-
The Challenges of ABV during Bottling
New distillery operation here. I have heard of people losing abv during bottling. We did lose a little bit transferring from our blending tote to bottler. The weird thing being that our abv increased in the bottle from what we measured in the top of the bottler. Has anyone else had this happen? Is there a fix or just know going into bottling that my abv will jump a certain amount?
-
5 Replies
-
That sounds like stratification. Do you agitate after/during blending?
-
Agree, most likely wasn’t stirred well enough after adding water. Denser water goes straight to the bottom of your blending tank. I rent out my distillery occasionally and a couple of years ago I calculated the volume of water to add to their gin but they measured several times and it kept coming back low. They got upset with me because I ruined their batch ABV. The sample was taken with a syphon hose towards the bottom of the tank. They stirred again and ABV spot on.
-
so we must not have agitated it enough. We stirred it with a paddle for 20-30 minutes. We are looking into getting a pump to circulate the tote to ensure that it will be blended enough. Thanks for the help!
-
20 minutes sounds as if it should have easily done the job. I assume a tote is about 1,000 litres, maybe didn’t get the agitation to the bottom, get a longer paddle.
Maybe stratification is not the problem. Being new to this industry are you sure you are measuring your ABV correctly? How are you measuring?
-
does stratification remin or happen after we bottle? In other words in 6 months of sitting on the shelf will ABV be different at different levels in the bottle? anyone know?
Log in to reply.
English 
Spanish 
German 
French 
Russian