Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

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Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by *MoonShine* »

I read and its not soaking in.... Its like they wrote this for someone who already know how to distill. I dont understand anything about what they are saying about making cuts. Can anyone help?
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by maze48 »

*MoonShine* wrote:I read and its not soaking in.... Its like they wrote this for someone who already know how to distill. I dont understand anything about what they are saying about making cuts. Can anyone help?
I know how you feel. I must read somethings 3 or 4 times before they sink in.
The terms used can be confusing at first, because it depends on who is giving the info.
Foreshots and Heads are the same thing. This is when you take your first sampling of your product or "cut". This is NOT what you drink, it's got all kind of nasties in there. You start taking this first "cut" after your still has had time to stabalize at around 172 deg. F. and is steady at temp. Just do remember to calibrate your thermometer. To do that boil some water and check the temp, should be 212deg F. Keep checking the hooch with a alcohol hydrometer. The one that gives you the % of alcohol, and the scale will usually read from 0 to 100%. If you use this, after a while you can rely on your sense's. Now from that 1st sample let it run till you have collected about 1/2 pint, and use that to clean tools or throw that away. Now change jugs, this will be your 2nd "cut" and collect until the temp. starts to rise past about 180deg. F. That you have just collected is the good stuff. This is called the "heart" Once you see that temp rise to 180 change jugs. Now you are collecting the "Tails" or the "Feint" You keep collecting till maybe 190deg. F. Save this for your next run. The temps I have given you are what works for me. I know alot depends on your make-up of mash and the quality of your still. Don't give up, this hobby is very rewarding. :D
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Post by Shine Man »

I agree with Maze48. Don't give up. If this were easy it would not be fun. Like he said, cuts depend on your wash (the fermented stuff you poured in your still) and the type and efficiency of your still. I run a reflux still with no packing in it. After my tower stabilises at or above 172 degrees I collect 125 ml if I have five gallons of wash and pour it in the Coleman lantern or clean the counters in the kitchen with it. Don't drink it, that's your heads. Next I collect 8 oz at a time in a quart mason jar. Each 8 oz I test to find out the percentage then add spring water to it until it gets to 40% that's 80 proof. Taste it. Keep doing this until you begin to notice sort of a twang or an off taste to it, when you do, that's when your next cut is. The rest of the distillate coming out is tails, save it in a jar and pour it in the next batch of wash that you run through your still. Its a learning experience, trial and error. My tails does not start coming in until about 200 degrees. Your temperature will gradually increase on its own as each 8 oz you collect will be a little weaker than the last. Let it run slow out of the still, sort of a fast drip. Remember you are trying to separate the ethanol from all the other junk in the still. The faster you run it the more junk you carry over into your final product. Keep your chin up and be bull headed about and it will come to you








r
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Post by theholymackerel »

I'm talkin' 'bout a potstill here, and these are the terms I learned when younger. Many folks use different terms for the same thing, or stage of the run.

Charge a still with a fully fermented mash or wash. Start the heat to the still and bring it up to operatin' temp. Collect ALL distillate, makin' no cuts. Collect untill the abv% of the distillate drops to 10%. You should have about 1/3 the origional volume now.

You now have done a strippin' run. Huzzah!

Now you have an option: Do yer second run now, or ferment out and strip two more washes or mashes.

If ya do yer second run now ya get X amount of distillate from runnin' the still twice. If ya combine three stripped batches and run 'em the second time all together ya get 3X amount of distillate from runnin' the still four times. Huge savin's in overall time and energy by combinin' stripped runs, but we don't always have that luxury.

The Second Run: Here is where we do "cuts" and divide the run into foreshots, heads, body, and tails.

Charge and fire-up yer still. Adjust heat as to get a fast drip, or a tiny stream from yer condencer (I use a coil)[The stream should actually be tiny... size of a pencil lead or a bit smaller]. The first bit out of the coil should be run into a graduated cylinder, or measurin' cup (with ml graduations). Collect and discard 200 ml, or more, per 5 gallon wash or mash. This is foreshots. Foreshots are where most of the methanol, and bad nastys are.

So if ya combined three stripped 5 gallon rum washes into roughly 5 gallons again, and were discardin' foreshots, you'd wanna collect and discard AT LEAST 600ml. This is a pot still we're talkin' 'bout here.

