. I caught the burn early but did see a small amount of smoke exit the still before turning off the hot plate, removing the beer/mash fluid, cleaning the bottom of the boiler and removing all of the burnt sediment. I went ahead and did the run but the flavor tastes off, it doesn't have the standard flavor and smell coming off of the still I typically get and there was just the very slightest hint of smoke smell and smoke taste (very subtle, but I believe real) during the entire stripping run. My question is should I try to recycle this backset that has been damaged back into the ferment bucket, as Smiley describes, with the hope that another ferment cycle will give me a better product with the second and third strip run (and finishing run, quite a lot of potential for dilution of the burnt portion), or should I trash this backset and just add water and maybe citric acid to the grains and essentially restart the process? I think keeping the backset should give me better yield because I can recoup the unfermented sugars and residual alcohol in the backset, but I would hate for the flavor that I have during the first strip run to be the final flavor of the whiskey.
Thanks in advance
