StillSmart

HI All,

im left with about 2 ltrs of stripping run left in the still after my spirit run.
do i toss it of recycle?

thanks

MM

If it's been stripped already (i.e. you're on the second distillation run) then you should be able to use an alcometer to measure the strength and work it out from there - however, if you've done the run quite well then it's probably very weak anyway. Worth checking though, helps the learning process (or it did for me, I measured everything as I like to see for myself!)

Thanks Jimmy, it was indeed very weak and tasted almost like water.

From 4 ltrs i collected aproximately 3 x750mls of output, essentially heads, hearts and tails. The first two were in the low 80s % and the last dropped to 65 by the end of the run.

should i mix them in any set proportion or just keep the hearts and mix the other 2?

MM

Depends what you're after - if you're going to carbon filter and use it as mixers, you might get away with just putting them all together.

If you're after the best quality, you'll need to either keep them apart or else check the smell/taste (dilute a little with some water on a spoon if needs be) and see what you think.

With the little stills, 750ml is probably a bit too much to make proper cuts - ideally you'd have maybe 200ml at a time and you'd be able to choose which band you want to put them into when you've finished - not entirely practical though, which is why I don't do it!

At the end of the day, if you mix them all together, dilute and chuck them through a filter it'll be loads better than a single run spirit so it's really up to you - I'd maybe be tempted to do as you say and keep the middle one seperate, mix the other two, and see if there is any noticable difference when they're diluted to strength.

I made brandy and whiskey from the middle cut, and mixed the other together. There was a bit of a twang to them so i used part to make amaretto and butterscotch schnapps. I figured the oversweet liqueurs would mask the taste.

I may invest in the filter if i can make them all taste like the middle cut.

mm

Yeah, or perhaps if you had three lots of 750 this time with the middle good, next time take 700 - 850 - 700 and see how you get on, and so on, taking more from whichever end smells the nicer.

Thats a good idea!

is it worth collecting then fore and aft cuts and redistilling them.

They were all pretty much 80% so if i diluted the 1.5 litres back to 4liters id have a wash about 30? would this remove the off flavours.


MM

Each distillation improves the quality but you do lose some inevitably to foreshots, tails, evaporation, etc. each time so it's a trade off. If my other half is running the airstill, she likes to quadruple distill and carbon filter but I don't have the patience for that!

It's up to you basically - you can always dilute and carbon filter, taste it, and then decide to put it back in so long as you've not added essences or anything. It'd definitely improve things with some smallish loss of quantity - up to a point of course, where you hit the efficiency limit of the still, which from memory is around 86% or so in my unscientific experience.

Go on jimmy, how much does your wife get out of 24 litres of 13-14% wash when she quadruple distills?

Is the quality significantly better?

How big is your electric bill?!

<loudly>

OF COURSE IT'S LOADS BETTER WHEN YOU QUADRUPLE DISTILL

<quiet voice looking anxiously to check nobody is listening in>

If I'm honest, I can't tell any difference but best not to argue with the boss!

It's the law of diminishing returns, distilling once makes a massive difference from the original wash, twice makes a noticable difference, three makes some difference and from there on in you're talking minor changes.

That was with the SmartStill of course, with the T500 we haven't gone past one yet. With the SS she was getting maybe 5 - 6 litres at the end but they were using tomato paste/bread yeast washes too. Quality not quantity was the idea.

Lol.

YES I AGREE. YOUR WIFE IS A GENIUS ARTISAN!

I might try and triple distill, to see if I can see a difference.