Now yer collectin' heads. Heads often smell and taste sweetish. Heads are a mix of ethanol and the lighter alcohols. Collect and discard, or save yer heads. But this isn't yer drink... don't drink heads unless ya want a nasty splittin' headache and a sour stomach.

Next comes the body, and the body is what ya age/flavor/water down and bottle. The body is yer drink. Where ya make yer "cut" from head to body is based on the intended drink (whiskey, rum, brandy, etc) and upon the distillers sence of smell and taste. The distillers experience tells him or her where to make the cut.

Collect and save the body.

When the body is finished (up to the distillers experience) make the cut to tails. If this is all new to you and yer a new distiller... I suggest ya make the cut from body to tails when the output of the still drops to 50 or 45% abv.

Tails are usually (but not allways) low proof and watery... the still will start dischargin' the distillate slower and the nice tiny stream will change in appearance to a thicker stream that will eventually break apart into large watery drops. Tails from some stuff, like whiskey mashes, can be oily. Tails are most allways stinky, and become more nasty and stinky as ya get further into the tails.

Save or discard tails. I save 'em. It's probably silly of me, but I save tails 'till I have a full charge for my still, then I run it and mark it "tails XX". When I have a full charge for my still of tails XX I run it and collect till the overall collected amount of distillate is roughly 70% (140 proof) and I use it as fuel in a few alcohol stoves and I use it as a solvent.


A word about cuts: With experience yer nose and tongue will guide you. With enough experience no tastin' will be necessary... a good sniff will be all ya need usually. Also hydrometers are way better gauges of where ya are in a run than thermometers for a potstill.





I hope this was clear enough, and is able to help.




I wish ya luck.
*MoonShine*

Post by *MoonShine* »

You made it where I can clearly understand.


Thanks
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Post by hornedrhodent »

Where do 'feints' fit into the picture?
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Post by Miraculix »

Feints = tails
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Post by Big J »

Feints can also mean the heads and tails together, that is, that which will be saved and re-distilled at a later date.

-J
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Post by copperhead »

well said holy i use a reflux but taste and smell is still the better way to make your cuts temp helps. but you still can't beat senses. and just my 2 cents but i think you learn more from doing stripping runs.I'm still new to this hobby to but i don't think i really new the driffernce in cut untill i started doing strippings runs i was more or less guessing.
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Post by markx »

I totally agree......taste and smell are way superior to temp reading. I only rely on temperature to tell me when the column has reached equilibrium. The cuts are done purely by smell and taste and I can tell you that the off smells can creep in way before the temperature changes a 10th of a degree. My first reflux distillation setup had no thermometer and I successfully operated it purely with the aid of my senses. So basically temperature readings should be regarded as a crude marker to tell you when column has reached nice equlibrium, when to start or stop collecting etc. But the fine tuning and cuts should be done by taste and smell.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Kiwi-lembic »

great stuff
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Usge »

Obviously, making cuts for vodka is going to be a lot different than making cuts for brandy. So, it's important to understand the relationship that heads/tails have to the middle no matter which style you are after. Once you know heads/tails (at both ends) you'll easily see how that relates to the middle regardless of what kind of still you are running. That's the first step in learning to make cuts (to know where everything is and how it relates to each other). Do a spirit run and save everything in equal/separate containers. If you line them all up in a row...smelll down the line.... you first cross the heads which have an acetone and sometimes buttery smell with a chemical bite/taste (think finger nail polish). Keep going...you'll see that it starts to fade away...till it has little odor/taste at all. Then another odor/taste will start to fade "in". It's entirely different from the previous and easily recognizable once you've done it a few times. That's your tails. fores/heads fade "out" to the middle. Then tails fade "in" from the middle. Pot stills tend to smear all that linearly through the run. This is where all your flavors come from. The more reflux you add to it...it tends to "compress" the impurities and leave a larger "middle....albeit with less flavor. By compress I mean...the heads still come out..only very concentrated/nasty and end more abruptly. Same for tails. There are as many variables to that (shades of grey) as there are stills and ways to operate them.

