Standardized Hearts Yield

[Badmotivator]

I propose that it would be convenient to have a concise, standardized way to describe how much product one has gotten from their raw materials. This measurement would help in planning a batch, refining a recipe, comparing variations, evaluating cost, etc. Let's call it the Standardized Hearts Yield until a better name or sweet acronym is found. Suggestions welcome!

The SHY will be the number of pounds of sugar or converted starch that you used to get a gallon of 80-proof hearts. The SHY number is not pre-calculated, it is observed after cuts. The SHY number is not constant or objective, since many many variables including subjective ones like cuts are factors.

SHY = pounds of sugar or starch / gallons of 80 proof hearts after cuts

Cost per gallon of drinking-strength spirit = cost per pound of raw material * SHY

Raw material needed to make desired gallons = desired gallons * SHY

Ease of comparing protocols:
You can readily evaluate the effect of different starch conversion protocols, different yeasts, different fermentation temperatures, different distillation strategies, etc. using the batch's empirical SHY number. It is assumed that if your fermentation is better, ceteris paribus the SHY will be smaller because lower nasty congeners production means wider hearts. If your mashing efficiency is improved, ceteris paribus the SHY will go down. Adding a thumper or plates to your still will very likely cause a lower SHY, since it will tend to widen the (diluted apples-to-apples) hearts cut. Wider cuts push the SHY lower as well. SHY won't measure how good your juice is, but I'll bet it's a pretty good indication.

Ease of communicating between distillers:
I don't have any experience with distilling some new ingredient, say panela. I want to make 15 gallons of panela rum. How much panela do I need? Think for a minute about how laborious it might be to gather all of the information I would need to plan that batch.... or I could find one guy who says he fermented panela to 10% using bakers yeast, double-potted the wash, got a SHY of 23. Another guy fermented to 8% and distilled once with thumper, took wide cuts, and got a SHY of 21. Now I've got some very easy math for thinking about my batch. I need about 15 gal * 22 SHY = 330 lbs, give or take. If I want to get 15 gals of barrel strength hearts, I just figure out how many gallons of 80 proof that would be: 15 gal @ 120 proof equals 22.5 gal @ 80 proof, so I use the 22.5 gal number. 22.5 gal * 22 SHY = 495 lbs.

If you would prefer metric, use mSHY, expressed in kg/L, and use more significant figures if you're German.
mSHY = SHY * 0.12
SHY = mSHY * 8.3

I hope the utility of a number like SHY is apparent. I will be making a record of the SHY for my batches to make future batch planning a little easier, as well to compare protocols. I hope others will as well.

If you happen to have a measurement for one of your batches, feel free to share it along with a very concise description of your protocol. Especially panela; I'm serious, I don't know what I'm doing with all the goddamned panela.

[WIski]

WOW! BadMo what an idea.

My first thought on this is that I have repeated process's and recipes only to end up with differing hearts cut. This may be my lack of skill or control capabilities. I don't know why this happens. Are you suggesting compiling enough data from random stillers to create a median for reference or calculating hearts potential from the ingredients, the exact process needed to extract the potential, and the volumes needed to cut at the appropriate points? So many variables ..........

My second thought is....... Screw it.....it's an art, craft, hobby.........

Keep it safe, Have fun, Enjoy the journey.........

Thank You BadMo for dreaming and sharing........

[captainshooch]

The numbers 3 18 55 24 I recall from doing a lot of reading and personall experience.
3% fores
18% heads
55% hearts
24% tails
Use it as a rough guideline but rely on taste and smell for your final cuts.

These are for whiskey washes and can vary for other washes like rum where you might want to include more of the tails in your heart cut for flavor.

Kind of easy to figure thet roughly half of your wash should be hearts

[rad14701]

The numbers 3 18 55 24 I recall from doing a lot of reading and personall experience.
3% fores
18% heads
55% hearts
24% tails
Use it as a rough guideline but rely on taste and smell for your final cuts.

