Sciencemadness Discussion Board - isoamyl alcohol

isoamyl alcohol

Magpie - 23-4-2013 at 10:47

I have read for years that the fusel oil produced during fermentation to produce drinking alcohols (brandy, whiskey, etc) is mostly isoamyl alcohol. A portion of the fusel oil remains with the product and is in fact what determines its flavor.

I obtained a liter of fractionation still bottoms from a local distillery, ie, the liquid left in the pot after distilling a batch of corn whiskey mash. Assuming that the fusel oils might be floating on the top I had asked the owner to draw a sample off the top, which he did. He drew off a 50-gallon drum full. I pulled my 1-liter sample off the top of the drum using a turkey baster. I was surprised how pleasant smelling this residue was.

To a 17mL aliquot I added NaCl to saturation (~4.5g). Then I extracted the decantate with 5mL of dichloromethane. This extractate was then placed in a sunlit window sill in a beaker to evaporate off the DCM. To my surprise, what remained were small 2mm square translucent plates that were soluble in water.

So, I was not successful in isolating anything that looked like isoamyl alcohol (bp = 132°C).

Comments?

DraconicAcid - 23-4-2013 at 10:58

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

To my surprise, what remained were small 2mm square translucent plates that were soluble in water.

Are you sure you didn't accidentally get some of the salt in with the organic phase?

bahamuth - 23-4-2013 at 11:53

If it was pleasant smelling it is not fusel oil.....

Fusel oil is usually distilled off at the very very end, when the measured ethanol content is about 10% and lower. A cloudy liquid is obtained which never settles. At distilleries I guess they stop way before the percentage drops that low, due to the savings in heating as there is no point to distill the last drops of ethanol out.

I'd say you got some salt in your organic phase, though it may be some very big aldehydes or ketones, or condensation products of said stuff in your beaker.

IIRC high pH fermentation gives a lot of fusel oil.

Magpie - 23-4-2013 at 12:17

Quote: Originally posted by DraconicAcid

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

To my surprise, what remained were small 2mm square translucent plates that were soluble in water.

Are you sure you didn't accidentally get some of the salt in with the organic phase?

That was my first thought also. That's probably what it was. The phase separation was plagued with a lot of emulsifiers and foam and not at all clean.

===============================

The pH is about 5. It is a cloudy liquid, a sort of brown color with a very thin white film floating on top.

[Edited on 23-4-2013 by Magpie]

gsd - 23-4-2013 at 19:20

@Magpie

Fusel oil I obtained from a distillary is a dark foul smelling liquor. It is a cocktail of all lower alcohols (except methanol). It also contains generous amount of water.

The approx. Composition is as under:
Water: 15 %
Ethanol : 25%
Propanols:15%
Butanols:5%
Pentanols:30%
Residue:10% Butanols are predominently n-butanol & Pentanols are about 25% iso & 5% n.
It is the residue which gives foul smell.

Only practical way of separating IsoAA is by salting out the water and then fractionation using an efficient packed column.
1st take out the fraction upto 120 DegC and then take out IsoAA as top fraction @132 DegC. I have managed purity of 98+ (by GC)

Let me know if you need any more inputs.

Gsd

Magpie - 23-4-2013 at 22:03

Very nice work gsd! And thanks for the detailed information on how to isolate the isoamyl alcohol from the fusel oil.

I'm presuming that you received your fusel oil as such from a large distillery. My problem is that my local distillery is tiny and does not recover the fusel oil as such. He just sewers his bottoms from each batch. IIRC he said the bottoms amount to about 130 gallons/batch.

So, if I am going to be able to extract any isoamyl alcohol I'm going to first have to learn how to get a sufficient quantity of fusel oil, say at least 100mL, I imagine. Do you have any suggestions on how I might do this? The distillery owner is interested in learning how to do this also. So I feel he will work with me. Being a very small distillery (he only has a 2-man crew and one still) he is also very flexible in what he can do and has plenty of time to do it.

gsd - 23-4-2013 at 23:00

Fusel oil is a very tiny fraction of a regular alcohol distillary. I don't have my data & literature handy at the moment, but IIRC 1000 lit of distilled alcohol leaves about 10 lit of fusel residue. So it constutes about 1%.
The lower alcohols have notorously close BPs and Relative Volatilities so separating them individually is impractical on smaller scale. However you can make a good use of that bottom fraction by converting it into mixed esters of Acetic acid. It should find a good market as a cheap paint thinner.

