First day of school. The clock on the wall never wavered as it maintained its slow recording of the morning passing away. Yet I kept checking it, like a bored student waiting for the bell. I was one of 50 peers seated in the jury pool for State of Michigan 52nd District Court. Like most in the room, I did not want to be there. We all had different reasons, but mine was that a class on distilling was to begin at 2:00pm that Friday afternoon and it was a two-hour drive away. Call it optimism, blind luck or the skill of Judge Nicholson, but at 11:30am, the good judge walked in and stated that she had settled all the cases and we were all free, our service to the community fulfilled.
I immediately called home to tell my wife and associate that we were going to alcohol school. Neither of us had a clue about what we were getting into. As publishers of a beer periodical, we know lots about beer, brewing, and fermentation, but next to nothing about distilling.
The weekend class was set up by Professor Kris Berglund of Michigan State University (MSU) and drew students from all over North America. “We expected about 12 or 15 folks to show an interest,” said Berglund, “But we got 50 to sign up, followed by another 20 already on a waiting list.” Berglund anticipated interest to be primarily from Michigan and surrounding states, so it was with great surprise that attendees flew in from as far away as Maine, Georgia, California and even Canada. In fact only about a third of the audience were Michigan residents and they all were experienced brewers and wine makers.
In attendance from Michigan were representatives from wine makers Cory Lake, Heart of the Vineyard, Black Star Farms and St. Julian (all of which have stills) and brewers from Big Rock Chop House and New Holland Brewing Company (neither of which have stills), and the two members of the press, us.
The three-day class was lead by Berglund but featured German still manufacturer Alexander Plank of Christian Carl and introduced his Philadelphia based representative Nicholas Haase of B&D Technologies.
Alexander Plank is the fifth generation of the Carl family since it began their still manufacturing business in 1869. “Christian Carl,” stressed Plank, “is more than a still manufacturer.” He explained that producing the still is only one of seven steps that they take in getting a still from “the house of Carl to your house.” He identified the seven steps as consulting, planning, contracting, manufacturing, installation, start up, and support.
It was this degree of commitment and customer service that led to the purchase of all nine stills in Michigan from Christian Carl.
The first two days of the introductory three-day course were held on campus. We first met in a classroom where we gathered handouts and listened to four hours of lecture supported by PowerPoint and overhead visual aids. Plank introduced us to the different stills, their advantages and disadvantages and provided an in depth review of the modern pot still. Berglund forgivingly dealt with the chemistry.
The classroom was followed up Saturday in the MSU distillery where the theory was manifested with the application of running a number of charges through the University’s Christian Carl pot still.
Day three was optional yet attended eagerly by the majority of the participants. A field trip to Leopold Bros. Brewing Company of Ann Arbor further strengthened the practical application as we observed a charge run through their pot still located in the brewhouse.
The Christian Carl still at Leopold has only been in use for a few months, but brewer Todd Leopold said he is already completely comfortable with the system and its operation. In fact, he installed the system himself.
This added to a body of evidence my mind was building from class questions and observations that the brewers in attendance (and I include myself in this group) had a small advantage in learning about distilling. Breweries and distilleries use the same construction materials, boiler steam generation, fluid management, clean in place (CIP) regimens and brewers already know all about yeast, fermentation, and alcohol production.
A review of some of the highlights has to include Berglund’s little tail that he used to begin the class. He called it “the secret of distilling.’ It was a good story but I’ll not take the time here to tell it when I can just cut to the punch line. “The secret to distilling is that the distiller only drinks his mistakes and sells only his very best to the customer.”
This ideal was echoed by Plank who repeatedly said that it was very important to start with high quality ingredients to make a top quality product. To this, one must learn and understand the concept of heads, hearts and tails. In an effort to increase volume, the distiller is tempted to add heads and tails cuts to the hearts cuts, which in effect increases volume but at the cost of lowering quality.
Though somewhat challenged by the English language, Plank managed to very carefully explain distillation processes from the days of the alchemist to today’s continuous still and the modern pot still. The problems with the earlier simpler stills were high heat generation and inefficiency. Early stills used direct fire, which required lots of fuel and produced excessive heat. The charge would distill rapidly, but only increase alcohol to about double its original strength. A five percent beer would have to be distilled three times to reach 80 percent strength. Plank said that time on heat is detrimental to the quality of the product, so the need for repeated passes through a very hot still in effect beats up the distillate, stripping good volatiles and actually adding unwanted chemical compounds. Whiskey makers who still use this method also have to age their distillate on wood. Years of wood maturation acts not only to add aroma, flavor and color, but softens the product by removing those unwanted compounds.
Plank’s focus of course was on the modern pot still that requires lower heat and yet very effectively distills a beer or low wine of 5-12 percent alcohol by volume to a distillate exceeding 80 percent in a single pass. The advantage to the lower heat, less time equation is not only cost and energy savings, but also a distillate that retains more of the original character of the raw material. This is of great import to fruit distillers wishing to retain the subtle aromas and flavors of the original ingredient.
The single pass higher alcohol content is achieved with a column of plates installed above the still in what is called the helmet. The number of plates is determined by the buyers needs. A taller helmet with more steps, called plates, is required to produce an end product of greater alcohol strength. Many distillers only require three plates, but one example was mentioned having 45.
Each plate is a step surface where “equilibrium” is achieved between the alcohol vapor (gas) and the alcohol liquid. At that surface, the alcohol vapor continues up to the next plate, while the liquid remains or falls back down to the plate below. As the alcohol vapor makes it way up the column from plate to plate, the alcohol by volume increases. Ultimately, only water is left in the pot. Because alcohol vaporizes at 73º C, when the pot is boiling at 103ºC, only water remains and all the alcohol has been stripped.
The first step is the easiest and where the greatest amount of rectification is achieved, beyond that, each step gets harder and the amount of rectification less.
What solidified the whole process in my mind was watching 38 gallons of 11.5% wine turn into about 2 gallons of 87%ABV distillate in about 1.5 hours. The still was then rinsed internally and another charge added so within minutes the whole process was run all over again.
Of course, not all of the resulting distillate was the good stuff. The distillate, which was captured into 0.5-liter cuts, was diluted to 40 percent alcohol. We were then allowed to sensory evaluate the results. The first five cuts were determined to be heads, full of higher alcohols and in most cases disposed of. The next nine were the hearts and represented the best of the batch – the secret of distillation. The last 18 were the tails, which can be saved and redistilled.
I must say it was a great class with lots of camaraderie among the attendees, experienced and non-experienced alike. To paraphrase Kris Berglund it’s kind of like a club – where all the members help each other. That’s certainly the case at MSU.