These are for whiskey washes and can vary for other washes like rum where you might want to include more of the tails in your heart cut for flavor.

Kind of easy to figure thet roughly half of your wash should be hearts

Those percentages are going to vary from recipe to recipe... That's the main reason why we state that you can't accurately make cuts based on percentages or volumes or temperatures... The crux of this topic is more about the projected yields based on specific ingredients, not simply a generalization... We've gone by generalizations for years and that's what Badmotivator would like to attempt to rectify...

[DeepSouth]

I average about 65% yield of hearts in my bourbon. That's 65% of all the potential alcohol created in the ferment. For example, if I made a 100 gallon batch and fermented to 8% ABV, using 2 lbs per gallon of grain, my fermenter would have 8 gallons of 200 proof alcohol in it. 65% of this is 5.2 gallons of pure alcohol. If all of my heart's were collected and diluted to barrel strength of 125 proof, I'd have about 8.3 gallons to put into a barrel. In reality, I recycle some heads and tails into spirit runs, so my yield is a little higher than that. It works out to roughly a rule if thumb to 1/10 of the mash volume will be my heart cut at 125 proof to go in a barrel. So 100 gallons of mash ends up making 10 gallons of 125 proof whiskey to go in a barrel, if I'm recycling heads and tails and redistilling them.

Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

[Badmotivator]

My first thought on this are that I have repeated process's and recipes only to end up with differing hearts cut. This may be my lack of skill or control capabilities. I don't know why this happens. Are you suggesting compiling enough data from random stillers to create a median for reference or calculating hearts potential from the ingredients, the exact process needed to extract the potential, and the volumes needed to cut at the appropriate points? So many variables ..........

I would like to have a SHY number from each of my batches to accelerate my learning and help with planning. I am hoping to hear other people's SHY numbers from comparable recipes/protocols for comparison. I'm hoping that having SHY numbers from recipes I've never tried might help my planning. I'm hoping that it might be a useful tool for others for planning and self-evaluation.

I definitely, explicitly, vigorously reject the idea that SHY numbers can tell you what or when or how to cut. It won't tell you how much hearts you will actually get on any particular recipe, protocol, batch. SHY is calculated post-facto, it is a descriptive number, it is never prescriptive at cuts time.

The crux of this topic is more about the projected yields based on specific ingredients, not simply a generalization... We've gone by generalizations for years and that's what Badmotivator would like to attempt to rectify...

Exactly! Sort of! I think generalizations are useful tools, and SHY could be a useful generalization. I actually want some generalizations that are currently not readily available.

Here's another angle that might be approachable: If I want to fill my 5-gallon barrel with 125-proof apple brandy, how many pounds of apples should I be thinking about? I understand that apples vary, juicing efficiency varies, fermentation varies, distillation varies, and cuts vary. Even so, if some stiller told me his SHY number for his apple brandy was 85 I can be sure that mine won't be 8.5 and it won't be 850. I'm going to start by planning my batch using his number. If I noticed variability in apple brandy SHY numbers from 80-100 (seems likely, actually), I can plan for my batch using a SHY of 95 for my batch and see how it goes. At least I've got a number to start with.

Another example: I know a guy with some ripe plums he wants to give away. It looks like about 200 pounds. Any guess about how much product I can expect from that? I don't have a clue. But some other plum distiller says he got a SHY of 117. Now I can at least guess that I will get in the neighborhood of (200/117) = 1.7 gal of 80 proof hearts.

I don't make vodka yet, but I will. When I do, one of the things I'm going to want to know is the SHY numbers for a number of different sugar sources. From there it will be very easy to weigh the cost and labor of different vodka strategies. Remember, ($/lb) * SHY = $/gal

You all have my sincere thanks for even looking at this topic with me. I know it's a little Out There, but I chewed on it for a while and it kept making sense. I thought I'd run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.