Since a pot still tends to smear everything linearly...it makes it good for making flavored spirits where you can find a cut point anywhere along the line of just how much sweetness/heads you want...vs tails..etc. The faster you run it..the more it smears into the middle from both sides...(and even across!). You can even run your pot hard enough...to just smear one all the way "through" the other (ie., pulling tails early). Finding the "sweet spot" is a matter of finding the right "blend" of things...that give you the kind of flavors you want through your run. So, the art of cuts on a potstill is a bit different in this regard. It's not just finding "the middle". It's also about finding the right "blend" of things. So, what you are looking for..is a little harder to find and a lot more subjective than it would be coming from a hard refluxing still.

The reflux still side of things works differently. There are different methods/designs of how they reflux...but ultimately..in regards to cuts...it tends to extract E02 at higher purity (less flavor) and compress the cut points more leaving a larger, more distinct, somewhat more homogenous middle. It makes your cut more clear..but somewhat more decided for you. The more reflux you use...the more the cut points become black and white...as opposed to grey. And the more homogenous your middle becomes . In other words..it leaves a wider middle, that is somewhat more the same...as opposed to a linearly smeared middle that fades more of the flavors of both heads and tails through it. They can be run within a range as well...ie., detuned with no packing, output wide open..refluxing less than it would otherwise. Then, there are hybrids...which try to get the best of both worlds....which have their own trade-offs, etc. sometimes succeeding to various degrees, and sometimes reaching neither.

But, it's all ultimately a matter of personal taste. I would be remiss to not mention the other variables as well that go into this...ie., recipe/mash/wash, fermentation, yeast, etc.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Kiwi-lembic »

Uage thats an excellent easy to understand explanation ..well done Kiwi-L
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Usge »

btw...if you are more visually oriented....kiwistiller has some great graphs/charts he made in his excellent readme/stickie on doing cuts in the novice forum (at top...as a stickie).
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=11640

If for some reason you haven't read that yet...I'd suggest you'll find a lot more detailed information there.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by djamesnz »

This is all great stuff for a total newbie like me.

I just finished my second run, discarding the foreshots (100ml) and split my distillate into approx 500ml jars.
After leaving them for a day the differences are quite clear.
My first 2 are rather sweet smelling, 3-6 pretty neutral with 7 and 8 being a bit sharp on the nose. Jar 9 was like a kick in head! I remember reading a smell described as "wet cardboard", well that described it perfectly. I kept on running and got another 1.5L to go back in my next wash along with jar 9.

This is such a steep learning curve, but its great.

Thanks to all the "pros" for the great posts. I spend more time on this site at night than I do talking to my partner...much to her disgust.. I keep reminding her that the payoff is good, cheap grog. Seems to work :D
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Donny »

Quick question when u run a second time for ur spirit run do u have to water it down again or run it through straight
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by skow69 »

Always dilute to 40% or lower for safety. I think I get a better product by diluting to around 30%.
Distilling at 110f and 75 torr.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by still_stirrin »

Donny wrote:Quick question when u run a second time for ur spirit run do u have to water it down again or run it through straight
+1 to what Skow wrote.

The reason why you MUST dilute to 40% (or lower) is that the wash will have a very low flash point if the alcohol concentration is higher. It could literally flash up on you if it were to be exposed to oxygen (the 3rd leg of the fire triangle). There is already enough heat present from the boiler and plenty of fuel (alcohol). So, you must dilute to 40% or lower for your own safety. Get it?
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by der wo »

If you distill with 60% or so in the pot, the following distillation has less concentration effect than with around 30%. Because of that watering down result getting a cleaner product. If you want it clean dilute more, if you want it strong flavoured dilute less.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by still_stirrin »

der wo wrote:If you distill with 60% or so in the pot, the following distillation has less concentration effect than with around 30%. Because of that watering down result getting a cleaner product. If you want it clean dilute more, if you want it strong flavoured dilute less.
The reason is safety...with the side benefit of a cleaner product (less fermentation flavors). But the reason is SAFETY.

Don't disillusion yourself der wo...it's because of the flashpoint of the liquid for higher proof washes.

