Mirabelle Plum Brandy Cut Advice

[JeeterBee]

Hello All,

I have read several good posts on this site about making brandy cuts. I have a post on here about a plum brandy that I am currently finishing up. I just did a 14 gallon spirit run of 40% low wines. I have a 2" pot still with a 40 inch tall column. I removed all the packing for this run but I did run it real slow from start to finish. My still boiler is heated with a internal heating element. Once the still got up to temp I turned it down and collected at about a pint every 6 minutes. I didn't adjust the power at all until I shut it down.

I am going to put some coffee filters on all my jars and air them for the next 24 - 48 hours. I will then sniff and taste them accordingly. Free ripe organic plums are kind of hard to come by for me. This has been a fun project but it took some work. I don't want to mess the cut part up. I don't want to be too conservative or too liberal. I am looking for some theoretical advice on where you guys think the heads end and where the tails start. Additionally what you guys would probably keep and what you would probably ditch from the start.

My yield was way more than I expected. I'm okay with that. My still tends to run a little higher ABV wise compared to what I have read about for the average pot stills in here. I suspect I have some reflux going on or maybe that's just how it runs. I haven't ran very many brandys but I do know they have quite a bit more methanol than sugar and grain washes. I am not doing cuts by temp or ABV. However I do take a ton of notes and I wrote down the ABV for each jar as it finished filling. I wrote down the temperature of the upper vapor path, lower vapor path, and my boiler at about every 10 jars. I also noted the outside temperature and the direction of the wind (just kidding about the wind). I take a lot of notes so I can learn from my success/failures.

So here are jars and again please comment where you think heads ends and tails start. What I should taste, combine, and toss. I will give an update after I taste and blend and then again after things have aged a bit. I plan on oaking some, keeping some white, and fortifying some of the wine I have from these same plums. I am hoping for a white port style dessert drink to try. Thanks in advance.

Spirit Run Cuts

Jar #1 500 ml foreshots 85% ABV tossed
Jar #2 1000 ml heads 84% ABV
Jar #3 1000 ml heads 84% ABV
Jar #4 1000 ml heads 84% ABV
Jar #5 1000 ml heads 83% ABV
Jar #6 500 ml hearts 80% ABV
Jar #7 500 ml hearts 80% ABV
Jar #8 500 ml hearts 79% ABV
Jar #9 500 ml hearts 79% ABV
Jar #10 500 ml hearts 79% ABV
Jar #11 500 ml hearts 79% ABV
Jar #12 500 ml hearts 79% ABV
Jar #13 500 ml hearts 79% ABV
Jar #14 500 ml hearts 78% ABV
Jar #15 500 ml hearts 78% ABV
Jar #16 500 ml hearts 78% ABV
Jar #17 500 ml hearts 78% ABV
Jar #18 500 ml hearts 78% ABV
Jar #19 500 ml hearts 78% ABV
Jar #20 500 ml hearts 77% ABV
Jar #21 500 ml hearts 77% ABV
Jar #22 500 ml hearts 76% ABV
Jar #23 500 ml hearts 76% ABV
Jar #24 500 ml hearts 76% ABV
Jar #25 500 ml hearts 76% ABV
Jar #26 1000 ml hearts 75% ABV
Jar #27 1000 ml hearts 75% ABV
Jar #28 1000 ml hearts 75% ABV
Jar #29 1000 ml hearts 74% ABV
Jar #30 500 ml hearts 74% ABV
Jar #31 500 ml hearts 73% ABV
Jar #32 500 ml hearts 72% ABV
Jar #33 500 ml hearts 72% ABV
Jar #34 500 ml hearts 71% ABV
Jar #35 500 ml hearts 71% ABV
Jar #36 500 ml hearts 70% ABV
Jar #37 500 ml hearts 70% ABV
Jar #38 500 ml hearts 70% ABV
Jar #39 500 ml hearts 70% ABV
Jar #40 500 ml hearts 68% ABV
Jar #41 500 ml hearts 68% ABV
Jar #42 500 ml hearts 66% ABV
Jar #43 500 ml hearts 65% ABV
Jar #44 500 ml hearts 65% ABV
Jar #45 500 ml hearts 63% ABV
Jar #46 500 ml hearts 61% ABV
Jar #47 500 ml hearts 60% ABV
Jar #48 500 ml hearts 60% ABV
Jar #49 500 ml hearts 59% ABV
Jar #50 500 ml hearts 58% ABV
Jar #51 500 ml hearts 55% ABV
Jar #52 500 ml hearts 55% ABV
Jar #53 500 ml hearts 53% ABV
Jar #54 500 ml hearts 50% ABV
Jar #55 500 ml hearts 48% ABV
Jar #56 500 ml tails 45% ABV
Jar #57 500 ml tails 40% ABV
Jar #58 4000 ml (1 gallon) tails 30% ABV