[Badmotivator]

I average about 65% yield of hearts in my bourbon. That's 65% of all the potential alcohol created in the ferment. For example, if I made a 100 gallon batch and fermented to 8% ABV, using 2 lbs per gallon of grain, my fermenter would have 8 gallons of 200 proof alcohol in it. 65% of this is 5.2 gallons of pure alcohol. If all of my heart's were collected and diluted to barrel strength of 125 proof, I'd have about 8.3 gallons to put into a barrel. In reality, I recycle some heads and tails into spirit runs, so my yield is a little higher than that. It works out to roughly a rule if thumb to 1/10 of the mash volume will be my heart cut at 125 proof to go in a barrel. So 100 gallons of mash ends up making 10 gallons of 125 proof whiskey to go in a barrel, if I'm recycling heads and tails and redistilling them.

Excellent! For simplicity I would like to omit the feints recycling. Your SHY number calculation for this recipe and protocol looks like this:

200 lbs. --> 8.3 gal @ 125 proof --> 13 gal @ 80 proof
SHY = 200/13
SHY = 15.4

EDIT: Wait, no. Sorry. I should include the feints recycling. That makes more sense. WITH the feints recycling your bourbon protocol has a SHY = 12.9

[captainshooch]

Like Rad just said. Pretty much what I said in different words.
Because each wash is unique on it's own even from the same recipe and because fermentation temperatures vary from.summer to winter as an example. And because your cooling water and take off rates can also vary by some ammount, then it is good to have an estimation but always best to rely on smell and taste.

This is not my idea, Ian Smiley did all the hard yards for us to make use of.

[Badmotivator]

Nerdybrewer very graciously shared his notes on panela via PM and has permitted me to condense the info and report it.

350 lbs of panela, fermented with dunder, pot distilled 1.5 times, wide cuts yielded (20 gal @ 70%) = (35 gal @ 40%)
SHY = 350/35
SHY = 10

There, that isn't so hard, is it? Thanks, Nerdy!

[still_stirrin]

Novel idea Badmo.

But, as you note...generalizations only apply to gross assumptions. It is a great "point of reference", but somewhat subjective when considering individual 1) stills, 2) distillers, 3) recipes, 4) mash protocols, and most importantly 5) taste perceptions.

A database of SHY is great as long as everyone understands what it is...and no more.
ss

[Badmotivator]

Novel idea Badmo.

But, as you note...generalizations only apply to gross assumptions. It is a great "point of reference", but somewhat subjective when considering individual 1) stills, 2) distillers, 3) recipes, 4) mash protocols, and most importantly 5) taste perceptions.

A database of SHY is great as long as everyone understands what it is...and no more.
ss

I agree completely. It is subjective and variable and non-prescriptive and probably has other limitations I haven't thought of. But the value of it doesn't depend on it being objective or constant or prescriptive, really. The value lies in it being an easily understood, easily calculated, easily reported, easily applied way to talk about how much you got compared to how much you put in. I think of it as similar to brewers/mashers use of "ppg" as a tool for achieving a desired specific gravity.

[captainshooch]

Exactly the point I am trying to get accross, as you said "the value in it beign easily understood and easily calculated etc..."....how much simpler can it get to base your expectations on the 50 55 60 give or take percentage hearts cut given to us by one of the most educated authors in the distilling world as your base to estimate the answer to your question.

Don't complicate your life with numbers. Go by guidelines and adjust as needed. Is what I do and works just fine.

[bilgriss]

This is pretty interesting.

I work daily with very large data sets, doing analysis of trends and expected outcomes. Normally in some very different areas, but there are some things which occur to me that apply to this kind of measurement. First and foremost, to create values that were meaningful, there are a number of factors contributing to variance which might need to be ironed out.

Rolled up into the SHY would be

Different recipes and equipment.
The brewer/distiller.
Level of patience.
Fermentation temperature and protocol.
Cut procedure.
Ability to taste / smell
Personal preferences.
The "newbie" factor.
Etc.

With very large data sets, those elements tend to just get pushed out of the equation, and the most typical calculations bubble up as representative. With very small data sets, such as a small number of home distillers reporting results from different mixtures of the above factors, variance tends to appear just as significant as whatever results are produced.

