Separating volatile oils from alcoholic beverages

[1112120]

Hi,

I am searching for a way that will enable to me to separate volatile oils from wine and beer and other fermented alcoholic drinks.
I am also searching for a way that will enable me to separate volatile oils from distilled liquors like absinthe and pastis. The oils are responsible for the louching effects in these liquors.

I tried heating, freezing, changing densities but nothing worked. I tried fraction distilling but the alcohol forms an azeotrope with the oils. The alcohol distilled from wine for example will emulsify when water is added (just like pastis or absinthe does) but to a lesser degree.

Some fining agents (like activated charcoal and bentonite), molecular sieves, centrifuging and some types of chromatography might manage to do the trick but I have not tried these methods yet. Gin and other distilled liquors (that can potentially have oils upon distilled) are sometimes modified in order to be perfectly clear

I have been looking for a solution for a decent amount of time and nothing yet... I am not sure if anyone here read, or did such a thing (deliberately or mistakenly)

Any idea?

Thank you for your help!

 

[smcinco]

I have no idea but how about something like how some scotch distillers chill filter their product? FWIW scotch aficionados seem to really look down on that practice. I can't tell a difference. In any event, sounds like an interesting project!

 

[Beerstein]

Off the cuff, you might be looking at a packed column fractionation system. This is the background of hplc and gcms analytical lab systems. This is obviously not a high throughput operation. And my lab days are way behind me.

 

[1112120]

Thanks for the ideas. I will look about that.

I need to find the right adsorbents but I am not sure how I can find them as I can't find much info concerning which adsorbents affect which substances..