Foreshots... why do we seperate

[crtbc]

Just thinking and looking at ujssm recipe and it says for novices to collect from 80-70% maybe a little into the 60's if bold... and that is what is drinkable....

We are also told we need to get rid of the first 200mL / 5 gallons wash as fores.... sicne it contains methanol etc... well with that thinking why does anyone seperate fores anyways since from my knowlege it always comes of first and always above 80% there would be no danger of drinking fores since it goes

>82% = fores
82-80 = heads
80-70 or even some washes (maybe not ujssm)down to 55% = hearts
anything below that is tails

Im a very numbers oriented person and go by the hydrometer then I will taste test but seperating out just doesnt make since... just being "that extra careful" i guess???

Thanks

[Durace11]

Actually no, every wash and every still will produce the fractions at different levels of ABV depending on how you run it. You can also get different amounts of fores and heads and tails depending on what type of wash you ferment. Fruit gives more fores & heads and molasses gives more tails.

If it was a simple as only collecting at a specific percent ABV we would all just set it and forget it. You can be sure they come off in that order but going purely by ABV is not going to work everytime...it will work some times but certainly not everytime on every wash.

[Prairiepiss]

And some like to save the heads and tails and run them in an all feints run later when enough has been collected. Or they add them to the next run. So they should be separated. So it doesn't need to be worried about later.


And its just good practice to do it.

[Buccaneer Bob]

I don't recycle heads. I figure this is the stuff I am trying to get rid of, so why put it back into future distillations?

Theoretically a person with a top-notch reflux still could save up a big batch of heads, run it, and manage to carve-out a little bit of good stuff from the bad stuff.

But me, running a pot still, recycling heads is very much like drinking your own urine because you think there's still some usable H20 in it.

You might be able to recycle your own urine a time or two, but eventually you're drinking nothing but ammonia, urea, and so on.

That's why I just leave the foreshots and heads together and use it all for cleaning projects around the house and biofuel.

[kobold]

what about the 100% recycling (all foreshots, heads and tails) in the production of scotch? nothing is ever discarded, yet there is no methanol/acetone/whatever cumulative buildup in the low wines - they always make the same cuts on the spirit run, dumping the hearts right in the barrels. is it just compensation for the angels share and relying on evaporation, oak and time to remove the nasties? just how wide is the heart cut to get away with this?

[zaph1]

I think I understand where the OP is coming from. I never bother separating foreshots because I don't keep the heads, they go down the drain. Nor do I separate tails. Once it starts smelling like cardboard, which I'm getting better at, I stop running and the rest goes down the drain.

I'm thinking the OP is wondering why people recommend collecting foreshots even on a spirit run when they were already collected on the stripping run. The foreshots were removed on the stripping run so what foreshots are left to collect in the spirit run?

[myles]

You might be able to recycle your own urine a time or two, but eventually you're drinking nothing but ammonia, urea, and so on.

Without fresh water you can manage twice in extremis, a third time will make you pretty ill.

And kobold you are correct. Everything does get processed but they then wait for 10 or 12 years for the nasties to evapourate and make it drinkable. By making cuts you are essentially speeding up the ageing process..

As for the foreshots cut. Well it is perfectly viable to put your feints through a reflux column to scavenge out the ethanol, but why bother including the methanol when it is so easy to split it off?

As for the bit about the spirit run zaph1 it is fairly common to mix feints and wash together for a spirit run, in doing so the fresh wash reintroduces some more foreshots into the mix. Not many pot stillers will do a spirit run directly from the wash - the spirit run boiler charge is usually blended in some way - typically to 27% to 30% ABV.