Once I got to 40% ABV I ran out of 500 ml jars and things got a little murky so I just combined what I had and finished the run into a gallon jug. I have the first 4 quart jars from the beginning of the run that I will combine will the tails and put these all in to my feints jar.

Jeet

[still_stirrin]

You want us to tell you where to make the cuts?

I can neither taste nor smell your jars. You didn’t give us any perceptions of those senses with which to pass judgement. Sorry, temperature and %ABV are not the appropriate metrics to make cuts....taste and smell are.

Now, if you go back to your list and describe what each jar smells like (and be descriptive) and tastes like, maybe then you’ll get some help. But then again, by then you’ll know very well where to make the cuts. Boom!
ss

[JeeterBee]

Thanks still_stirrin I knew as I hit the submit button that someone would be on to roast me. I don't expect you to make cuts for me. I was more looking for some theoretical advice. Like with plum brandy you probably want to: "stir clear of the first 10 jars because they have the most methanol" or "first 10 jars is where the magic happens, but only use a little bit of the ones that smell like bubble gum".

If this were a big spirit run of UJSSM and I was on the 4th generation. I would take all the jars #30 to #44 and combine them as my base. Then I would taste down to the tails to probably jar #52 and keep the flavorful jars. Then I would taste my way up to jar #10 until I get this certain bite on my tongue.

UJSSM is pretty easy once you do several batches and I feel like it is pretty forgiving. Plus all the heads and tails go into the next batch or the feints jar. I could be doing it wrong and missing out on a lot of flavor.

Well the airing has begun. I smelled all the jars from foreshots to the last tails jar and they all smell lovely. The smell is sweet and floral. Nothing was offensive or gnarly. Hopefully this next 48 hours makes the jars more distinctive. We will see. My major concern is excess methanol. I tried the flame technique but I could see yellow all the way down to 50% ABV. It was far less than the first head jar but it was there.

[Shinerfortyniner]

Unfortunately, addressing methanol concentration in the distillation phase isn't easy for the home distiller. It appears that methanol comes over during all phases of the distillation - fores, heads, hearts, and tails.

The time to address this is during fermentation. what you ferment and how you ferment it have a big impact on the concentration of methanol post fermentation and post distillation. I was reading "Artisan Distilling A Guide for Small Distilleries" today. It says that adding pectin reducing enzymes will increase the amount of methanol produced. Plums especially can produce a fair amount of methanol by themselves even without pectic enzymes.

I'm struggling with this topic myself. I recently ran 4 gallons of a grappa and I have another 12 gallons in the queue. Pomice fermentation can produce almost as much methanol as plums. Mine was mostly a sugar ferment as the pressed grapes were very dry. But some of it will be sitting for three weeks possibly with some secondary fermentation going on. Just how much methanol will be in there?

Having drunk grappa before, I'm betting that even if the level of methanol exceeds the govt allowances, it won't hurt me. I'd really like to get access to a mass spectrometer and find out the real values. Using values from the small distillers guide, a pomice ferment can produce 1000mg of methanol per 100 ml of ethanol. That is about 1.3 ml of methanol per 100ml of ethanol. Well below the 10ml CDC lists as causing problems. Unless you drink 20 shots worth.

While I haven't made plum brandy before, I have tried someone's plum shine. It was delicious. I hope yours turns out well.

[NZChris]

This is roughly how I choose my cut for many products:

Use Kiwistiller's novice guide to cuts to find the jars that are the obvious heart cut and have no faults.

Make up a sample of a prospective blend using the obvious heart cut jars, then alternately add to the sample from jars from each end until you get to the jars where you know you have gone too far. I use a 5ml dipper made out of a bent spoon, take my time, dilute to below 40% for tasting, use a spittoon and rinse with fresh water between tastings.