Perhaps if a small number of the most experienced members were to agree on a recipe and then do the math, I'd get a sense of whether this was a meaningful number. (I can see a group experiment here)

I like the concept.

[FullySilenced]

Get a copy of ian smiley and nixon and mccaws books... no group study required just a little reading

Happy StillinDays

FS

[Badmotivator]

With very large data sets, those elements tend to just get pushed out of the equation, and the most typical calculations bubble up as representative. With very small data sets, such as a small number of home distillers reporting results from different mixtures of the above factors, variance tends to appear just as significant as whatever results are produced.

Cool. I always love the idea of mining big data sets and gleaning insights from them. We're a long way off from that large data set, though. I'd just like to see any number at all from each recipe, at least at first.

Does anyone have any readily available numbers from their Birdwatchers? Or Wineos? All we need is pounds of sugar in and gallons of hearts out. It would be neat to compare that to an all-molasses rum, to one of the cereal-flavored sugarheads, etc.

[Badmotivator]

I turned 76 lbs of wet COB into 1.4 gal @ 73.5% = 2.57 gal @ 40%
76 lbs / 2.57 gal = 29.6 lb/gal

Wet COB's SHY = 29.6

Protocol:
roughly 2.5 lbs wet cob for every gal of boiling water
Pour boiling water over COB in fermenter, mix vigorously
Add SEBstar-HTL when acceptable temp is reached.
Adjust pH using acid blend and add SEBamyl-GL at acceptable temp.
Add SEBflo-TL when acceptable temp reached
Pitch yeast and buffer when acceptable temp reached.
Strip all wash
Run low wines through 4 plates. (N.B. The tailsy end of the distillation tasted strangely acceptable, interesting and oaty/grainy, up to the last two jars. Hearts cut seemed unusually wide.)

[Kareltje]

I average about 65% yield of hearts in my bourbon. That's 65% of all the potential alcohol created in the ferment. For example, if I made a 100 gallon batch and fermented to 8% ABV, using 2 lbs per gallon of grain, my fermenter would have 8 gallons of 200 proof alcohol in it. 65% of this is 5.2 gallons of pure alcohol. If all of my heart's were collected and diluted to barrel strength of 125 proof, I'd have about 8.3 gallons to put into a barrel. In reality, I recycle some heads and tails into spirit runs, so my yield is a little higher than that. It works out to roughly a rule if thumb to 1/10 of the mash volume will be my heart cut at 125 proof to go in a barrel. So 100 gallons of mash ends up making 10 gallons of 125 proof whiskey to go in a barrel, if I'm recycling heads and tails and redistilling them.

Excellent! For simplicity I would like to omit the feints recycling. Your SHY number calculation for this recipe and protocol looks like this:

200 lbs. --> 8.3 gal @ 125 proof --> 13 gal @ 80 proof
SHY = 200/13
SHY = 15.4

EDIT: Wait, no. Sorry. I should include the feints recycling. That makes more sense. WITH the feints recycling your bourbon protocol has a SHY = 12.9

Nice idea! But this example shows something strange: the lower the SHY, the more you get from a given amount of ingredient! To me that is against my intuition of the word Yield.
I would prefer the other way round:
SHY = 13/200 = 0,065
or better: 100*13/200 = 6,5
and after recycling of feints: 0,078 or better: 7,75.
Recycling then improves the yield, in stead of making it lower. (And then metric of course!)

As a rule of thumb I take it that from 1 kg of sugar I can make 1 liter of a drink of 40 %ABV. But it is a good idea to keep track of that!

[Badmotivator]

Nice idea! But this example shows something strange: the lower the SHY, the more you get from a given amount of ingredient! To me that is against my intuition of the word Yield.

