StillSmart

My name is Graham, my other interests are beekeeping and homebrew and thought i would give this distilling thing a go.

I have been looking at posts for the last few weeks and reading up on distilling still have not got my head around heads hearts and tails but got a couple of good files from here so will have to read through them again.

I purchased a T500 and I have got a wash bubbling away nicely.

I have got one question , I have got 15 litres of wine which i am planning to run through the still do i treat this the same as distilling a wash ie. degassing using conditioner and saddles is there anything else i need to know when running wine through a still, the wine is nice and clear

Hello mate 15 lts of wine at about 12% abv will produce around 1.8 ltr of 93 % abv leaving about 13 ltr in your boiler.from what ive read when distilling wine your foreshots can increase so instead of chucking the first 50ml to be on the safe side chuck 100ml. as regards degassing tipping it into the boiler should be enough.conditioner shouldn't be required if by saddles you mean boil enhancers add a few tiny pieces of copper,if you mean column ceramic saddles fill the column as instucted making sure not to pack it too tight.
Cheers

Think of Foreshots/Heads/hearts/tails as stages of a run if you will.

The forehshots are the bad stuff, acetone and other nasties we don't want to ever drink. Smells bad, like paint thinners.

Heads are where the "hangovers" hide, they tend to taste sharp and or bitter.

Hearts is the best bit !!! Clean to taste and smell, the nicest to drink.

Tails are the end of the run, all the hearts are gone and your left with the smelly wet cardboard taste and smell, not nice.

To get a better understanding I suggest doing a quick Google search for "Kiwistiller guide to cuts and fractions".

thanks for your replies when I said saddles it was the boil inhibitors the small ceramic things.

it was a good way of describing the different stages of the distilling process I was going to run the wash throught he still and then put some of the heads and the tails in with the wine and then run the wine through the still.

I am not going to look for absolute perfection on these spirits however I would like to get a nice product

as you said in your answer about the four shots I was always going to discard the first 100ml just to be on the safe side

For sugar turbo neutrals the T500 is excelllent.

When it comes to wines etc, I haven't tried it for that. I use an air/easy/smart still for that. But I suggest you get a series of glass jars, mark them up with numbers and work out where the level is for something like 200 mls. Then as you run the wine, every time you fill to the pre-marked levels you put another jar under the spirit outlet. Then once the still stops running or goes to far above the normal operating temps you can then smell and taste the difference between heads hearts and tails. The fact its a reflux still make it likely that it'll be a bit harder to tell where the cuts are, but it'd be good training.

With sugar turbos, the different fractions are much harder to smell/taste as the sugar has already been refined. I find it best to make a wash with tap water, run it, then let it down to 40% or less with RO water (from the aquarium shop - no minerals) and then re-distill. The distillate is then let back dow to exactly 40% again with RO water, before being carbon filtered.

I'm further east but the tap water is hard and full of chalk/calcium and magnesium salts. By letting it down with RO and then letting the final distillate down with RO you don't seem to get much, if any of the harsh taste that can result from using hard tap water.

My neutrals do seem to come out clean and smooth. Ideal to use with commercial flavourings.