T500 poll

[Indianamoonshine]

On the video with Richard and the video which comes with the Turbo 500, both users take the finished 3.5 liters, make into 40%ABV and filter. However, there is a lot of talk about seperating the heads, hearts and tails. What to do? My wash is going into the still in just a couple days. What to do? How many T500 users are throwing everything together and how many are seperating heads, hearts, and tails? I bought the Z carbon filter system shown by Richard of Wineworks. Again, thanks in advance for your time and trouble to get me through this first wash. I'm also using the Turbo Clear and will it hurt to let the Turbo Clear set for 48 hours instead of the recommended 24 hours?

[Andy]

I have been using the T500 for just over a year now and have always collected everything together.
Only now am I starting to make "cuts"
I also stopped filtering when I started using the Vodka Star yeast.
And I stopped using the Turbo Clear once I had a stock, you can leave the turbo clear in as long as you like but you can clear your wash without it just by letting it stand a week or 2 after its finished fermenting.

[Capt-Cudellez]

I make cuts, I don't filter. Heads give you hot tasting alcohol, tails are almost undrinkable IMHO. Filtering will remove most of this and make it very drinkable. What you end up with is dependent on the ferment, a nice steady slow sugar ferment kept at the right temp, will produce a slightly larger hearts cut.
It's down to personal taste, If your happy that's the main thing, I do what I do, because I'm not happy with the results by using all of the alcohol.

My neutral run normally breaks down as.......

10% of the total alcohol in the boiler taken as heads - this is when taking care and removing them slowly, running quickly will smear this through the early hearts. - not used, put aside

20% as faints either side of the hearts - these seem like hearts when taking them off (taste clean off the output), but on airing and diluting down I can detect a taint of either heads or tails - I might include these if flavouring heavily, but leave them out of my vodka or gin.

50-60% hearts - the good stuff

about 15-20% tails - I don't collect much of this when doing neutral as re running really doesn't clean it up any - I switch off then the output drops to 90% ABV on my current still and dump the still charge down the drain. - when running the T500 it was when the output started to slow and I could taste it off the output (a taste off my pinky dipped in)

Looking at this it looks like I don't use a huge chunk of the spirit - but I water down and re-run it at a later date, you get most of the alcohol in the end, it just takes a while.

The above is for NEUTRAL ONLY, when running something like a molasses wash some of the faints make the cut, and a *tiny* amount of late heads and early tails get in too- after 3 months on oak this make a really flavorsome drink - but will give you a bit of a hangover - less so than commercial rum I might add.

for neutral I re-run all the faints and heads as a single run when I have enough to charge the still - for rum I add faints from the last run to each spirit run.

Do what works for you though - you should be your toughest critic.

[Capt-Cudellez]

Realised that adds up to over 100% - I get 10% heads, min 50% hearts - everything else is in flux numbers wise from wash to wash.

[Indianamoonshine]

Great posts guys and keepem' comin'. I'd love to know what the majority of Turbo 500 users are doing. Thanks for the advice. I would imagine there are other newbies asking these same questions.

[MrCat]

This is a learning process.

I doubt many (if any) of us made cuts to start with. You can make a very nice product by filtering that most people would be happy with.

You have a filter so give it a go. Do a few washes with the turbos and filtering, then try out a non turbo and give cuts a try out.

The good thing is you can filter your mistakes - or re-run them and try again (don't put anything over about 40% in the boiler - if you are recycling your mistakes make sure you've cut it with water before you put the power on!!)

Originally I aimed for quantity, now I end up with less but it's much higher quality.

But it takes a LOT longer. A 50l fermentation takes about 2 weeks, 2 stripping runs (in my s/s reflux), 2 spirit runs and cuts all adds up to a lot of time for about 8 litres of really good hearts.

Right now you've started a journey, filter, use turbos and step by step change over when you are ready.

[Indianamoonshine]

MrCat, I think I get what your saying and totally agree a better quality spirit is what I'm looking for. If it was quantity, I should make more washes! I also think trying to get the best spirit will allow me to use my Turbo 500 a few extra times which is going to be a blast. Hell, I'm like a kid a Christmas with a new toy. I say this everytime but I want you guys to know how much I appreciate your input and guidance. One piece of advice might make a world of difference and your saving me a headache. It's not like I can get on the phone and call my local likker maker and ask questions. Thanks again.

[lyonacre]

I have tried all sorts to see what difference I can make to the taste/smell of the finished product.

After many hours separating 500ml jars of output and selecting the best and comparing with the results from turbo yeasts and bread yeasts I came to the conclusion that to produce spirit that I was happy with didn't need all the effort.

I now use either a bakers yeast sugar wash - slow, not very strong, clean and sweet - or a Vodka Star wash - quick, reasonably strong and much better tasting/smelling that other turbos - I take off the first 100ml of spirit and consign it use as cleaning fluid or for use in my bio-diesel process (IMHO this is fairly smelly compared to the rest) and then collect everything upto the calculated output. Cut it, with distilled water, to 40% (ISH) than run it through an essencia filter.

The final product has a very slight odour, not unpleasant, which you notice if you use it as straight Vodka but not apparent with mixers and completely un-noticeable with essences and/or flavouring added.

As an experiment I distilled a filtered batch again and ended up with completely neutral spirit - well as far as I could tell - but it is a lot of effort for a very small improvement.

I am using a T500 for my process. When I was using the air still I used to be a lot more careful about selecting the hearts, ie only collecting the middle bit of output (pretty much as per instructions), and I would often re-distil after filtering to get a stronger, cleaner spirit. Just lots of time which is why I went for the T500 in the end

[Phantom]

Well, I just run it pretty much as they show on the DVD. Then I let the spirit down to 40% and run it through my Z filter.

Seems to do the job well enough for me.....