Hi all;
I have created about 25 US gallons of what I call Nocino in Process (NIP). After much neglect and a few mistakes, I tried to finish it with the very helpful help of Meerkat, without success in masking an off taste I attribute to using too much lemon zest (and probably too much pith) in addition to leaving it to macerate for too long. I purchase 45L of Everclear to make my base liqueur and used all but 1L, at significant expense for a novice “distiller.” In theory, there’s 11.5 gallons of 190 proof neuttral spirit in my NIP. For sake of this topic, by observation and calculation, the true proof of my NIP is on average about 68 with a Brix of 17.
What I would like to do is recover/reclaim as much of the alcohol as possible from the NIP and start over again by next summer.
I have purchased a Doniks 3G still, similar to the one linked hereto, to satisfy a vague regulatory standard under with I have my Ohio permit for my DSP. It is my hope that I can use this still to reclaim the alcohol in my NIP.
I have limited experience with the distillation process and equipment dating back to college inorganic chemistry lab.
I would like a primer on what I am about to undertake, along with any other helpful advice on how to proceed.
Thank you in advance
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1 Reply
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You are unlikely to be able to remove much flavor with such a primitive still and distilling something with 17 brix of sugar can easily lead to burning / scorching which will make the matter worse. We have been making nocino commercial for about 14 years and it needs at least a year or two of aging for the flavor to improve. I would just stick it in a barrel or drum for a few years and forget about it. The value of 11 gallons of GNS is like $100-$200 so not really worth the time spent screwing around with distilling it at such a small scale.
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