Keep it safe...dilute to 40% or less. It's the way to do it. I'm serious here.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by der wo »

You are right, I didn't point out that i do not recommend distilling over 40%.
I only wanted to discuss in more detail what skow69 mentioned, the difference in taste between diluting more or less. 60% is an extreme example only in theory. But in practice when you had a birdwatchers 12% wash and after stripping you have 48%, you can choose water down to 40 or to 30 and will achieve different results. I would water down to 30. A whiskey 35% after stripping I would not water down.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Smokee »

I'm really impressed that this thread didn't end up with a dozen links along with a "Go read this and figure it out" comment, I appreciate reading everyone's posts for sure!

As I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of distilling, my tails cut is something I'd like to do better at. I've also read through the cuts stickie a couple dozen times but I just feel it's still a bit sketchy for me - I'm sure I'm cutting too soon. I have 2 dozen 12oz mason jars that I've numbered. I collect my fores then 8 ounces per jar down to 25-30%. I do well with with my heads and hearts but I'm still not good on my tails. I smell the wet dog/cardboard smell when it starts to come in, I check the alcohol with an hydrometer for each 8 ounces as well. How far into the tails (wet dog smell) do you usually keep?

I have a 10 gallon pot still with a 4 gallon doubler and a 20' 1/2" coil. I've worked out a nice AG and have been able to get it to distill down to 1.000 from 1.055, I usually charge 5 gallons in the pot and a gallon total of my previous strip diluted to 35% in the doubler. It usually starts around 80% and drops about 4% per 8oz collected. I usually do 5 stripping runs of 5 gallons and end up with 2 1/2 gallons then do a slow spirit run.

I'd love some advice on where to cut my tails. I def can detect the smell of the tails but I'm unsure how much to keep. I've read where doing "deep" into the tails gives more flavor so maybe this is subjective depending on one's taste.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by casper the Irish »

You can't cut too soon. But don't throw the remaining hot backset away. It will keep fresh for months.
Don't collect tails and hearts together. Keep your hearts clean, recycle your feints.
Hearts and tails do smear or mix. Go for clean hearts. In AG there is good flavour in strong tails but they will be already mixing at the end of hearts. Fine scotch malts like glenmorangie stop collection at 65%abv. Heavier whiskies go to 55% but include more strong tails that give headache and the runs. Collect the hearts, throw your tails or backset into the next run. In this way the next hearts will pick up more flavours with all those added feints.

If you stop while hearts are clean, keep the rest as backset. Use that backset to wet your next grain mash (aiming for pH 5.2) this will suppress bacteria that will otherwise shoot your pH down to 3.6 during mash cooling. You can also use good backset in your thumper, or even do an all feints run to extract some extra hearts. These hearts will have lots of flavour.

If you run past hearts, what you are now doing is a stripping run, taking tails out of the backset. keep tails in separate small containers. New bottle at every change you can detect. By 30% there is usually just bitter fusels. Empty your pot down the drain, that's no-longer useable backset in there.

The trick is to collect clean hearts, but recycle your feints. All feints including foreshots, heads, strong and weak tails. That's backset plus feints from the stripping run.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by skow69 »

Smokee wrote:I have a 10 gallon pot still with a 4 gallon doubler and a 20' 1/2" coil. I've worked out a nice AG and have been able to get it to distill down to 1.000 from 1.055, I usually charge 5 gallons in the pot and a gallon total of my previous strip diluted to 35% in the doubler. It usually starts around 80% and drops about 4% per 8oz collected. I usually do 5 stripping runs of 5 gallons and end up with 2 1/2 gallons then do a slow spirit run.

I'd love some advice on where to cut my tails. I def can detect the smell of the tails but I'm unsure how much to keep. I've read where doing "deep" into the tails gives more flavor so maybe this is subjective depending on one's taste.
It is extremely subjective! And the advice to drink tails usually comes with instructions for ageing. Tailsy white dog can be pretty unpleasant. It needs some time to mellow.

What is the deal, Smokee? Your whiskey taste wimpy? There could be other reasons. Maybe you need to change your grainbill.

How many jars do you fill on a run? How many of each fraction? How do you age? And for how long?

Try this for a run or two. Switch jars as soon as you smell tails and then keep collecting like usual. Save the heads and all of those tails and bottle just the hearts only. Lots of people think that gives you plenty of flavor, and you are not losing anything because everything gets reprocessed. If that makes a weak whiskey, then next time keep your first jar of tails with the hearts, etc. Make tasting notes and save them because things change over time and memories suck.

