Impatience and the turbo yeast....

[Curmudgeon]

I'm a bit behind, but without getting ph paper etc, I'd be tempted to chuck a spoonful of baking soda/bicarbonate of soda into your barrel next time it seems to be stalling.

As Robert says, some sultanas (or maybe soaked lentils) wouldn't do any harm for a bit of nutrient content. You can use winemakers nutrient but it will give a slight off taste.

Of the yeasts with nutrients included, a few of us quite like alcotec vodkastar. Not exactly a turbo as it takes 5-7 days. There's a guy on ebay sells 10 packets for £28 including postage and if you buy directly he'll give you discount. Not me and I'm only a satisfied customer but he's at brewonline.co.uk

[Leatherman]

I can say only good things about vodkastar. Would recomend for everyone. Using more than half a year. Never let me down. Even in low room temperatures. Use 5 - 5.5kg of sugar. Two 25l washes, after double distilation and cuts usualy leaves me with around 10 litres of 40% neutral. Hope I am not to greedy on cuts

[Mash]

From 6kg in 25l either tomtaot paste or kale wash I get about 3l @ 92%, I would say I usually cut around half of that and end product at 40% is indeed in the region of 4-5 litres.

yup - thats where I am..

[Leatherman]

So when I do 2x 25l vodkastar 5.5 kg sugar washes. I end up with about 3 litres of 92 abv each.
I always throw away first 150ml foreshot on striping run. And run still untill its slows dropping. Usualy by this time I have around 3 litres of 92abv. I dont run till its stops dropping completly. So I believe I leave much of the tails undistilled.

So two striping runs leaves me with 6litres of 92abv. When i do spirit run. I usualy cut first litre in 5x200ml jars (heads) then 2x2litres hearts and then 5x200 tails. Then I leave it for night open. Then mix what I think is still mixible if it is a right word to say. Then double filtration through actyvated carbon. Any advice on cuts? I would be very thankfull.

Another strage observation. After leaving jars for night before mixing I put water tobwater it down. And strangly I can feel any smell in what should be tales section. I can easily smell diferences in heads but no smell in tales. Any ideas on this?

[Easydrinker]

Firstly, you seem to be stripping using a packed column, not usual, but if it works for you, fine.
The units of alcohol from your two strips is very similar to my own, around 570-580 units.
(volume of alcohol in ml x % /1000)
I think you discard a little too much of the fores.
I think you are leaving most of the tails in the boiler on the strip, and the rest on the spirit run.
The reason you are not tasting the tails.
If you had given the % of your heads, hearts and tails,on the spirit run, I might be able to speculate more, I can't believe they are all coming off at 92%.
You have to lose some alcohol, somewhere.
You are doing fine, and other than saying if you have space to save your spirit run blending discards until you can dilute and fill a boiler with them, and maybe catch another couple of litres of drinkable hearts, just keep doing the same as you have been.

ATB

Robert.

[Anavrin]

Hi domasj

You get about the same from your strip runs as I do, your 3 litres at 92% from your packed column works out the same as I would get from a pot stilled strip, I normally expect 1 litre of 50% strip per 1kg of sugar.

So for a wash with 5.5kg sugar, that would be 5.5 litres at 50% (collecting until the parrot reads 30%)

Which is almost the same as your 3 litres at 92%

5.5 / 92 x 50 = 2.99

You should be better at holding back tails as your stripping with a packed column were as I’m just collecting everything.

For a spirit run I first like to calculate the total alcohol volume in the still, in the above example the boiler charge would be 9.2 litres at 30% once watered down.

I assume the last 20% of this to be tails so I don’t even bother to collect it, also I assume that 50% of the alcohol in there will be clean hearts, everything that comes out in the first 30% is heads.

This is a big heads cut but one that I’m happy with, if I had to make cuts with no sense of smel or taste, these would be my numbers.

I am quite ruthless on heads though, On my last run I had 40lites at 36% in the boiler, I was collecting at 94% I cut the first 4.6 litres as heads/fores, and kept the next 7.5 litres as hearts, after airing and diluting and filtering, I had 16.5 litres at 40%

It’s worth pointing out that I had to finish the run early as I was pushed for time but there couldn’t have been much more left in there, I’d collected 12.1 litres leaving roughly 20% behind in the boiler.