BTW 130 gallons per batch is a large quantity. At the very least ask the distillary owner to use it as a boiler fuel.
It may result in substantial savings.

Gsd

Dr.Bob - 24-4-2013 at 07:57

Just get a 55 gal drum of it, and then quickly distill batches for low, med and high BP stuff. Once you have done that a few times, you can combine the lows, meds and highs, and start fractionally distilling those into components. You will need to go very slowly, with a vac jacketed vigreux column. But you could probably separate out at least some of the alcohols to a reasonable purity. And if you can redistill the ethanol fraction to some purity, it might be worth the trouble for that alone. It is not worth THEIR time, as they are doing it for profit and can make new ethanol via yeast cheaper than recovering the last bits, but for you, it might be worth it. I would love to set up a still for that, but there are not many distilleries that I know of around here. If anyone has one in NC, let me know. I happen to know where I can get some nice fractionating columns...

Magpie - 24-4-2013 at 08:46

I don't think I can ask the distillery owner to do any redistillations to recover fusel oil from the bottoms. And I don't want it bad enough to process it through my 24/40 - 1liter pot equipment, even if I had a 24/40 sized fractionating column. Right now I only have a 19/22 sized column.

What I was hoping for is an easy way to decante off the fusel oil from the bottoms of his batch of corn whiskey. This fall he will likely be making some brandy from pinot gris but I assume that similar technical hurdles would exist there too.

I know that industry deals in fusel oil as an item of commerce in lots of 1000 liters or more. So large distilleries must have the economical recovery of fusel oil built into their processing. What I'm really trying to find out is how this might be done on a much smaller scale with more of a manual labor input from me.

================================

Here is a good paper on the subject which answers most of my questions:

http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/assets/Uploads/FUSEL-OILpa...

[Edited on 25-4-2013 by Magpie]

Magpie - 22-11-2014 at 11:54

Based on a US Patent by Felix Ehrlich I tried to make some isoamyl alcohol by fermentation. Processing the wash was very tedious and I ended up not finding any alcohol. This was over a year ago. I'm posting this result and the procedure used because of interest by a forum member. I will be glad to answer any questions and welcome your critique and recommendations:

Attachment: Fermentation of Molasses for Fusel Oil.doc (23kB)
This file has been downloaded 593 times

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 13:47

Hi
As discussed in u2u I will post in the reference the papers that might be of interest to you. I do ask others not to post them openly as I have no idea which can be publicaly shown.

blogfast25 - 22-11-2014 at 14:03

I obtained some isoamyl alcohol from alkaline de-esterification of the ethyl ester, aka 'banana oil'. Boy, that stuff STINKS [the ester]. But the alcohol is pleasant.

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 14:10

Ok have posted a couple of them in references, They took ages to upload, so will try and get some more up with them later.
Most except the Ehrlich pathway as the excepted route for this in yeast, but the Dickingson paper cast a little doubt that this is the sole pathway,the Hartle paper (posting later) Proves there at least 2 pathways for this in yeast. The starting sugar is critical for a good yield, Glucose is by far the best. Those that use sucrose and others often have other nutrients and a mash in them, this can alter the sucrose and side reactions etc.
This is why Breweries can have a problem, but if you seek it then Glucose is the cleanest way

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 14:18

For those that cant see it then this screen shot of part the results is the bit most relevant, when you read the paper and match the genotype with highest level you realize why sucrose and other carbon sources dont work very well without other factors at play.

Magpie - 22-11-2014 at 14:24

I used sucrose (molasses) as that is what Ehrlich specified in his patent. I can certainly try again with glucose. I still have the Lillemand yeast in the refrigerator, guarding it from the throwaway wishes of Mrs Magpie. The leucine, which I buy locally from a bodybuilding store, is expensive so I can't tolerate too many failures.

[Edited on 22-11-2014 by Magpie]

gdflp - 22-11-2014 at 14:32

If you're willing to order online, I just noticed that this site has leucine for 50% off. http://purebulk.com/l-leucine-powder/ I haven't ordered from them, but I have heard others have been pleased.

Magpie - 22-11-2014 at 14:50

Thanks - I may do that if the shipping is reasonable.

