Stripping Run?

[Cuzzin' Shiney']

So as far as i can tell when your stripping you collect all together running ita as hard and fast as your condenser can handle but i have a few questions do you just run until nothing else comes out or what?? I have been in the process of a corn ujssm i fermented my initial wash and stripped it and i collected about 2 gallons and the overall proof was a little under 100 and im pretty sure that i quit too soon cuz the second ferment the actual sourmash wash i collected 3 and one half gallons? Both of those of about 5 gallons of actual wash! Hope my questions make since. From what i gather i just collect until i have enough to fill my pot for a final spirit run.

[olddog]

How big was your original wash Did you discard the forshots

[Cuzzin' Shiney']

My initial wash was about 5 gallons and no i didnt dicard the foreshots because it was explained to me that when collecting stripping runs you dont have to because when you re run it in the end your final spirit run you discard tem then!

[Dnderhead]

the "take" from something like UJSSM can go up as more corn and nutrients are introduced (like cooked yeast)
when doing a stripping run take all you can "reasonably" that is to say take all you can until the proof or the output
is so low that it is not worth it any more. as for taking off forshots on stripping runs,some do some don't,
most don't. most wait until the spirit run, when the forshots/heads/harts are more defined.
it is not black and white, it is what gives you what you wont and are satisfied with. if it works for you do it,
if not chang.

[Usge]

Dunder giving you some good advice. But, reading your initial post....seems to me somethin'' is off. When I strip UJSM (5 Gal of 10% wash) I get back 1 Gal of 30%. And that's runnin it down to a nub. You say you got 2 gallons stopping at 50% off the same thing? That would be more alc in total than you started with in a typical UJSM wash.

Like dunder says, you run it till it ain't worth runnin it no more — and for most folks that's somewhere down to 10% or less on a strip run. It's mainly a "volume" reducer to concentrate the alc (and flavors) to prepare it for a 2nd, higher, distillation. If you just keep going, the vapor temp will eventually reach the boiling point of water (212F) and it will start rendering H20 back from the pot...dilluting your alc until you'd eventually end up with the abv you started with if you just keep going. So, you have to stop somewhere. And if you notice..once it approaches water boiling point (or zero percent alcohol) things really slow down a lot. Rather than waste the resources (heat/water, etc) to get that last few percent of alc...most people quit. On a standard 5 Gal UJSM wash (around 10%) you should end up with about a gallon of 30-35%.

All-in-all, it sounds like you are figuring it out (ie., you were stopping too early). The other problem with backmashing into your fermenter using pot leftovers that still contain higher concentrations of alc is...that it will eventually stress your yeast and/or kill them. Given the proof of your "strip run" and the amounts you collected, I'm wondering if you aren't somehow combining your low-wines with wash and running that again??