I'm sorry for posting at a wine group, but I figured this group would be more knowledgable about alteration and clarification than others. I came across a site about something called the "Grey Kangeroo," and it claims to be able to make cheaper spirits (including low brands of vodka and whiskey) more palatable while maintaining the same amount of alcohol. Does anyone know if this is possible, and what type of filtration equipment would be needed to "clarify" the impurities in cheap spirits as the product promises?
and I do not like what I see. First off they clam that they have a patent pending, well I looked for it on USPTO.gov and could not find their names, Esposito or Radysh, nor anything that is an alcohol filter. The search was for apps not patents granted. Next they very vaguely explain how it works. The way I figure it works is like a carbon or zeolite filter not a membrane (like a coffee filter or a riverce osmosis filter). Reason being that it works better the more times you filter the mixture through it. So now we are left with a filter that acts like a sponge. One slight problem, when you are working with a solution that is about 60% water and 40% alcohol you can dissolve both polar/ionic and nonpolar compounds into it to a certian degree. Since they claim that their system reduces the presence of congeners and that they state that if the liquid is artificially coloured the system will remove the compounds I would have to say that the system removes non-polar compounds quite well. ASIDE: [have you ever had ouzo, the correct way that is, by adding water to it in a 1:1 ratio? you get a cloudy mixture, just like when you add pinesol to water. What is happening is that all of the, essential, oils (non-polar) are comming out of suspension, which shows that 40% is a good non-polar solvent.] This would be in line with the type of filter they claim they are using.
All in all, I think it could work, it would work out on paper. My personal bet is that it is just a basic carbon filter. If you feel like it, try making your own by using a food grade carbon filter and filtering vodka a few times through it. I would caution you that brittas may not be alcohol friendly and so you may be better off opening one up and taking some of the carbon(black)/zeolite(white) out of it and mixing it with the vodka in a glass glass. Keep stirring for a minute or two then strain though a coffee filter and try. Worse comes to worse you loose the price of a britta filter and the vodka.
Just to let you know, the britta idea is just that an idea, I don't drink vodka and would have little use for this system. The principals are sound (to my knowledge) and it should work, to a point.
Anyone else have an opinion/thought?
If you try it and it works, or not, please let me know.
Thank you for the comploment. I'm a BioMed student, close enough!
Congeners are just toxic byproducts of fermentation/metabolizm that supposedly give bad taste and hangovers, where reality and fantasy begin and end are kind of blurred.
Had to look up what type of paper you are taking about and I can't find it. I'm assuming that it was untreated filter paper. Basically all it will do is remove particulates, if you do not see any sedamit it will do very little. I believe that you can buy filter paper (or is it sponges/flosses) coated in carbon/charcoal that would work like the britta idea.
I think that this may go back to the Pinesol/ouzo scenario, by adding water to the whiskey, you did two things. One, you lowered the concentraion of alcohol thereby making the nonpolar compounds (the congeners and other things) to become less soluble and some may have dropped out of suspension. This is what created that white/cloudy precip. Secondly, by chilling the whiskey with the ice, you further reduced the solubility forcing more of the compounds out of solution. I think you may have a nice alternative to using carbon or the like, if you don't mind that your whiskey watered down, a bit at least. What I would suggest is that you play around a bit; make sure that you have a note pad and pen at your side so that you can jot down notes so when you get a good batch/sample you can repeat it. Note that you may have to do this for each brand that you try to filter.
Make an ice bath (bowl with water and some ice) take two shot glasses or something of the like and fill one with water and the other with the whiskey(measure the amount, say 15ml each), not to the top.
Put both into the ice bath and chill for a minute or two.
Take a straw/eye dropper/or the like and add a few drops of the water to the whiskey and stir.
repeat until a cloudy precp appears the maybe add one more drop of water.
Wait a few extra seconds to make sure it is nice and cold then filter out the "junk", standard coffee filter paper should work, if not you will probably have to let it settle down to the bottom of the glass.
now measure how much water you have left and then subtract it from your starting amount and you can now work out the ratio that you need to mix. Note do not try to work it out by calculating the whiskey mixture as water and alcohol do not mix evenly. IE if you mix 50ml water and 50ml of alcohol you would think you should have 100ml right? Wrong, you would have somewhere in the neighborhood of 92ml since the water molecules can pack into the spaces between the alcohol molecules.
Now the real test, try it. If it is good then you have (hopefully) a more refined whiskey. If not you may have wasted a 1/2 shot of it, hey it still is technicly drinkable! You could also try freeze filtering the whiskey if it is a little too weak. Just toss it into the freezer for an hour or so, for a bottle give it a day or two. then take a tea strainer and put it into the freezer for a few minutes to cool it down. then just strain out some of the ice crystals that will form, they should be close to pure water. Note that if your freezer is not that cold the you may not develop ice crystals.
I agree with you, only there is only a few problems. In most of the world distilling is still illegal. You may also strip out more of the flavors in the whiskey. Here again we come to the idea of trying it out and experiment. You should, through trial and error, be able to find the correct angle to have the output tube to get a satisfactory product. It is most definitely doable. Now you have two/three solutions for the same problem.
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