The worst part is separating the alcohol from the wash, or fermentation product. I used a lot of diatomaceous earth and numerous tedious filtrations.

Little Ghost is going to have guarantee me a reasonable amount of isoamyl alcohol, say 5mL/gallon of wash, before I'll want to try this again.

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 14:59

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

Thanks - I may do that if the shipping is reasonable.

The worst part is separating the alcohol from the wash, or fermentation product. I used a lot of diatomaceous earth and numerous tedious filtrations.

Little Ghost is going to have guarantee me a reasonable amount of isoamyl alcohol, say 5mL/gallon of wash, before I'll want to try this again.

LOL as its part of something else I am doing, as agreed before in return for help from you I will try out the other methods and guarantee you much higher than 5ml a gallon

.
I need to re read all his notes etc and go back through the papers. Most try and avoid isoamyl alcohol in the wash, but when you get it right (or I guess to most people wrong) The yield is very high.
I will be in touch Via email etc with full details and some the papers I cant post online.

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 15:12

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

Ask Aga to see his centrifuge, it should work well for yeast and save alot of filtering. To be honest its pretty clever the way he does it, cheap and easy!

Please dont buy anything yet!! you dont need pure Isoleucine to do this, there is a cheap supplement you can get with enough of it in, most of everything else in the mix wont hurt at all, its what they used at the uni in the end.
I need to ask my Dad what it was called etc, but from memory it was £6 for 500mg. I cant remember how much Isoleucine was in it, but there was more than enough.
Look at this paper as well
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9341119/
Sorry my connection timed out before I could get the full file, I have the paper in paper form not electronic.
The long and short of it is, it mentions the other possible pathways, 2 have now been proved incorrect, but the point is the excepted
Ehrlich pathway isnt the main or only pathway to this.
I have some the immobilized yeast out the fridge and getting it ready to culture up. I should be able to inoculate a broth by Tuesday (Latest). A quick look under the scope shows it viable (methyl blue).

[Edited on 22-11-2014 by Little_Ghost_again]

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 17:02

Slightly off topic, I have a'Dutch planted' tropical aquarium, I have had this for years and feed the plants supplemental CO2, This is now done by a sophisticated JBL Micro controller system and CO2 bottle. When I first did it I used yeast and plain sugar to create CO2 and bubble it into the water at a slow rate to feed the plants more carbon.
Eventually what you get at the end of the pipe in the aquarium is a white filamentous like material attached to the tube. This was often described on tropical fish forums as a 'Bacterial growth'. However it eventually transpired it was more likely to be yeast in nutrient poor conditions with little carbon source (the plants were competing), one of the main components found for feeding the yeast in the aquarium was Isoamyl Alcohol that had been ejected through the tube (probably as a vapor).
I found a paper two years ago that mentions yeast being able to grow into filamentous forms, it was on reading that paper that I set up a old system to look at the organism, it did indeed turn out to be yeast at the end of the tube. The paper is
PMCID: PMC14767 Characterization of Alcohol-induced Filamentous Growth in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
It mentions the complete process and Isoamyl Alcohol as one of the carbon sources that can cause this. Yeast is a fascinating organism that is still to a greater extent not fully understood.
Sorry if its slightly off topic but I cant remember all the paper details now and no longer have a copy, I will try and dig it up and post in research, from a vague memory it contains some useful information that might help with getting the substrate right.

EDIT
I found it on the old pc! so have hopefully attached it here, if your into yeast its a pretty interesting paper, it might also help anyone looking into Isoamyl Alcohol and yeast

[Edited on 23-11-2014 by Little_Ghost_again]

Attachment: Characterization of Alcohol-induced Filamentous Growth in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.pdf (534kB)
This file has been downloaded 474 times

Little_Ghost_again - 22-11-2014 at 17:40

I have also found another paper I havnt seen before, although using a different yeast strain, it indicates semi aerobic or aerobic conditions favored Isoamyl production!!! I will try and upload with some papers in the morning.
The paper is
Effects of Fermentation Temperature and Aeration on Production of Natural Isoamyl Acetate by
Williopsis saturnusvar.saturnus

Hindawi Publishing Corporation
BioMed Research International
Volume 2013, Article ID 870802,

I havnt read it fully yet myself

Little_Ghost_again - 23-11-2014 at 05:47

I cant open DOC formatsat the moment Magpie, do you have it as a PDF?

