15/02/2018
Myself Greg Millar to the left with my partner in Dartmoor Whisky Distillery Simon Crow on the right with our master distiller Frank McHardy central.
Frank said he would like to put some words together to describe the working of the still - as follows:
Use of Alambic still to produce Single Malt Spirit at Dartmoor Whisky Distillery
As a consultant employed by Dartmoor Whisky Distillery in Bovey Tracey I have been involved with their distillation process from day one producing single malt spirit in an Alambic copper pot still sourced from the Cognac region in France. Dartmoor Distillery do not carry out mashing nor fermentation on site . Wash , sometimes know as beer wash , is sourced from a local brewery, Dartmoor Brewery which saves time and space whilst developing the old building and is made exactly to my own recipe.
The distilling equipment consists of a copper pot still , a wash preheater and a worm condenser . Distillate produced from the process is either collected in an internal tank situated under the worm condenser or in a separate tank in the cask filling store . The internal tank’s purpose is to collect low wines and feints. The tank in the cask filling store is used to collect spirit .
The copper pot still has a capacity of 1,200 litres and can process batches of 1,100 litres. An onion shaped dome and a swan necked pipe connect the still to the wine warmer and condenser. The heating medium for the still is a gas burner situated under the pot using town gas.
The wash warmer is used as a preheater/ pre condenser and mainly to preheat the next batch of wash to be distilled. Vapour from the swan neck pipe can be diverted through a small worm contained within the wine warmer . This also has the advantage of acting as a pre condenser for vapour before it enters the main condenser.
Dartmoor Distillery use their still to process wash in order to collect low wines . When enough low wines have been collected from three wash distillations the pot is cleaned and used to distil the low wines. The middle cut of this distillation is kept as spirit and used to fill our range of oak barrels. The heads and tails , feints , are diverted to the internal tank where they will be amalgamated with low wines from the next wash distillations to distil our next spirit run.
I have found that by operating the distillation equipment in this way it will produce distillate which is exremely smooth and sweet in character and have no doubt that a lot of that is due to the extremely slow rate of distillation , around 50 litres an hour. Another reason is the amount of reflux induced by the onion shaped dome and the narrow swan necked pipe taking vapour to the condenser.
In my opinion This equipment would suit the distiller who wishes to produce in the region of 15,000 LPA per annum and , if such a person is looking to found a small distillery , I would have no hesitation in encouraging them to consider it.
Of course the same set up for distillation on a much larger scale can be sourced and basically should produce the same well balanced , smooth and sweet spirit.
Frank McHardy
