StillSmart

3 stripping runs of 3 x 25 litres of cider at 7% which made 3 gallon at 40%.....into grainfather which I turned down to 88c by turning to mash setting....started collecting after throwing first 250ml. Ist 250ml jar was 80% I am on my 15 250ml jar and it is still coming out at 70%...when should I stop collecting? I must be well into my tails by now.

When you hit 30% abv or lower.

Cheers, so chuck everything below 30%

That's the general consensus...some go down to 20%

is this on the reflux or copper?

Looking at the numbers I would assume reflux,
I don't see a pot head running that high for that long.


Robert.

I'm fairly sure it's pot head on grainfather boiler. Seems entirely probable to me as I do spirit run with 30% rather than 40% and run at full speed on T500 boiler and get a lot at 65%+. With the grainfather boiler turned down it should work fine for a slower run, especially if indoors and/or insulated.

Edit: if it is standard still spirits type pot head with a thermometer measuring temperature at top of vapour, I'd certainly start measuring/separating for tails at somewhere around 90 degrees centigrade, expecting to hit them around 92 degrees and be well into them by 95 degrees.

Slowing of temperature increase at around 85-86 when entering hearts is very obvious and same again for faster increase when exiting hearts at 90+ (depending on wash, ambient temperature, power limiting or not, etc etc)

@guest3254: What you might consider next time you do a run, is to do the math and determine before hand what you might achieve from the run. e.g. If you have a 100L wash at 10%, the maximum alcohol possible at 100% ABV is 10L. So if when done your final average is 50% ABV, you would have 20L.

Doing the math throughout the process will help you determine many factors. I often measure the ABV % left in the boiler after a spirit run. It helps me determine if I pulled the plug at the right time.

RJ is right as always. Those of us with smaller stills need to either make super safe cuts or use inferior methods to guesstimate as we will have smearing.

I routinely measure the abv and volume left in the boiler.
Knowledge can be simply learned.

Robert.

I started the grainfather on full power 2kw and when I started to get fast drips I turned it down to a quarter 500w, it came out fast drips till I hit 50% when I turned it back to fast strip down to 20% which I collected for feints.

RumJohn wrote:@guest3254: What you might consider next time you do a run, is to do the math and determine before hand what you might achieve from the run. e.g. If you have a 100L wash at 10%, the maximum alcohol possible at 100% ABV is 10L. So if when done your final average is 50% ABV, you would have 20L.

Doing the math throughout the process will help you determine many factors. I often measure the ABV % left in the boiler after a spirit run. It helps me determine if I pulled the plug at the right time.

Thanks for the tips, the final spirits taste good in the hearts section....now the problem of blending after a couple of days of letting the spirit breath,

Curmudgeon wrote:I'm fairly sure it's pot head on grainfather boiler. Seems entirely probable to me as I do spirit run with 30% rather than 40% and run at full speed on T500 boiler and get a lot at 65%+. With the grainfather boiler turned down it should work fine for a slower run, especially if indoors and/or insulated.

Edit: if it is standard still spirits type pot head with a thermometer measuring temperature at top of vapour, I'd certainly start measuring/separating for tails at somewhere around 90 degrees centigrade, expecting to hit them around 92 degrees and be well into them by 95 degrees.

Slowing of temperature increase at around 85-86 when entering hearts is very obvious and same again for faster increase when exiting hearts at 90+ (depending on wash, ambient temperature, power limiting or not, etc etc)

Cheers, run 2kw till you hit hearst then cut to 500w, back up to 2kw when entering tails.

decided to just keep the middle 30% and just maybe blend a bit of heads and tails and put the rest into feints jar