You're right, but all things considered I think I prefer the simplicity of the (weight of raw material)/(volume of product) number. I think I'd rather keep the number and change the name, if needed. It could be:
Weight Required for Expected Standardized Take (WREST)
Mass Of Input / Standardized Take (MOI/ST)
Input Mass Per Regular Output Volume (IMPROV)
Or something more precise and less cute...

The reason I like the number to be weight/volume is the ease of planning a batch using that number. Start with a goal of a certain volume, just multiply the SHY number, that's the mass of raw material you need.

The inverse of SHY is a number that gets bigger with higher yield, true. But that number is harder to work with in your head. The bourbon SHY given above is 12.9. Let's say I need five gallons of product. I need about 65 lbs of grain. Easy.
Alternatively we could use the inverse number. The inverse of 12.9 is 0.077. Now my calculation of raw materials looks like 5/(0.077) and I don't think anyone likes doing that in their head.

It's not a big deal, either way. We all have a calculator in our pocket. And if someone had come along and started noting standardized Input->Output numbers expressed as (volume)/(weight) and that conceptual tool was widely used I would be perfectly happy with it. Here's an English idiom you might enjoy: "six of one, half dozen of the other", meaning it's all the same on some level, so whatever you're comfortable talking about is OK.

[Kareltje]

We say something like "around the left or around the right, as long as you go around"
Or: lead for old iron. Meaning: makes no difference.

I tried to ca calculate some metric SHY's.
For a birdwatchers: of 5 kg sugar I WRESTled 4 l of 40 %ABV: stripping runs followed by a spirit run. Different ways, for simultaniously doing some tests. So a mSHY of 5/4 = 1,25. is a SHY of 10,4.
Another birdwatcher: fermented partly and stripped, the lees I fermented again and stripped these too. All in all:
7,5 kg of sugar for 4,8 l à 40 %ABV, so a mSHY of 0,156 or a SHY of 1,30.
Clearly a lot went wrong: fermentation stopped due to low temperatures and I got a lot os loss due to bad taste. I got a lot of feints, but these get out of this calculation and are transported to another.

I got a nice plum-run. 18 kg of plums and 3 kg of sugar became 4,3 l of 40 %ABV. Some strip runs followed by a spirit run with some plum in a gin box for extra taste. But how to calculate a SHY?
With my rule of thumb I took a mSHY of the sugar of 1 (so a SHY of 8,3). So of the 4,3 l product 3 l stems from the sugar, which leaves 1,3 l product coming from 18 kg of plums.
So the mSHY of plums is 18 kg/1,3 l = 13,85, being a SHY of 114,9.
That is: of these plums, in this year, with this system and weather.

I made a appledistillate: Pompom. According to my rule of thumb I calculated:
10 ltr of juice + 1 kg of sugar made 1 ltr Pompom of 80 %.
15 l applejuice (made of 30 kg apples) plus 0,5 kg pearconcentrate (made of 2,5 l juice made of 5 kg pears) plus 1 kg sugar, fermented, stripped and ran it with low wines and fermented mash. Made 1,8 ltr à 80 %ABV, so 3,6 ltr à 40 %.
mSHY of sugar is 1, so made from 17,5 l of juice was 2,6 ltr of 40 %.
So the mSHY of apple- and pearjuice is 17,5 / 2,6 = 6,73. But calculated over the fruit to the drink, it is 13,46 kg fruit per litre of beverage of 40 %ABV.

Which, I see now by surprise, is close to the value for plums!

[Mikey-moo]

The SHY number is not constant or objective, since many many variables including subjective ones like cuts are factors.

I don't mean to sound as negative as this will come across - promise - but am I getting the wrong end of the stick here?

You want to come up with a number for a particular recipe, run in a particular way, that other people could use for comparison or planning, yet the number is admittedly subjective and not constant?

Help my small brain understand please

[cuginosgrizzo]

You want to come up with a number for a particular recipe, run in a particular way, that other people could use for comparison or planning, yet the number is admittedly subjective and not constant?

Well statistics are usually done on figures that are subjective and not constant by definition. Once you have a large enough number of occurrencies you start to get a trend, regardless of what the variance is. Of course to have a statistic sample that is valid I believe that we need more members than those we have...

