StillSmart

I've been doing a lot of reading and have worked out a fair amount of good information regarding neutral spirit distillation and am wondering if I should be doing stripping runs with the T-500... I imagine stripping runs would only be skipped for a whiskey/rye kind of beverage, but I have to wonder, and I don't want to be doing extra runs without reason...

The instructions that come with the T500 describe a method that can produce drinkable neutral with one distillation and carbon filtering. This process will give you the maximum amount of product and hangovers.

The double distillation method i.e. strip and spirit runs with cuts, will produce a cleaner tasting product with a lack of hangovers. If you were to do three strip runs and one spirit runs that would only mean 4 runs instead of 3, not that much additional effort really.

Everyone is different and no one can tell you what is best for you. Try both methods and see what you prefer, and let us know the outcome.

Even with a reflux column many folks do three distillations. A strip run, then a spirit run from which they take the hearts, re-dilute those, and then do another spirit run. It all depends how clean and "neutral" you want your neutral to be.

The other way to do it is to do do your spirit run REALLY slowly, Maximum of 1 litre per hour on a 3" or bigger column, even slower (drip by drip) on a smaller column.

Many thanks for the speedy reply!


So much for leaving the full drink bottles open to air out for a day...

This is my second attempt, the first failed so miserably but we have final product you can drink. Still have a quart or so, and for a long time to come I think. The first run was a 1 X 6 gallon all grain bill disaster is all I will admit to here and now.

Now that I've had time (to read forums like this one)/experience, I'm trying a non-Turbo Yeast concoction that is following the script well so far. I had second thoughts about stripping runs when I saw all that shiny liquid coming out into 1 quart jars. I guess I was hoping I could go straight to flavoring or something. I know how I was tempted... When it came time to get the outlet temperatures right, I went straight to the manuel for the still and never really set it down after that. Plus, I have read that, counterintuitively, a stripping run may sometimes be enough and that Spirit Runs can

do more harm than good

I will get to spirit runs instead. Now I see why/how the cuts can be done: I'll be using one final unit of volume to pull the hearts from. I had 3 X 6gallon buckets fermenting and clearing all this time, and ended up with a lot of "fores, hearts, feints..." in a LOT of jars. Got math? No.

No I don't I mean. Maths? The thingy with the numbers right? You want me to pretend all this smelling, tasting, feeling, beading, and burning of foreshots, hearts and (next to no) feints is supposed to mean something to my neophyte taste buds, eyes and skin?
Practice practice. And I'll keep a special jar of this run aside to compare to as many future runs as possible. Eventually, I'll gain the desire to build a still, but it's good to have a leg up on things when you don't have any space/equipment to build with, but still want to experiment.

I'm glad to find a T-500 specific topic in a still forum, and to know that the T-500 (instruction manuel) recipe is cut-rate, despite having such a nice machine with which to operate the process. Maybe it's a marketing thing: get the customer to think the process takes less steps as they flip through the glossy manuel/instructions at the store... The Next salesperson I meet is in for a lot of questions like,

"yeah, I see what it says here". But how do you do it?

I did keep the temps way low, so I've done a great stripping run I suppose. The glass is overflowing at this point. Now to get some sleep.

I know this is usually thought of as a pot still technique (hydro-separating) but I use it on my reflux column too.

My column is usually used for cleaning up the feints that are produced from my pot still, so I don't often need to ferment specifically for the column.

If you have made cuts on your strip runs, just gather all the heads and tails and combine them. Dilute to less than 30%, I usually aim at 27%, and leave them to separate out. They have slightly different densities.

You get a thin oily layer that contains some of the heads on the surface, and a layer at the bottom that contains some of the tails. If you just charge the boiler from the central part you have already done part of the clean up before you put any power on the still.

There are other techniques that increase the yield from the reflux column, but I don't bother with them myself. Manipulating pH etc.

I don't do anything with the feints that result from a spirit run on the column - I just discard them.

The biggest improvement I got in my end product came from doing stripping runs.
Just dont try using the T500 to do strips, get ye a pot head to strip.

get ye a pot head to strip

I've forgotten the phrase that conjures up new pot heads... It may take a while before I get one, but I am interested. What's the benefit (how does it work more or less) when using a pot head for stripping?

I don't do anything with the feints that result from a spirit run on the column

thanks Miles, I mixed all the product from all the buckets together for spirit runs, it was just easier that way. I am wondering why you don't just save your feints for the next batch/stripping run though.