My cuts this evening

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Smokee
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My cuts this evening

Post by Smokee »

I've read the Guide to Cuts many a time over, I'll read it when I'm out camping and looking for something to read. It's a great guide that's been hugely helpful for me making my own cuts. This evening I ran about 1.6 gallons of 75% (sweet feed), diluted down to about 40% in my 10 gallon pot with a thumper. I have 25-12 oz glasses that I use during the run and put 8 oz in each as I distill, each glass is numbered. Once I hit about 25-30% I'm usually ready to quit so I shut it down. This evening I collected 25-8oz glasses. I measure the alcohol of each 8 ounces as they come off, I ran at 75% until glass number 20 which started the drop off - I cut off early this evening shutting it off at about 40%. I always taste/smell each glass in an attempt to learn the subtleties, tonight was no different. The heads had the usual "bite", glass 1 being the fores which was tossed, 2 had a sharp bite, 3 a good bit less and 4 was on the fence. I started my hearts at glass 5 and kept all the way to glass 19 as my hearts, I kept the rest of the tails and the heads and tossed them into my feints container to be run later. All in all I ended up with a gallon that I'll oak and age.

Being a second run and with spring water in the thumper my tails didn't have much wet cardboard smell or taste as I usually get on a single/stripping run. Is the point that the alcohol level drops off where you normally cut off as tails? I've read where some use some of the tails for extra flavor, at this point I'm not looking to experiment with using tails for flavor. In the past I've went by smell/taste, when I detect the wet cardboard notes I cut. Tonight's tails were harder to detect.
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Mikey-moo
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Mikey-moo »

Sounds like you're doing ok to me. Completely depends on personal taste. Sometimes I collect the tails right down to 10% and add bits of them in for complexity. Other times I'll shut down at the start of tails and leave it at that.

It depends on the recipe - some produce more noticeable tails than others - and whether I plan to age and/ or oak the liquor as I find some elements of tails help to compliment the oak.

That doesn't help much I know... only you get to choose to add in the tails or not, the only advice I think I can give you would be to start tasting at jar 12 and work your way out rather than starting at jar 2 and working your way through. You might be doing this already but it's not clear from the above. And also, if you have room in the boiler, then diluting to 30% before you run it will mean you have to dilute the heart cut less before you put it on oak.

What do you normally charge your thumper with?
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Smokee
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Smokee »

Mikey-moo wrote:
What do you normally charge your thumper with?
Depends. On what I call a first run (I don't run hard and fast like a strip, I' run it the same as a spirit run) I'll load up feints which are usually pretty clean. This usually gives me a nice relatively clean gallon or so of 80-85%. I usually do two of these then rerun with just clean spring water in the thumper. I've found this to give me a really clean gallon and a half total then I'll cut that down to almost all hearts. Oak that about 2 months and end up with some really high quality whiskey. The spring water in the thumper does a nice job on the sweet feed. I just finished 6 gallons of rye mash that I'm looking forward to trying.

Thanks for the response, btw!
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by okie »

I think you have a handle on it smokee. Using a pot/thumper set up I found works great on whiskey. Unfortunately for me I don't have a thumper so I do multiple runs amd I found triple distilled is my favorite. I'll toss tails in too and it gives a good clean flavor.
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Mikey-moo
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Mikey-moo »

+1 on the "no thumper so triple distilled" = lovely :-)
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Down_Home52
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Down_Home52 »

Running my first spirit run of a collection of 2nd and 3rd gen SF. Diluted to 30% or so with fresh SF wash and spring water. About half and half. Had about 10 gallons in the boiler. I am on 11th quart still running 60% abv but very. very slow.....Just keep running? Increased temp from 176F to 183F as it slowed but product is still very nice. Is it normal for the spirit run to stay higher abv but slow down more than a stripping run? Kind of intuitive but just wondering.
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by still_stirrin »

Down_Home52 wrote:Running my first spirit run...Is it normal for the spirit run to stay higher abv but slow down more than a stripping run?
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Down_Home52
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Down_Home52 »

Thanks SS. I am used to stripping down to 25-30%. Think I might need to shut this down at 45-50% and add in fresh 3rd gen SF wash?? Still tasting good just really slooooowww.
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MichiganCornhusker
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Down_Home52 wrote:...just really slooooowww.
Then speed it up.
I collect spirit runs around 3 quarts/hr.
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Down_Home52 »

Warp Power Scottie!!! Take her down to 40%abv? Fresh charge ready to go in on top of hot backset for stripping run. That backset is going into 4th gen SF wash.

MCH I am a little slower heads came over at 6 am. I have 12 qts @ 11 am. Just a rookie. ran most of it at 176-180F. Sitting at 190F now and 54%abv. I sure appreciate the feedback.Al Gore sure was onto something when he invented this http://www....!!!" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow!
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MichiganCornhusker
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Down_Home52 wrote:ran most of it at 176-180F. Sitting at 190F now and 54%abv.
Sounds like you're running a pot still. No need to pay attention to temps. Most here apply enough heat to achieve a steady stream, especially once you get into hearts.
The temps you are collecting at make no difference when running a pot. Collecting slower won't hurt anything, it'll just take longer.
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Down_Home52
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by Down_Home52 »

Yes sir. 15 gallon boiler,3" unpacked column. Had about a 10 gallon charge to start. Appreciated.
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J0hnni3
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by J0hnni3 »

MichiganCornhusker wrote:
Down_Home52 wrote:ran most of it at 176-180F. Sitting at 190F now and 54%abv.
Sounds like you're running a pot still. No need to pay attention to temps. Most here apply enough heat to achieve a steady stream, especially once you get into hearts.
The temps you are collecting at make no difference when running a pot. Collecting slower won't hurt anything, it'll just take longer.

Doesn't one achieve slightly better separation at the slower rate? I feel like I've been able to tell the difference in my own stuff... But that's hardly conclusive proof.

Edit... Within reason of course... I'm not advocating that the slower the better... Just that keeping it to what I'll call an "average" rate, seems to me to give much better separations than when pushing the heat on a pot still.
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Re: My cuts this evening

Post by rad14701 »

J0hnni3 wrote:
MichiganCornhusker wrote:
Down_Home52 wrote:ran most of it at 176-180F. Sitting at 190F now and 54%abv.
Sounds like you're running a pot still. No need to pay attention to temps. Most here apply enough heat to achieve a steady stream, especially once you get into hearts.
The temps you are collecting at make no difference when running a pot. Collecting slower won't hurt anything, it'll just take longer.

Doesn't one achieve slightly better separation at the slower rate? I feel like I've been able to tell the difference in my own stuff... But that's hardly conclusive proof.

Edit... Within reason of course... I'm not advocating that the slower the better... Just that keeping it to what I'll call an "average" rate, seems to me to give much better separations than when pushing the heat on a pot still.
The rate of boil will change based on the constituents in the boiler... Try pushing too hard early on and you'll hear the aggressiveness... Later in the run, after most of the alcohol is extracted, that same power setting would not sound nearly as aggressive... The whole all things being relative . . . .
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