[NZChris]

...and I don't let Angels party up large on my flavors and obvious hearts for two days before I choose my blends.

[Saltbush Bill]

One pint every 6 minitutes seems rather a fast take off speed to me. Reckon you might have found the cuts easier to make if you ran slower.

[pope]

Chris I get not airing the obvious keeps but I had a rum run recently with tails that smelled awful and tasted very funky. A few days later and they had come around (granted there was no control to prove airing had anything to do with the change in flavor and aroma). Do you air or rest anything that sits just outside of your cuts?

[NZChris]

Chris I get not airing the obvious keeps but I had a rum run recently with tails that smelled awful and tasted very funky. A few days later and they had come around (granted there was no control to prove airing had anything to do with the change in flavor and aroma). Do you air or rest anything that sits just outside of your cuts?

Only overnight unless I get interrupted. Occasionally, not even that. I suspect some of the change noticed during airing will happen in the aging vessel anyway. Extended airing, especially in conditions that allow a lot of evaporation, gets rid of more than just the nasties. I put obvious hearts into a demijohn during the run because there is no need to air them, or keep them separate, and it saves on bench space and jars used.

[pope]

My hearts go the same way during a run, a full keg charge is just too many damn jars even with 800ml portions! I might take the advice and stop airing those, and try to do the bench work more expediently. I need to practice cuts on the fly more diligently (even if only on paper), or I'm never going to get it. I made some day-of 'by the nose' cut notes but cloudy tails tell me I was way off.

[MoonBreath]

Wow, I'm glad (sorta) that I don't collect like that anymore..Although I believe the jar abv that matches the overall (minus fores) abv average, will be the personal keeper..Add all jars collected, divide..And enjoy.
Keepn the center jar never hurt the final product et all.
I'd save everything not oily pretty much.
For full carryover with brandies, I've found keepn the most on both ends is mo better.

[thecroweater]

On addressing the questions of methanol : Believe me when I say you are not going to cut this by taste as it has a similar taste to ethanol. Methanol or some trace amounts may smear through the run but by far the greatest amount will come over in the heads fraction. Can you produce a dangerous amount? Well maybe but only if you could fraction it off separately and that is virtually impossible so the real answer is actually no. I'm personally a bit sketchy on using pectinase enzymes on produce solely for distillation but that is probably more of a personal phobia than a significant increase in risk. I just figure if you can work without it then why take risks however low they might be but knowing the benefits I can see why some folks do. Lots of people will point out the boiling points of ethanol are to close for most stills to adequately separate them but this is only actually true for the boil points of those compounds not those compounds in the solutions they will be mixed with meaning for all practical purposes or for the most part they don't actually boil off so close together as azeotropic ethanol has a raised boiling point and methanol in various solutions has a much lower boiling point. This is why most of the methanol (should any be present) will be in the heads.
A lot gets made of the danger of methanol production in home made wine and spirits but the reality is you would have to do something really really weird for this to be any more then a negligible risk, I can not think of a single report of methanol poisoning where methanol wasn't added to the final product in a significant quantity. Methanol itself is not dangerous but it is the way the human body catalyses it into formaldehyde which in turn has a bunch of other knock on effects that are extremely toxic but with a significant amount of ethanol present the liver will not be able to catalyse methanol until it has processed all the ethanol and by then it will have passed through the system. You could say ethanol is the cure for methanol poisoning and it is actually the most common treatment for methanol poisoning victims.
The bottom line is yes fruit will possibly produce an elevated amount of methanol or at lest the risk is there and pectin may increase that risk but the amount of methanol is really not a risk in a normal ferment run a normal way.

[JeeterBee]

Those are the kind of comments and advice I was looking for. It is 24 hours later and I grabbed jars 36 & 37 and have them a good sniff. They smelled very light compared to yesterday. I chose those two jars because they were both 70% ABV and I wanted to add them to a partial gallon of the same plum wine.

I have been trying Port wines lately and I like them. They are sweet and strong. I did some quick math to try my own fortified wine. I added 24 ounces of thawed 100% concentrate juice to 14% wine. The wine had fermented down to .990 on the hydrometer. The concentrate brought the sugar up to around 1.025. I think that brought the ABV down to about 12%. I then added 3 pints of 70% ABV. I was hoping to end up with about 20%. Things didn't quite go well and my math was off. Luckily it was a small test batch and it actually ended up pretty tasty.