[Badmotivator]

You want to come up with a number for a particular recipe, run in a particular way, that other people could use for comparison or planning, yet the number is admittedly subjective and not constant?

Help my small brain understand please

Yep. When I give someone a SHY number all it does is gives them a ballpark figure for input->output. They should expect to get a different number, but probably not wildly different.

When I have my own SHY numbers for different protocols on the same recipe, I can use it as one tool to compare those protocols.

[Mikey-moo]

You want to come up with a number for a particular recipe, run in a particular way, that other people could use for comparison or planning, yet the number is admittedly subjective and not constant?

Help my small brain understand please

Yep. When I give someone a SHY number all it does is gives them a ballpark figure for input->output. They should expect to get a different number, but probably not wildly different.

When I have my own SHY numbers for different protocols on the same recipe, I can use it as one tool to compare those protocols.

Well ok then... good luck with that

[jb-texshine]

Badmo: Incomplete data,just loaded the fermenter. Will update when done.

Modified ujssm:
20#cracked corn
20# rolled oats
35 gallons water
5 gallons rum backset(unaged dunder)
60# sugar
temp set at 79•f.

Not sure yet how I'll run it. Slow single would probably be more useful for beginners,three strips and a spirit maybe...

O.g. 1.070
S.g@24hrs:1.040
F.g.

Hearts @ ___ %abv

Will fill in the blanks as it happens.
Jbt

[Badmotivator]

Will fill in the blanks as it happens.
Jbt

Sweet. We'll call this a good first data point for #/gal on a sugarhead. It might help to have a very basic description of your distillation method too. Thanks.

[jb-texshine]

Modified ujssm:
20#cracked corn
20# rolled oats
35 gallons water
5 gallons rum backset(unaged dunder)
60# sugar
temp set at 79•f.

Pot still, slow single runs , heads and tails will be saved and recycled on last run.

O.g. 1.070
F.g. 1.008
due to unfermentables in the backset. The rum stopped higher .

Alc content of wash: 8.12%

Running tally:

12 gallons ran
8.75 pints hearts @ 40% abv
cut tight for newyears eve drink date

Jbt

Updated,still incomplete,will update.
Merry Christmas
Jb

[jb-texshine]

Modified ujssm:
20#cracked corn
20# rolled oats
35 gallons water
5 gallons rum backset(unaged dunder)
60# sugar
temp set at 79•f.

Pot still, slow single runs , heads and tails will be saved and recycled on last run.

O.g. 1.070
F.g. 1.008
due to unfermentables in the backset. The rum stopped higher .

Alc content of wash: 8.12%

Running tally:

24 gallons ran
16.21 pints hearts @ 40% abv
cut tight for newyears eve drink date

Jbt

Updated,still incomplete,will update.
Happy new year
Jb

[Badmotivator]

My simple (no dunder) panela rum: 20 lbs panela, 10 gals water, bakers yeast. Distilled once with four plates. Hearts were 91% ABV, 0.77 gallons.

SHY= 11.4

This is very close to Oldvine Zin's panela SHY of 10. Nice.

[jb-texshine]

Modified ujssm:
20#cracked corn
20# rolled oats
5 gallons rum backset(unaged dunder)
60# sugar
Water added till total volume =40 gallons
temp set at 79•f.

Pot still, slow single runs , heads and tails will be saved and recycled on last run.

O.g. 1.070
F.g. 1.008
due to unfermentables in the backset. The rum stopped higher .

Alc content of wash: 8.12%

Complete data:

30 gallons ran + heads and tails recycled
25.86 pints hearts @ 40% abv


Jbt

Jb

Complete data.

[Badmotivator]

Modified ujssm:
20#cracked corn
20# rolled oats
5 gallons rum backset(unaged dunder)
60# sugar
...

25.86 pints

So it looks like 1X distilling with feints recycling gave you a SHY of about 18.6