StillSmart

Re: What do you guys filter??

2012-06-13T10:27:57+00:00

This was the 'light' in molasses wash - just 2 litres in 50 litres of wash, no dunder etc. The first jar towards the tails had quite a pleasant taste but after that it was just tails

I used my power controller to drop the energy to compress the heads - as soon as the column temp started to rise I backed it down to about 1kw, then increased the water suppy to keep the temp down, then over 30 mins I gradually cut back on the water to let the temp rise, then once the heads were finished I put the power controller back on full and re-balanced the water.

I guess the best bet is to stick to a plain sugar wash for neutral but the molasses smells so good when it ferments and strips.

Statistics: Posted by MrCat — Wed Jun 13, 2012 10:27 am

Re: What do you guys filter??

2012-06-12T18:09:40+00:00

I'm with chuck on the molasses, it is very hard to neutralise - when doing white rum I'll strip then pull off at 95% and its still very rummy. I guess it depends how much you are using in your wash, I use between 20-30% of the wash volume is molasses and dunder - if using less this might not be an issue.

I haven't filtered anything for a while but for comparison here is the break down of a few runs

--------------
Neutral Wash
Still Charge: 23l @ 40%
Total Alcohol: 9.2L

Heads + Head feints: 17%
Hearts: 57%
Feints: 13%
Not Recovered: 13%
------------------
100% Potato Mash
Still Charge: 8l @ 30%
Total Alcohol: 2.4L

Heads + Head feints: 24%
Hearts: 40%
Feints: 12%
Not Recovered: 24%
---------------------

I know these are 2 different washes so comparing them is not ideal - and I can get different results form the same wash depending how clean the ferment was or how the still was run or any number of other variables, but this ball park as to what I normally see.

Also the feints in both cases are okay, but I choose to recycle rather that drink them on this distillation.

Lets start with the neutral wash.....
I normally get 10-12% heads if running really careful - the 5-7% is feints. I'll store these separately to be run later.
The hearts section normally works out 50-60% 57% was a good haul and it was completely neutral.
The Tail-feints I will normally chuck in with the next strip I'm doing, but if I have gone too far into tails by accident these will get dumped as I find that re-distilling these does not really clean them up as far as I can tell.

So on the Neutral Wash I failed to recover 13% of the Alcohol - 5%+ is never going to be recoverable - it is just lost to the process of running a column, the rest are stinky tails and I don't want them fouling my condenser, because it makes the whole garage stink when storing it, and it would contaminated the heads on the next run.

You can see on the potato wash the heads and tails are quite a high %, now this may be a property of this type of wash, but I think its just because of the small charge. The 24% not recovered is a little more than a pint jar, I was into tails so stopped, If running a larger volume I suspect the numbers (as a percentage) would improve.

I'm not getting hugely better % hearts that you MrCat (40% ish), but I am able to pull azeotrope right up until tails which is why I think I'm getting a slightly wider hearts - I also use power control when removing heads and then again to compress the tails, I have believed for some time that the T500 running full blast on a column that size will cause smearing no mater how good you control the CM.

Statistics: Posted by Capt-Cudellez — Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:09 pm

Re: What do you guys filter??

2012-06-12T16:19:20+00:00

Did you use blackstrap molasses? In my experience, carbon filtering does not do much in the way of removing that distinctive blackstrap taste.

Keeping less than half of the output sounds wrong to me, but maybe it depends on your still. I run an Airstill and keep more than that and I am very careful in my cuts. I only ever filter for Vodka. Pulling 92%, I'd expect much wider cuts that you report. My guess is that molasses is not a great base if you are aiming for "no taste, no smell".

Chuck

Statistics: Posted by chill — Tue Jun 12, 2012 4:19 pm

Re: What do you guys filter??

2012-06-12T10:30:58+00:00

Thanks

It's a molasses wash - after triple distilling there should be no real need to filter but I'm being extremly extremely picky - what I'm keeping is the best of the best of the best. I have in the past used maybe a couple of jars either side of the hearts and I doubt no one apart from me would know the difference. But that's the point - I would know the difference !

From 7 litres of 90%+ I selected less than half so I'm just looking to recover more by filtering (but only filtering the heads and tails) and it will be used mainly for flavoured spirits.

I'm just wondering of the people that are taking cuts is anyone filtering the heads and tails and what is it like??

Statistics: Posted by MrCat — Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:30 am

Re: What do you guys filter??

2012-06-12T02:47:08+00:00

Hi Mr Cat,

Could you please assist with some information ?? You have not stated what wash you are using.

I use a TPW batches of 24Ltrs taking off 50mls forshot collecting approx 650-700 mls of heart. For the average drop used for making Schnapps, Baileys etc I run through the Airstill once, then slowly run through a carbon filter twice. As it is only an Airstill if I want real clean spirit for more pure purposes I run the wash through the Airstill twice then carbon filtering twice. Happy with the quality and quantity of output.

I have read on other forums no need to run TPW through a carbon filter however I feel in my humble opinion any residue smell disapates and it seems to take the edge off the spirit.

Regards,

Bandit

Statistics: Posted by SCBandit — Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:47 am

What do you guys filter??

2012-06-11T18:53:28+00:00

To start off with I filtered everything but for the last 18 months or so I've been triple distilling and making very strict cuts.

However at the weekend I realised that I'm not getting great returns on my time - a 50 litre molasses wash returned just 2.4 litres of 94%.

I strip 2 *25 litres, then put that through the T500, discard the foreshots at that point but collect everything until the T500 stops producing. I get about 7 litres of 90% from that. I put that back through the T500 and take cuts. I ended up with 16 400mml mason jars but only 6 jars made the cut for what I wanted. Super smooth, no taste, no smell, sippable (if you are that way inclined) output.

The rest gets to take another run through the T500 at some stage but if it didn't make it on this cut...

It's a lot of work for not a lot of return.

Is anyone taking cuts and filtering the heads/tails?? If so how do you find the filtered output compares with the clean hearts??

Statistics: Posted by MrCat — Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:53 pm