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Single Distillation Whiskey versus Multiple Distillations
I’ve read books and posts about whiskey distilling techniques and traditions. It seems that most distillers large and small prefer to do stripping runs followed by separate finishing runs. I suspect that production efficiency is one of the reasons for this: three or four fast stripping runs +1 finish run.
The question that I have – is tradition and convenience/efficiency the only reason for multiple runs? I have read that the multiple run produces a “cleaner” flavor, but it really should not be any cleaner than a single pass through a short column still with 1 to 3 plates. Will the character of the finished spirit be different?
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24 Replies
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The reason it’s cleaner is because of the size of the run.
Here’s the idea…if you do a single pass from the raw wash at, say, 10%, the cuts are a bit muddier…that’s because the smaller amount of fores and heads draw out a bit, and it can be difficult to make judgement calls on when to go to heart.
If you strip out a bunch of raw wash to get enough low wines to fill your still, there will be a higher proportion of light alcohols and fusels…and this makes it so that the cuts are a bit more apparent. For instance, if I distill off the wash (which I do, occasionally) often I will get acetone/acetaldehyde smells well past the proof where I normally make my cut…I usually cut to hearts right around 187 proof on my still, but when going off the raws it will sometimes drag out to 183, 180, or even 178.
Whiskey heads I find tend to drag out like that. When I distill a brandy or grappa, I find that the run sort of “falls off a cliff,” so to speak…it’s REALLY heady, and then…bam…no more heads. By distilling whiskey to a low wine first, you emulate that “fall off a cliff” kind of thing, which leads to cleaner spirits.
Obviously, this depends tremendously on the size of your still, and the bigger the pot, the less this matters.
One other thing is that a spirit run can take far longer than a stripping run, so stripping on a bunch of 90 minute runs can save you a lot of time. I’m in this biz to make money, and you know what time is!
But the choice is yours. I know of at least one distiller making whiskey product in a single run through a 5 plate column. It’s pretty good, but I think mine is better
As long as the stuff that’s going into the barrel is delicious, that’s what counts!I’m not sure I did a very good job of explaining this, but maybe wiser heads will chime in and flesh this out a bit.
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NatRat is correct, however, I recently visited with a distillery in Gatlinburg TN who ‘distills 6 times’ through their pots. But when production through the pots isn’t keeping up they run it once though their vodka still, behind the curtains, on a single run.
That brings up a question I’ve asked for years……Does a plate = a run? Will a 6 plate column allow you to claim it’s distilled 6 times? The quality is of no concern in this question, just whether that’s a standard practice to make those claims.
On a side note, if the purpose is to distill out the flavors of the corn with so many runs, then why bother using corn in the first place? Things that make you go hummmmmmmmm.
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Natrat, thanks for your explanation, the narrower transition from heads/middle/tails makes sense. My typical mash size is 100 gallons which seems to be big enough to make a clean cut. My pot is 210 gallon, so in theory I could step it up to 175 gallons but 100 seems to be the optimum volume for my process.
Porter, I’ve always been told that 1 plate = 1 pot distillation. From a technical perspective its probably true, but I don’t think it is truthful to say that a vodka run through a 21 plate column is distilled 21 times. The whole talk of x times distilled is pure marketing.
I agree 100% that less processing preserves the true flavor. This is exactly why I am interested in a single distillation whiskey. I’m actually taking it a step further with a low-temperature vacuum distillation. I’m using used barrels so I don’t overpower the flavor with oak. I’m please with the results so far.
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Used oak barrels ya say? I was under the impression that Whiskey’s, unless they were blended, had to be stored in “New” oak containers according to the Standards of Identity?
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Not entirely. Check out the corn whiskey requirements. Also, for non-standard barreling, one can use “distilled from whiskey mash.”
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The biggest issue with craft distilled whiskey is over distillation. The large bourbon distillers distill it allin one pass and barrel it. The only distillers using a stripping run followed by a sprit run are the Scottish and Irish distilleries using true pot stills.no need to reinvent the wheel.
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Used oak barrels ya say? I was under the impression that Whiskey’s, unless they were blended, had to be stored in “New” oak containers according to the Standards of Identity?