After that little fiasco. I smelled jars 20 & 21 and they were a little strong and headsy. I will have to smell more tomorrow. I think I will probably do some experiments with the cutting. I will take a portion of what I think are the middle hearts I will keep a nice amount of them separate. Then I will blend some middle hearts and some stuff closer to the tails. Then I will taste the rest and blend the good stuff. I will take any of the remaining super head smelling jars and the oily tails smelling jar and add them to my feints jar.

That is probably the best way for me to see what mixes age out the best. I might find the middle jars boring or awesome. I might like the blends better or worse.

Croweater that is interesting about the methanol. I kind of thought that but I don't want to risk my health or my friends who sample my stuff regularly. My dad is all about drinking out of my feints jar. He is half crazy so he thinks that is the good stuff. I had to hide those jars out of sight. I do give him some of the higher heart jars to have. They have been mostly grain and sugar washes.

I will post what each jar or group of jars smells like tomorrow. Thanks for the help folks.

Jeet

[JeeterBee]

Well the cutting didn't quite go as planned. I started towards the tail end at jar #54. Jars 55, 56, and 57 had the oily film on top. Jar 54 tasted good. Then I work my way up the line until I got to the mid point of the jars. I have two big 2.5 gallon glass jars. I poured all of the last half of the run into one of the jars. I tasted the blend and it was pretty good. I then tasted my way up the rest of the jars. I started tasting what I would consider heads at about jar 22. I kept going and decided that I would just blend the first half in my other 2.5 gallon jar. I tasted the final blend in that jar and it is just too headsy for me. So I have 2.5 gallons of good stuff and 2.5 gallons of stuff to add to my feints run.

Now I'm considering taking everything that I have a combining it diluting it down to 40 and running it again. Really slow this time. I know that will rob a lot of flavor but it gives me a second chance at cutting it again.

Now I know that the first two gallons are pretty much heads. The next 3 gallons are pretty much hearts. Everything else is pretty much tails.

Or I might just go full CCVM and make a plum vodka. I will think about that until this weekend.

Or I might keep the good jar and run the rest again with some some other feints.

Jeet

[NZChris]

Now I'm considering taking everything that I have a combining it diluting it down to 40 and running it again. Really slow this time. I know that will rob a lot of flavor but it gives me a second chance at cutting it again.

If you still have all of the heads and tails and backset to put back into the pot, a re-run might work well, but I doubt you have.

"Now I know that the first two gallons are pretty much heads. The next 3 gallons are pretty much hearts. Everything else is pretty much tails.

I doubt that. I suspect that only a few jars at the start were heads. If you had started in the middle and worked your way out, making sample blends along the way, I suspect much of your 'heads' and 'tails' would have been included in your final choice of blend. After my first attempt at peach, I combined the heads and tails to put into the feints collection, had a taste, and the feints tasted more of peach than my carefully selected heart cut. I've come to the conclusion that stone fruit flavors are mostly in the heads and tails and that those early and late flavors have to be recombined in the final blend to capture the essence of the fruit.

[JeeterBee]

So it has been a couple weeks since my cut and blend situation.

I have a 2.5 gallon jar that has everything combined from the middle jar down to the jar where things got cloudy and had a oil film on the surface. We will call that the lower half.

The lower half is very mellow and nice tasting. It taste more like a vodka than a brandy. It is still white and it is 69% ABV. I diluted it down to 35% to taste.

I also have a 2.5 gallon jar of the first half of the run. It tastes like heads to me.

I am thinking about re-running it all again. I might pull out a half gallon of the good stuff to save and compare.

I have 1 full gallon of heads at 85% and 1 full gallon of tails at 30%. I have the 2.5 gallons of the first half at 78% and 2 gallons of the second half at 68%. I also have 5 gallons of the original plum wine.

I want to combine all that together with the wine and dilute it down 40% then run it one last time really slow like at about a pint every 9 minutes. This time I have more jars and I will make more precise cuts. I should end up with more of the keeper stock. I talked about this up above but it's been some time and I winter is about here. Plus I want to start a new project so I need some space and my big jars.

