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Home Forum… Fermentation & Yeast Blue Moonshine

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    • #3062
      Gwbarky
      Participant

      Wanted to ask the question referencing honeyshine. I accidentally put too much nutrients into the wash. After distillation the shine had a light blue tint and smelled like ammonia. After researching on the internet I have discovered that the cause was from accidentally adding too much nutrients to the wash. I ran it back through and the color and the smell is gone. Ran it through a third time to make sure the proof was a hundred and eighty. Is it safe to dilute and drink the moonshine. Did the flame test and it is an extremely light blue flame.

      Thank You!

    • #3064

      Did you dump the foreshots?

    • #3065
      Gwbarky
      Participant

      Yes, during all three runs. on the 28 gallon run probably a total of quart per run.

      • #3066
        Gwbarky
        Participant

        20 gal run
        sorry.l

    • #3067

      I’m just curious what kind of still you are running? Are you using a copper still? Copper anything?

    • #3068
      Gwbarky
      Participant

      28 gallon stainless steel cooker. With a copper reflux column.it has a 4 inch column with an internal cooling coil. At the bottom of the column it is packed with 14 inches of copper mesh. I have been practicing the art for about a year and a half this is the first time this has occurred. Accidentally dropped an entire bag of yeast nutrient into 20 gallons of honey mash.

    • #3069

      I’m just curious what your cleaning schedule is like for the copper? Do you take the packing out after each run?

    • #3070
      Gwbarky
      Participant

      First run with the packing in removed put half of it back after cleaning the last run without any packing.

    • #3083
      Zymurgy Bob
      Participant

      The amount of nutrients (a lot of ammonium compounds) in your wash is only half of the problem with the blue distillate, which is Schweitzer’s reagent, a copper-ammonium complex. The other half of the problem is a too-high pH. It’s the combination of high-pH and presence of ammonium compounds that cause the blue distillate. I can’t tell you off the top of my head what’s too-high pH, but if you had adjusted that first wash pH to maybe 5.0, with citric acid, for instance, or a ~5.2 pH buffer from your homebrew supply, you would never have seen that blue, or smelled the ammonia.

      Just as an aside, the copper in that distillate is your copper still head being eroded.

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