Jedd is correct, there are a number of classes of whiskey that allow used barrels. Can’t call it Bourbon, but bourbon is not what I’m shooting for. I am aging “whiskey distilled from wheat mash” according to the TTB. I know, that should confuse the hell out of most consumers, but the CFR is here to protect them, right???
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The biggest issue with craft distilled whiskey is over distillation. The large bourbon distillers distill it allin one pass and barrel it. The only distillers using a stripping run followed by a sprit run are the Scottish and Irish distilleries using true pot stills.no need to reinvent the wheel.
The distinction that you point out is between continuous distillation and batch distillation. Large bourbon distilleries, and all other large distilleries with only a few exceptions, use continuous stills because they are more economical to operate. In a continuous still, only one “pass” is necessary. Batch stills, on the other hand, are run most efficiently when stripping runs are utilized.
“Over distillation” can be achieved on both continuous and batch setups. Theoretically, both methods can produce similar, if not identical, results from the same mash.
Nick
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If a mash is made right, you can get a fine whiskey out of a hybrid pot still in one pass. But I have yet seen one come close to tasting as good as one off a beer still like those ran in KY. You just cannot replicate it.
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If a mash is made right, you can get a fine whiskey out of a hybrid pot still in one pass. But I have yet seen one come close to tasting as good as one off a beer still like those ran in KY. You just cannot replicate it.
es in a pot still.
I guess that depends on what you are trying to make. If you are trying to make bourbon, then it would make sense to use the same methods as the KY distillers. If you’re trying to make an Irish style whiskey, then it should probably be distilled three times in a pot still. Aren’t most big KY distillers using continuous stills, not “beer” stills?
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Continuous stills in KY and the first column in Canada is always referred to as a beer still. As it is running distillers beer to make whiskey. In bourbon production, the vapor goes to a continuous doubler or a thumper. In Canada, flavoring whiskey comes right off the beer still, only rarely does it get doubled. When making their more neutral grain whiskey, the beer still vapor goes on to one or more rectification columns.
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If a mash is made right, you can get a fine whiskey out of a hybrid pot still in one pass…
By utilizing stripping runs, the same still could be made to yield the same “fine” whiskey, but in a shorter period of time. Hence the popularity of stripping runs.
But I have yet seen one come close to tasting as good as one off a beer still like those ran in KY. You just cannot replicate it.
I am curious if this comparison that you are making is a comparison of new make spirits, or a comparison of spirits aged the same way? Has anyone been aging 100% batch distilled bourbon in 55 gal barrels in KY for any significant period of time?
My own personal experience tasting new make is that new make bourbon produced using a batch process is just as awful as new make bourbon produced using a continuous process…
Nick
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If you mean batch distilled as pot distilled in KY yes. Woodford Reserve. And the straight pot still releases are different animals. Their regular bourbon contains mostly bourbon made the traditional way from the companies early times plant. In my opinion, bourbon white dog from a continuous beer still is better than anything off a pot, regardless if it has been distilled once or twice. You retain more flavor and oils in a continuous still than you do in a pot. Regular or hybrid pot. Put it this way, it is a more efficient way to distill, but give a less efficient distillation. You need the flavor and oils to work in tangent with the barrel to produce the right flavor, but you still have to make a good mash. In the case of bourbon, corn, rye or wheat and essentially barley malt. And a good dose of backset to sour the mash. You run a 100 percent sweet mash corn through any kind of still and no amount of aging will make it drinkable.
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My Smoke Shine is done in one run. Any more and I lose the smoke and complexity of my spirit. Just starting to age so I am still experimenting. Is doing a bunch of stripping runs then a spirit run really more time effective? If so at what cost to flavor profile?
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Just starting to age so I am still experimenting. Is doing a bunch of stripping runs then a spirit run really more time effective? If so at what cost to flavor profile?
I think that you answered your own questions: experiment. I would pretty much guarantee that the result of your two-run vs. one run trials will show that two runs is faster. You’ll have to be your own judge on the flavor.
Nick
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How is 2 runs faster than one?
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How is 2 runs faster than one?
say you distill directly from mash to finished spirit and it takes you 6 hours to do a run.
compared to doing 4 stripping runs that take 3 hours each, then a spirit run that takes 8 hours (more alcohol to deal with)
in the first scenerio you would take 24 hours to process the same amount of mash as it would take 20 hours to do.
but as an additional plus for #2, you also get a more efficient extraction, meaning more finished product in the end.
but that’s an argument for efficiency, I feel there is an argument to be made for both sides on flavor.
on a subtler grain such as wheat, a single pass with a plated column is enough to bring the spirit up to barreling proof, but not strip out all the flavor.