Magpie - 23-11-2014 at 06:53

for Little Ghost:

Fermentation of Molasses for Fusel Oil
5/7/13

The purpose of this procedure is to produce by fermentation a wash high in fusel oil. Specifically desired is isoamyl alcohol, which is the major component of fusel oil.

This procedure is based on the 1908 patent (US 885,591) of Felix Ehrlich, a German chemist. Molasses is the substrate, with leucine added to promote the production of isoamyl alcohol. The scale will be 1:1000 based on the proportions given in the patent.

Chemicals
1. 1 kg of molasses (80° Brix, ~50% sugar).
2. 80g leucine
3. 2.5 liters of spring water
4. dry distiller’s yeast
5. 6N sulfuric acid

Equipment
1. 2 gallon ss pot
2. 1000mL beaker
3. large plastic mixing spoon
4. plastic 1 gallon fermenter
5. fermenter lid equipped with rubber hose for bubbler
6. 400 mL beaker water seal/bubbler
7. thermometer
8. pH paper
9. constant temperature bath with PID control
10. large plastic funnel

Procedure
1. Place 2.5 liters of spring water in the 2 gallon ss pot.
2. Add 1 kg of molasses (Grandmas’s “Original” molasses) and mix well.
3. Add enough 6N H2SO4 to slightly acidify (pH 3.5-6.0). Shoot for pH = 5.0.
4. Heat for awhile to drive off the volatile fatty acids (formic and acetic).
5. Allow to cool to fermenting temperature, ie, 25-30°C.
6. Poor off 1/3rd (~850mL) of the mash into the 1000 mL beaker and allow to cool to 20-23°C.
7. Mix 80 g of leucine (GNC) into the large portion of the mash.
7. To the smaller portion of the mash mix in the yeast (0.9g of Lallemand Super Start dry distiller’s yeast) and let it set for 3-4 hours at 20-23°C.
8. To the large pot add the leavened smaller portion of the mash and mix.
9. Using the funnel place the mash in the fermentor.
10. Keep the fermentor at 25-30°C until fermentation is complete as evidenced by the ceasation of CO2 evolution as indicated by the bubbler.

Little_Ghost_again - 23-11-2014 at 07:33

Hi
Thanks magpie, I am still having trouble getting some the papers posted, can you u2u me your email? It might be easier that way. one thing that really struck me was 80g leucine, from what I have read that seems extremely high.
I am going to run a series of experiments on this and also follow your procedure to compare.
From memory (shaky) I have a feeling that leucine content per Kg was something in the mg per KG. While the guy that you took your procedure from is widely credited with this pathway (it has his name after-all), most up to date research and the last paper I posted in research, shows that his pathway is far less important than first thought.
The paper with the genetic info in it shows that yeast that have that pathway disabled still produce the alcohol and in good quantity.
Whats really interesting is there is still much unknown about the exact respiration pathways with yeast. take something away from them and they respire with a different pathway. Even looking at the ATP and ADTP pathways is more complex than expected. While much of it is still the basic Krebs cycle and electron transfer chain, yeast have a knack of using some pathways that are still not fully understood.

Also I note the pH and comment to shoot for 5
I would have said aim for 6.5 and keep above 5.7, I certainly wouldnt drop to 3, the other thing thats often overlooked is water hardness, did you measure the GH? Spring water can be really soft (low GH) therefore the pH bounces all over the place. I need to dig out the papers with the water parameters. I will post them here when I have.
LG

P.S for the GH etc I normally use my aquarium test kit, but I have some MSDS of the kits somewhere, so will post the reagents used in the test kits. most are really simple but as I have aquariums I am lazy and use those

[Edited on 23-11-2014 by Little_Ghost_again]

Little_Ghost_again - 23-11-2014 at 11:39

added paper to research section, this one to do with valine added to brewers wort. Like most papers they are looking to get rid of what your trying to get, so its worth while keeping that in mind. I will add more as I can get them uploaded.

The yeast I took out the freezer has thawed out ok so now is plated up and should be ready for inoculation into broth next day or so.

Magpie - 23-11-2014 at 12:07

I can't vouch for the quality of the purchased water. Here's all I could find:

http://www.ewg.org/health/report/BottledWater/Bottled-Water-...

