The First 50ml

[Andy]

I was wondering what everybody does with the first 50ml that we are supposed to get rid of??

My wife tried it as a nail polish remover but it didn\'t work.

What do you do with it??

[Phantom]

Well to start with, if I\'m gonna let it back down for flavouring/drinking I only bin the first 20mls, 50mls would IMO, be a waste. There\'s a hell of a lot less foreshots in sugar wash, mainly, I suspect, because of the purity of the sugar in the first place.
If I\'m gonna just make it like a stripping run so it get\'s let back down for re-distillation, then I don\'t collect foreshots first time, only on the second distillation run and even then I aim for 20 mls, bin that (down the sink) and then collect the next 20 to 30 mls and smell it, if there\'s no acetone/pear drops/nail polish remover type smell, then it goes into the main batch, if there is, then it get\'s binned down the sink.
The foreshots are probably too low in acetone to be used for nail polish removing, despite the similarity of smell.
If I\'ve got enough, I sometimes keep it and add it to the drum of home made screen wash I have. It won\'t freeze so it can only help toward that (My truck gets through a lot of screen wash so.......)

[Andy]

I was thinking about saving till I have 1lt, then water it down to 4lt and distill it again???

[HangOver]

for what its worth, i get rid of the first 50ml, i just think for the sake of 25ml extra what the hell.
Phanton excellent idea re:water anti-freeze lol.

except it just doesn\'t get that cold here
I save it up and use it on ants nests and weeds in the garden, you have to use a lot on the weeds though.
Andy redistilling the foreshots i would strongly suggest not.

[Andy]

ok thanks HO, we have ants so will try that

[Phantom]

No, actually, I'd say that it's not a bad idea to collect it up and run it again.
Why?
well, presuming that it's got the higher alcohols etc in it, then to concentrate it in such a way would be a good learning aid, inasfaras, learning to pick out the different smells that are supposed to be present.
For example, being able to identify the acetone sort of smell. Because if you think about it, you can smell it clearly when you take a whiff of the wifes nail polish remover, but in the presence of alcohol that you want to be drinkable, it's harder to identify/separate out - mainly because there's such a small quantity.
I've looked back at the instruction sheet that I got with my table top still and there's no mention of binning foreshots.
I'm guessing, but this is probably more to do with the fact that table sugar is of high enough purity itself, so that the yeasts don't produce much in the way of acetone or higher alcohols. Plus, most of that would be lost through evaporative losses during carbon filtration.
If it comes out of the wash at a lower temperature, then it's also gonna evaporate first.......
Well that's my take on it anyway and why I think it's handy to try running it a second time round.....
p.s. @ HangOver, for the sake of 25 or 50 mls ? well in England and Wales, 25ml's is a "legal" shot/measure of spirits, which carries a retail in the region of £1.50 to £2.50 (in really snobby places even more), so if you're a tightwad, like me, it's worth the effort of learning or knowing when and/or how much, to dump, if it's necessary. We think of it as a safety margin, but is it really necessary with sugar wash? I'd suspect it is with grain mash etc, but then again, most of us have "erindoors" who'd moan like hell with the stink of running grain mash......

[bluecap]

Just tip it away, its just a useless poison that if collected and drunk by mistake it will make someone very ill, its not like you are going to go short of the good stuff.

[optic]

I pour my foreshots into a bottle and use them to wipe of the residual glue that is left on bottles that i have soaked the labels off,it works a treat,should get plenty of use after i have done the post xmas raid on the local bottle recycling site...lol

[Opus 27]

Interesting point though that Still Spirits don\'t advise throwing away any foreshots in the Air Still Instructions.
Opus

[HangOver]

good point mabe it doesn\'t ever hit that temperature band?

but for me 50ml a wash when I have several litres done and many more L of wash ready to go, I don\'t really care. If its even the slightest risk why take it.

I mean its costing me $2 per bottle so 50ml is about what 30 cents.

[optic]

it probably dont matter if you leave the foreshots in when running a sugar wash,but i always now bin the first 50 mls on the second run through,like hangover said you still end up with plenty of spirit at minimal cost.

[bluecap]

The general rule is 20ml for the airstill, 50ml for the reflux still in either case its so minimal why worry about it, but I have admit to sniffing the first bit and thinking do I really need to chuck it but I always do because I have such a abundance for minimal pennies .

[Phantom]

Well as I said, is it really necessary ? maybe not.
Is it a good habit to be in, so as to understand what\'s going on at that stage during a run ? Almost definitely.
If you get the bug a bit more and want to try other mixes, washes, mashes or different types of kit, then if you know why you should be doing something, well it\'s got to be considered as good practice hasn\'t it.....

[optic]

I can see now why the other site are not keen on the airstill in that its to small to make really good cuts,as i have found when doing a second run after binning the foreshots i take 100mls at a time from the still and test the abv and give it a sniff before DJing it and there is normally whats collected from 200 to 600mls that has a far more cleaner edge to it than the rest of the run but i dont think it is worth keeping that 400mls seperate considering the small amounts i run.