But for a bolder grain such as corn or Rye, it benefits from a double distillation, to tame some of the harsher notes, and bring forward some of the subtler flavors.
process should be determined by the product you want to make, thats the nice thing about being small, you can try different methods and find what works best for you and what makes the product that you like to make.
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Unless you are running a 1000 gallon pot, a let’s say bourbon run, single pass should take no longer than three hours. Unless you are running over 120 proof.
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Unless you are running a 1000 gallon pot, a let’s say bourbon run, single pass should take no longer than three hours. Unless you are running over 120 proof.
Nonsense. You need specific information on the run and pot still design to know how long a single pass run will take. I take it you mean to limit your discussion to the “hybrid pot still” you referred to earlier? I have a suspicion that people in this discussion are comparing apples to oranges. You might need to elaborate on the hybrid pot still design and process, since I think it is very different than what some here are thinking about when comparing a single distillation versus a two pass.
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OK, a hybrid pot still is a pot with a column on top or on the side of it. They are designed to make product in a single pass. On a pot still with no column, 2 runs is a must. Now if you are going to do a striping run and then a doubling run on a hybrid still, I would reccomend using a weak beer. Nothing more than a 60 gallon beer. Which in my opinion is a major waste of time and resources. Run, say a 30 gallon beer through a hybrid and get good flavor and put it in a barrel and wait.
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OK, a hybrid pot still is a pot with a column on top or on the side of it. They are designed to make product in a single pass. On a pot still with no column, 2 runs is a must. Now if you are going to do a striping run and then a doubling run on a hybrid still, I would reccomend using a weak beer. Nothing more than a 60 gallon beer. Which in my opinion is a major waste of time and resources. Run, say a 30 gallon beer through a hybrid and get good flavor and put it in a barrel and wait.
Okay, we are on the same page. We have a still that can switch between running as a pot still or as a hybrid still. That is, we can remove the plates from the column (not bypass, that is not quite the same IMO). We have run our mash through both ways. You don’t get the same product from a single run in a hybrid still that you get from a double run in a pot still, at least when using a full on-grain mash for distillation, our preferred method. Beer might be different, we don’t do much with beer. Our strips come out at about 120, we dilute back to 80 for the spirit run. We also run a dephlegmator for the spirit run, and that comes out just below 160 to start.
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Okay, we are on the same page. We have a still that can switch between running as a pot still or as a hybrid still. That is, we can remove the plates from the column (not bypass, that is not quite the same IMO). We have run our mash through both ways. You don’t get the same product from a single run in a hybrid still that you get from a double run in a pot still, at least when using a full on-grain mash for distillation, our preferred method. Beer might be different, we don’t do much with beer. Our strips come out at about 120, we dilute back to 80 for the spirit run. We also run a dephlegmator for the spirit run, and that comes out just below 160 to start.
How did the results differ from single distillation in hybrid vs. double distillation in pot still?
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When I say beer, I mean distillers beer. This is the tradional term for fermented mash with solids. In my experience, double true pot distillation leafs to a lighter less flavorful product than running the same beer through a hydrid still one time.
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Unless you are running a 1000 gallon pot, a let’s say bourbon run, single pass should take no longer than three hours. Unless you are running over 120 proof.
Nonsense. You need specific information on the run and pot still design to know how long a single pass run will take. I take it you mean to limit your discussion to the “hybrid pot still” you referred to earlier? I have a suspicion that people in this discussion are comparing apples to oranges. You might need to elaborate on the hybrid pot still design and process, since I think it is very different than what some here are thinking about when comparing a single distillation versus a two pass.
I’m definitely throwing in with Bluestar here. I’ll never understand the source of the common misconception that the volume of a still is proportional to the length of time required to run a batch through it; there is no correlation between these two factors at all, either theoretically or in practice.
Nick
P.S. The whole, “daddy-long-legs are the most poisonous spider in the world, but their fangs are too short to penetrate your skin” thing is totally false as well. There, I just saved a bunch of people from embarrassing themselves with that one too!
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