The initial pH of the batch was 5 as indicated by pH paper so I didn't add any H2SO4.

My purpose in using spring water was that I believed it would contain essential minerals. I also felt that molasses would provide essential minerals not provided by table sugar (sucrose).

I do know, however, that a friend has made ethanol successfully using just sucrose and Turbo yeast. I cleaned up his wash for him. The alcohol content was ~10% IIRC.

Little_Ghost_again - 23-11-2014 at 12:33

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

I can't vouch for the quality of the purchased water. Here's all I could find:

http://www.ewg.org/health/report/BottledWater/Bottled-Water-...

The initial pH of the batch was 5 as indicated by pH paper so I didn't add any H2SO4.

My purpose in using spring water was that I believed it would contain essential minerals. I also felt that molasses would provide essential minerals not provided by table sugar (sucrose).

I do know, however, that a friend has made ethanol successfully using just sucrose and Turbo yeast. I cleaned up his wash for him. The alcohol content was ~10% IIRC.

Turbo yeast is often quoted as 18%-20%, 10% sounds about what I would expect, was this as a specific temperature at the still head or a range of temperature?
Your water may well of been fine, if its bottled spring water rather than what the Scottish class as spring water then its mineral content would be fine for short runs, I took spring literally as we have spring water here. Like the well water here or the bore hole water ours is incredibly soft with a brown peat tannin tinge to it.
With out non tap water the CO2 via carbonic acid bounces the pH all over the place, our spring water has a TDS of around 120.

I hope the papers have been of some help so far.
Funny thing is with brewers they get rid of these side products and yet in some ways they worth more than the beer they make lol.
Natural Banana smell for soap via fermentation!! Soapers would pay for that

Little_Ghost_again - 25-11-2014 at 14:01

Having slight issues download some papers in PDF so I 'dumping' some of the papers here that I will be using in doing this experiment, if you dont mind that is. Let me know if I am cluttering your thread and I wll move to my ethanol thread.

Metabolic Responses of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to Valine and Ammonium Pulses during Four-Stage Continuous Wine Fermentations
PMCID: PMC3623169

p.s some of these might also be of interest to you, I will only post the free ones here, any paid for ones I will put in reference section

Little_Ghost_again - 27-11-2014 at 08:23

Here is a over simplified diagram of the different pathways for yeast in brewing. Although its incomplete and was taken from a brewing paper it shows fairly well what pathways are available, reading the paper reveals the different worts etc and how they switch in and out the different paths, for speed some of these experiments I am going to do on nutrient agar plates.
Rather than use the standard media I will use a range of different nutrients in the agar, that way we should be able to isolate pretty quickly the nutrients and conditions to heavily favor the components we want the yeast to produce, I have also looked into the two main parent strains of lager yeast. They are far more restricted than what the paper calls 'ALE' yeasts (Bakers yeast), Turborg yeast looked promising for a while but its a hybrid of several yeast types and would be a pan to isolate pure cultures.
Once I get a plate that produces predominately what we are after I will mix up a solution with just the nutrients used for the plate and put in a reactor to grow the yeast.
Then ferment

2014-11-27 16_10_39-zmr157.pdf - Foxit Reader.png - 207kB

Magpie - 27-11-2014 at 10:48

Show me the isoamyl alcohol!

Little_Ghost_again - 27-11-2014 at 11:08

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

Show me the isoamyl alcohol!

LOL I am going as fast as I can!!! gone back through ALL the work that was done to get rid of it, and have started backtracking from there, currently have 16 plates and 32 tubes in the warmer.
Its looking likely I will have hydrogen by mid/end of next week, as soon as I have the gases I will test all the cultures for IA, those that show the highest levels I will put into 400ml vessels and ferment according to the nutrient plate/tube they came from.
There is one tube where even with the dryer on the end of the vent the smell from it is really sickly sweet, Almost that kind of chloroform sweet or maybe kind of almost ethyl acetate sweet.
Its hard to describe as I havent smelt many chemicals, but chloroform sprang to mind but much sweeter (in a sickly sense).
I dont like the smell at all, no sign of contamination on the lates though, they all seem clean.