Will the wine add some flavor back that the second spirit run might take out? It seems like it should.

Thanks,

Jeet

[cayars]

Since you'll willing to rerun it may I suggest something you can try? May turn out to be a flop but you loose nothing but time in trying it.

Load the first part back in the boiler. Fire it up and run it very slow. Pull the first jar only and turn it off.

Let things cool back down and taste what is in the boiler. You may have removed enough heads this way that you will find it less headsy and ok.
If not then just fire it back up and continue running it as normal for another full distillation.

[JeeterBee]

I will give that a try. It would save me a ton of time.

[JeeterBee]

Here is an update on my plum brandy project.

I had a few days off last weekend. The weather was cold but decent. I decided to combine all the heads, hearts, and tails from the last spirit run with 5 gallons of the same plum wine from this year.

I added water until I got a full 15 gallon charge. This diluted the ABV down to 38%.

I started the run around 12:00 pm (noon). It was a late start but I had the whole day ahead of me. I had removed the fores on both the stripping run and the previous spirit run. I collected the first 8 pints at a super slow pace. Like drips per second. I think it took about 2 hours to get the first gallon of heads.

I have an analog ammeter and analog voltmeter. I am not sure if they are correct but it showed 500 watts. For the second gallon I bumped up the watts a little and collected at a fast drip/broken stream. It took about 4 hours to get to 16 pints. I then started collecting a little faster. The rate was about 14 minutes a pint.

I didn't use my proofing parrot. I just collected jar after jar and monitored the temp. About every hour I checked a sample with my alcometer.

I believe my pot still has quite a bit of passive reflux going on especially during the cold months. My ABV got down to 82% and stayed there for about 24 jars before it started gradually dropping. At about pint jar 56 the temp started rising and the ABV started dropping quicker. By jar 61 I was into tails. The last 4 pints had an oily film on the top and they were cloudy. The run finished at about sun up the next day. It was a long ass day but it was fun and it was probably my last run of the year.

I aired all the jars for 40 hours. I feel pretty good about my cutting and blending this time. I was probably way too conservative but that's fine.

In the end out of a 15 gallon run. I ended up with 3 full gallons of heads. I had 4 gallons of hearts that I diluted down to 63% and put on oak. I had about a gallon of tails. I didn't go super low into the tails because it was too cold and I had been collected for way too long.

I did save heads and tails for the feints jar. I don't know if that is a good idea because the heads are super headsy and the tails are pretty tailsy. I thought about diluting the feints down to 30% ABV and trying to squeeze some more hearts out of them. We will see on that.

The hearts are currently on toasted white oak sticks. I will leave them on the sticks to get some quick color going. Then I will transfer it all into a 5 gallon oak barrel that has been used for a year with some UJSSM. I don't want a ton of oak so I think the use barrel should be fine. I plan on aging this batch for a year or two or longer if possible.

I learned a lot on this run. I do think I salvaged the brandy. I did sacrifice a lot of time and flavor. I will do much better with next year's plum harvest.

The 3 gallons of UJSSM that I pulled out of the barrel have improved a lot. It is all bottled up just in time for gifts.

Thanks,

Jeet

[JeeterBee]

Hello All,

Happy Holidays. I wanted to give another update. I will make this a short one.

I took all the heads and tails from the run above and diluted it down to 35%. I ended up with an 8 gallon feints run. I ran it pretty slow. The first gallon came off the still between 82 - 80% ABV. The smell was very headsy. As soon as the second gallon started the smell changed to what I thought was a couple pints into hearts. The temp started rising and the ABV started dropping a little with each pint.

I collected 28 pint jars and went all the way down to 20% ABV. The last jars didn't get cloudy and they didn't smell like tails at all. This was the 4th run and I believe that is what kept the tails clean.

This run went pretty quick and the weather was decent. I think I was able to pull another gallon to a gallon and half out of this run. I will air these jars for a day or two and see how they come out.

I am glad I didn't dump the feints. I thought about it to make space. I've had the hearts from the first/second spirit run in an 5 gallon oak barrel for a few weeks. Just long enough to get some color. I will probably drain it into a big container and blend in the best jars from this last run. I will refill the barrel and then bottle the rest for drinking while the barrel ages.

Thanks,

Jeet