You don.t have to bottle any tails, you know. The big boys do because they have to maximize profit. They will sell you all the heads and tails you are willing to gag down, but we can afford to make the good stuff. And I don't miss the hangovers either.
distill down to 1.000 from 1.055

What do you mean? Where are you taking those SGs?
I usually charge 5 gallons in the pot and a gallon total of my previous strip
A gallon of what? Are you making cuts on the stripping run?
Distilling at 110f and 75 torr.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by der wo »

Smokee wrote:... I'm sure I'm cutting too soon ... How far into the tails (wet dog smell) do you usually keep? ... I've read where doing "deep" into the tails gives more flavor ...
Perhaps I know this problem. I wanted to go deeper into the tails, because many members advice it and because my whiskey had tendencially a light aroma. For me going deeper into the tails was NOT the answer, the "more" aroma I got was a "more bad" aroma. The best answer for me was to do much longer stripping runs. It helped a lot. I wrote here about it: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=60043
Another smaller improvements were:
- not only charr the oak, but also add a light toast. I wrote it in T-Pees thread about oaking.
- to add a copper compound to the mash or low wines. This eliminated some "tailsy" flavors and I can go deeper into the tails now at the spirit run, because the bad aromas arise later. I wrote it in the "the answer was copper" thread.
casper the Irish wrote:The trick is to collect clean hearts, but recycle your feints. All feints including foreshots, heads, strong and weak tails. That's backset plus feints from the stripping run.
Yes. This is how the Scotch do it (except the backset). 6-8% mash, 20-25% low wines, hearts at 68-70% (this requires an early cut), collecting ALL the tails and add them with the fores/heads to the next run.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Blackbeard »

I've clearly been making errors here without realizing it; I may have ditched 150ml foreshots out of a 23 litre wash and kept the heads in with the hearts. My still spirits alembic pot still does not give me much head temperature control so for my small batches I've opted to use my still to do a stripping run keeping everything in (including foreshots) and then run it through a rotary evaporator I'm lucky enough to borrow.

My thinking is to try and force evaporation at very precise temperatures (I appreciate wash contaminants, unfermented sugars etc will affect exact evaporation temps) using this guide from the front page:
The alcohols in the wash begin to vapourise from the wash around specific temperatures. If by themselves they would be ...

Acetone 56.5C (134F)
Methanol (wood alcohol) 64C (147F)
Ethyl acetate 77.1C (171F)
Ethanol 78C (172F)
2-Propanol (rubbing alcohol) 82C (180F)
1-Propanol 97C (207F)
Water 100C (212F)
Butanol 116C (241F)
Amyl alcohol 137.8C (280F)
Furfural 161C (322F)
No matter how we blend the 8oz or 100ml samples recorded from a parrot we're really trying to capture everything at 78C/172F up to a maximum 81C/178F and nothing else, at least that's how I understand it. Without realizing it I've kept a fair bit of the heads and tails and had a sore head as a result. I'll try with a sugar wash first and see how precisely I can pull off quantities at these temps and report back. Actually I've just made a Bran Flake sugar wash/Whisky so I'll try a spirit run on that.
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by zapata »

That is absolutely wrong. You know just enough to over think it.
Dont worry, you are far from the first. Fact is, you absolutely can not control the temperature a wash boils at. Which means in a pot still / alembic, you absolutely can not control the head temperature.

Ok, check this table out. This is what will happen if you run 24 liters of 30% low wines in an alembic at 1200 watts.
Screenshot_20180605-002619_Chrome-806x328.jpg
Look at those temps. The boiler temps. The vapor temps. The abv.
All that WILL HAPPEN. Not may happen if you do it right. Not you can control it to happen. It just happens. It starts boiling at a temperature which is dictated mostly by abv (but really as a sum total of whatever compounds are present). And the boil temp steadily rises as the liquid components change in ratio.
Likewise the vapor temp starts at a temp determined by the wash, not you, and rises steadily. Nothing you can do to change that either.
Likewise, the product abv starts wherever it will, determined by the makeup of the wash (not you) and will steadily fall, regardless of what you do and what you want it to do.
You have no control, the temps will be what they will be. You can watch them. Record them. But you cant control them. Just get out of the way.