Magpie - 27-11-2014 at 11:19

Quote: Originally posted by gsd

Fusel oil I obtained from a distillary is a dark foul smelling liquor. It is a cocktail of all lower alcohols (except methanol). It also contains generous amount of water.
Gsd

Based on this excerpt from gsd's post upthread I'd say that those smells are encouraging.

Little_Ghost_again - 27-11-2014 at 13:28

Yes I think so, the problem is mostly which way you try and direct the respiration, looking at the picture above its easy to just say provide the conditions that favor the pathway from pyruvate to acetaldehyde, and go that route, but thats the normal route that yeast or specifically normal fully functioning (in the gene sense) Saccharomyces cerevisiae prefers to go, the actually by products at that point are mainly dictated by the sugar used.
But if you look closely the better route would be to favour the carboxyalic route, there are less factors involved if you can get the respiration of the cell from the point of the pyruvate pathway to head off down that path, but again its even more important that the correct sugar is chosen because it would need to be a fairly deficient nutrient broth.
The other major major problem is talking about this in terms of brewing, brewing is funny animal and everybody focuses on the yeast, but yeast only play a part of the process in making beer.
If you read the paper that diagram was taken from, you see clearly how many micro organisms are actually involved, so when you see a brewery turning out gallons of IA it could well have little to do with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or Saccharomyces Turborg or whatever if its a lager.
I will attach the paper, its about brewing and the microbes generally involved. What I have been saying however is its absolutely possible to use Saccharomyces cerevisiae on its own to produce IA, I have seen it and linked to papers that prove this, but its a biochemical process not a mix X chemical with Y chemical and stir kind of thing.
The short way to all this is to jusy pick out the haploid yeast cells that show the trait you want and cross breed, or even shorter splice some e.coli with the gene section you want. But no fun there and certainly no skill.
What I sugestead at the start of this thread should get you some of what you want, but if you want a refined and more reliable method you can repeat time and again, then that takes a little time. I also have very limited funds so racking out 400 tubes of agar while very quick way to get to point B isnt going to happen, and isnt needed. The frustration for me is my dad spent 4 weeks trying to get yeast not to produce IA!!! its was a total in the arse.
So I have notes of great detail about how to avoid it, so its a back track process from them.
What worries me a little is the brewing connection, read the attached paper, it shows why in our case the two things are not connected, we are not using grains and mashes as such, we are trying to use a pure yeast and single/mixed sugar combination with maybe a specific nutrient laced broth, thats a long way from making beer

LG

Attachment: microbiology of brewing.pdf (1.5MB)
This file has been downloaded 538 times

Magpie - 27-11-2014 at 14:52

I realize what a good challenge this is and I appreciate the time and effort you are putting into it. I also realize that the scope may be beyond your funds and time available.

Chaim Weizmann developed an industrial process to produce butanol/acetone/ ethanol by fermentation of starch during WWI as acetone was in short supply then and much needed for making cordite. IIRC it wasn't that easy and he was given a prestigious award for his work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone%E2%80%93butanol%E2%80%9...

[Edited on 27-11-2014 by Magpie]

Little_Ghost_again - 27-11-2014 at 15:02

Quote: Originally posted by Magpie

I realize what a good challenge this is and I appreciate the time and effort you are putting into it. I also realize that the scope may be beyond your funds and time available.

Chaim Weizmann discovered how to produce butanol/acetone/ ethanol by fermentation of starch during WWI as acetone was in short supply then and much needed for making cordite. IIRC it wasn't that easy and he was given a prestigious award for his work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone%E2%80%93butanol%E2%80%9...

LOL nah my post just sounds that way! Actually the moment you mentioned IA from yeast I realized how important it could be for me and my soap, I didnt come across well thats all.
There is as much in this for me (maybe more) than for you, so its something I want to do, Yeah a bit frustrating not having huge funds to swamp it with, but the main point is I want to make sure its efficient and repeatable, once we have done IA then we will have the parameters that allow us to get the yeast to make others.
There is alot of literature based around this but we are also doing some unique work, most the work and papers are based on finding the pathways, not on developing a process to actually manufacture these substances.
Thats why I wanted to do a paper on the other side of things.
What I didnt mention was, because of the distillery work I have access to grains etc they use, I am getting some live worts an some grains next week from a distillery, I will try and isolate any microbes present.
I love this sort of thing, as much as I enjoy the chemistry, the biology side is more like what I am used to and have grown up with.

