vodka star stripping run

[pannacotta374]

hi, can i ask some advice from you experts? m doing my first vodka star stripping run. it says discard anything below 20%. so i am getting 1.1 ltrs per run as opposed to 1.135 i think it should be?
obviously im well down now. the hydrometer reading was great when it finished fermenting just the tip could be seen!
so i will be well down on volume here, what am i doing wrong?
kevin

[Almanac]

No panic Kevin, the 'Guide' says 1.35lt but that is based on certain assumptions which don't necessarily apply in all situations.

The cut off at 20% is a little subjective, as is the 1.35lt figure. In reality you can go for either but probably not both to an exact degree. If you have a 17% wash you will probably hit both targets. If you're wash finished at 14-15% maybe not!

Either way the Guide to Running an Airstill is just that - a Guide. Use it to point the general direction, in terms of how you process a wash through an Airstill, stage by stage, rather than as an exact dictat to be followed to the letter.

As a suggestion, if you are cutting off at 1.1lt at 20% you could process that on to a spirit run and end up with a little less finished spirit - very little difference overall.

Alternatively, you could let it run on to collect 1.35lt regardless of ABV at the end. Either will result in Low Wines that have been stripped of the very worst elements of the wash and, after all, the actual purpose of the Stripping Run is to extract clean Low Wines, containing mostly ethanol and water, from, relatively, dirty wash containing all sorts of dead yeast cells, spent nutrients, minerals, unfermented sugars, etc., etc.

In the end the difference in final spirit yield will be quite small and squeezing every last possible drop from a wash is not supposed to be the objective.

Please, also bear in mind that, as said earlier, the Guide to Running an Airstill is just that and should be read with in conjunction with my guide to spirit cuts

Spirit Cuts for Beginners.pdf

and any other info you can find on the same subject because, at the end of the day, Spirit Cuts need to be done by taste and smell rather than by physical measure.

The Airstill guide gives amounts to collect at each stage and this will get you part of the way and help a user to produce a drinkable spirit, albeit with some impurities that they may prefer not to have.

The Guide to Spirit Cuts will, hopefully, improve the beginner's knowledge and help them to learn by doing. That's the theory, anyway.

AM

[Phantom]

See I don't generally bother with cuts when it comes to sugar turbo wash.

I did when I first had my easy/air still. The instructions suggested dumping the first 50mls as foreshots, then from each 4 litre charge (at about 14% ABV), to take 800mls of spirit, which came out at about 60% ABV.

Of course, initially I was satisfied with that. The "buzz" from such naughtiness etc. I then learned that I could just take what "they" suggested, which was then let down to the recommended 40% ABV and collected up until I had enough to re-distill.

On re-distilling the 40% spirit, I would work out how much 60% I'd used to make up the re-distilling charge, so I knew how much to expect, quantity-wise.

Either way, I'd then get the re-distilled spirit out of the still at between 80 and 85% ABV.

It didn't matter, as long as I got somewhere like the amounts that they suggested, as I then found out that I could just leave the still running. As the percentage ABV creeps down, I'd just collect down to about 5% or so for any stripping run.

Then for distillation runs, I'd make sure that I got the expected quantity, separate that off, but leave the still running down to about the 5% or so mark, and the lower strength stuff was just put in a jar and saved until I did another distilling run, when it would be added to the batch.

It seemed to work fine, as far as my unskilled palate could tell. I never had any issues with the taste of my spirit.

[Almanac]

+1 to that Phantom,

Absolutely nothing wrong with doing it that way too.

Everybody has different tastes and preferences and I don't believe, for one minute, that there's only one way of skinning this particular cat - apologies to Mr C there

Sometimes I strive to see how pure and clean I can get my end product and sometimes I just want to get the run done and bottled.

I'm not a perfectionist - I'm a distiller

AM