Now, regarding the chart of other compounds, more or less forget about it. Compounds do not boil off individually at those temperatures. You are boiling a MIXTURE and so the vapor will always be a mixture. There is a science to exactly when in a run various compounds will be more concentrated, but it is NOT based on boiling point of pure compounds at all. And in fact is so complicated as to be mostly irrelevant, though you can find several threads discussing it. And it is entirely irrelevant to fact you will get perfectly good results if you just stand aside, collect the fractions as they come over, and use your senses to judge what is good or not.

Some of the compounds in your chart will behave somewhat like you expect. Eg acetone will come over first. Some will not behave like you expect at all eg methanol will be present throughout most of the run (if it exists in your wash at all, and it probably doesn't in a sugar wash). You know too much and too little. Too much because you are thinking about the individual components and their boiling points at all. Too little because you dont really grasp how a mixture boils, or understand the complexities of how the mixture components interact with each other to increase or decrease each other's volatility, and how due to changing concentrations throughout a run even those effects are multi-variable problems. You COULD dive in deep and learn much of that, but it is far from necessary as very few distillers do at all, and probably none anywhere really have it all down.

Note this is relevant to your alembic and similar rotovap. Of course an efficient reflux still allows much better rectification, but even then there multiple azeotropes to contend with, and again it doesn't really matter if you take product in small fractions and analyze with your senses. Eg; you could learn that even with the best reflux column on the planet that ethanol and ethyl acetate form an azeotrope that cant be separated. But it is irrelevant if you simply eliminate the smelly fractions.
Last edited by zapata on Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by Saltbush Bill »

Blackbeard wrote:I've clearly been making errors here without realizing it;
You can not control the temperature of the boiler or wash , you can only control the power put into it , or in other words how hard it boils, which in turn dictates how fast the spirit leaves the still. Go slow n steady till you learn what you are doing. Too slow will be much better than too fast.
zapata wrote: And it is entirely irrelevant to fact you will get perfectly good results if you just stand aside, collect the fractions as they come over, and use your senses to judge what is good or not.
+1 :thumbup:
Call the KISS principle.
zapata
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by zapata »

Also worth noting that a rotovap does not allow any better purification than a simple home still. The roto function simply allows faster distillation and less bumping than would usually happen in a lab setup.

They are totally cool, but unless you need to quickly separate the solvent from your chemistry project they offer no benefit for beverage alcohol.
SherrodBrown
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Re: Cut Points? Foreshots? Heads and Tails? Feints?

Post by SherrodBrown »

According to some ( it is not important but still interesting ) Heads and foreshots are the same. But I personally like the defintion when the first jar or 5 percent or so is defined as foreshots.
The middlecut is sometimes the same as heart
The Faints are Tails. Plus a whole bunch of other cool names. Early Heart, Late Hart.

One of my Favouite is the Part between The Late Hearts and early Tails so called Se'cond

I wonder how other felllw distillers would define or put their percentile ( 0 being the first part of the run and 100 when the last drip comes out ) in comparison with the diffenrent aroma definitions. Here's my list
Out of 20 equal sized jars ;

0-5 Foreshots ( jar 1 )
5-40 Heads ( jar 2-8 )
Despite being targeted as the cause for Headache this is good stuff to redistill under the precondition that foreshots are removed from the rest of the Heads before redistilling.
30-40 Early Hearts (jar 6-8)
40-60 Hearts. ( jar 8-12 )
60-70 Late Hearts (jar 12-14 )
60-90 ( jar 12-18 ) Se'cond Just a short explenation. This section or cut would naturally "harvest"most aromatics since Heads tend to move over to the tail side before they arrive in the jars. A se'cond is prime material for redistillation.
70-100 Tails ( jar 16-20 ) Also tasteful..If redistilling tales discard some of the tails in that second run this where all the methanol hides.

After all some distillers try to use percentile and a fine nose before using temp to get those special cuts. To me temp control and pot ale ABV is good to keep an eye on the pace of the effect input. A healthy incriment of the effect will cause a better separation of methanol. Letting the methanol flow with the water content and remove them by the tails. The cuts themselves can be determined using a stripping run every time and not only for calibration purposes. Then you taste each jar and use volume percenrile ( e.g jars ) :clap: as a guide.
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