Texium - 30-3-2015 at 15:07

The brewery that my parents work for is starting a distilling program soon (the giant, beautiful copper still arrived last week). I was reminded of this thread when I was out there yesterday. They're a pretty large brewery, so I'm thinking that once they get this program up and running, there will be plenty of fusel oil produced that they won't really care about. As such, I will try to get myself a bucket of it, and have a long-ish term project to work on for a while!

blogfast25 - 30-3-2015 at 15:16

Quote: Originally posted by zts16

They're a pretty large brewery, so I'm thinking that once they get this program up and running, there will be plenty of fusel oil produced that they won't really care about.

If it contains anything of value, they'll care about it, trust me. Someone's garbage is often someone else's gold.

But do try and get some samples, by all means...

Texium - 30-3-2015 at 17:43

Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25

Quote: Originally posted by zts16

They're a pretty large brewery, so I'm thinking that once they get this program up and running, there will be plenty of fusel oil produced that they won't really care about.

If it contains anything of value, they'll care about it, trust me. Someone's garbage is often someone else's gold.

But do try and get some samples, by all means...

That is true, except that it is their garbage, my gold.

As far as I know currently, there are no plans to save it. Whatever I don't take goes off to water treatment. They aren't exactly the sort of company that tries to turn every possible byproduct into a revenue stream. The only byproduct that they actually sell is their spent grain, but they go through tons of it, and it is in high demand around here for use as cheap, healthy cattle feed. I couldn't see them charging anything for fusel anytime soon.

Magpie - 30-3-2015 at 17:48

I think it depends on how much of it they generate. It's mostly isoamyl alcohol which has quite a few uses, including the making of flavorings. They would likely sell it to a distiller for purification - or at least give it away to reduce the BOD in their waste treatment process.

[Edited on 31-3-2015 by Magpie]

Magpie - 31-3-2015 at 08:23

I'm now remembering that the industrial alcohol producers who produce large quantities use continuous distillation columns. With these columns the fusel oils tend to accumulate at a certain stage in the column so they are bled off at that point. These guys surely sell the fusel oil. I have a paper on this somewhere.

With the drinking alcohol most stills are batch, especially for the current fad of craft distillers. Here the fusel oils stay in the "tails" as they have higher molecular weight (lower volatility) than ethanol and water. So it is likely not economical to recover the them.

gsd can correct me on this if necessary.

Texium - 10-7-2015 at 16:52

I got several liters of tails from the still today (finally!) and I think I'll try some small scale runs to see how easily it can be fractionated. The still operator said that it would still be approximately 55% ethanol, so that will be the first thing to remove. After that, we'll see!

Mesa - 10-7-2015 at 18:22

Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25

Quote: Originally posted by zts16

They're a pretty large brewery, so I'm thinking that once they get this program up and running, there will be plenty of fusel oil produced that they won't really care about.

If it contains anything of value, they'll care about it, trust me. Someone's garbage is often someone else's gold.

But do try and get some samples, by all means...

Not necessarily, biodiesel production follows a similar methodology. Non-commercial producers generally source their precursor fatty acids from fast food chains etc.

Although I guess I'm stretching the definition of "valuable" a little here.

Texium - 10-7-2015 at 19:40

Yeah, they have no plans for the tails. What I don't take is dumped. I have about 5 liters currently to work with, though I could easily get more. They are probably going to use the heads as a sanitizer, since it's pretty similar to denatured ethanol. I don't really have any interest in those though, since all of the interesting stuff is in the tails. The 55% ethanol content is nice too. I just used up the last of the Everclear that I had.

One oversight on my part though is that I don't have a 24/40 column. I have a 14/20 one that would only work for tiny test runs, and a non-jointed one that would be kind of a pain to work with, and is rather short. I won't be able to really get started with the full scale setup (2000 mL boiling flask) until I get an appropriate column.

ave369 - 14-7-2015 at 05:30

When I distill moonshine, I usually do not even distill the tails, or feints. I turn the still off when it heats up to 92-94 C, leaving the fusel alcohols in the still bottoms, which I ditch (literally, I pour them into a ditch). My typical batch consists only from the foreshots (solvent, fuel, cleaning fluid, firestarter) and the main, drinkable middle.

My still bottoms are a smelly, watery liquid consisting from mostly water, three of four percent ethanol and some fusel alcohols.