recycling heads and tails (feints)

[sampvt]

My question is simple, how often can I recycle my saved heads and tails, which I believe are called feints, if my grip on this is right. Let me explain.

I do a spirit run, (SPIRIT RUN NUMBER 1) I then save the hearts and keep the feints for my next spirit run. Once I've got enough low wines to do another spirit run, I can now add my feints and do a spirit run (SPIRIT RUN NUMBER 2). This run will include the feints from my first spirit run and after saving the hearts from my second spirit run, I then save my feints from this run.

Now I am ready to embark upon yet another spirit run (SPIRIT RUN NUMBER 3) I will be adding the feints from spirit run number 2 to the spirit run number 3.

My problem now is that once I add the feins from spirit run number 3, these feins will surely have traces of spirit runs 1, 2 and 3 and as I go along my merry way stripping doing spirit run after spirit run, the history of the feins can be back dated to my original first run back a ways and if I carry on distilling, my distillates will have a gene profile dating back to when I started and as I go forward. Is there a point of cut off where I discard all the feints and start afresh, or are feints regarded as Infinitum usages?

[SassyFrass]

My question is simple, how often can I recycle my saved heads and tails, which I believe are called feins, if my grip on this is right. Let me explain.

I do a spirit run, (SPIRIT RUN NUMBER 1) I then save the hearts and keep the feins for my next spirit run. Once I've got enough low wines to do another spirit run, I can now add my feins and do a spirit run (SPIRIT RUN NUMBER 2). This run will include the feins from my first spirit run and after saving the hearts from my second spirit run, I then save my feins from this run.

Now I am ready to embark upon yet another spirit run (SPIRIT RUN NUMBER 3) I will be adding the feins from spirit run number 2 to the spirit run number 3.

My problem now is that once I add the feins from spirit run number 3, these feins will surely have traces of spirit runs 1, 2 and 3 and as I go along my merry way stripping doing spirit run after spirit run, the history of the feins can be back dated to my original first run back a ways and if I carry on distilling, my distillates will have a gene profile dating back to when I started and as I go forward. Is there a point of cut off where I discard all the feins and start afresh, or are feins regarded as infinitum usages.

To answer your question: as often or as long as you wish. There is no rule about this, that I know about.
Sometimes I save up feints and do an all feints run. Sometimes I throw feints into the next mash or wash.
That's the beauty of this hobby. It's up to you.
Have fun and stay safe.
SF

[Saltbush Bill]

To answer your question: as often or as long as you wish. There is no rule about this,

Here is a man with an open mind...hes given you the correct answer in my opinion.
Ive been recycling heads n tails back for ...for ever.....never seen a problem with doing that .
Not saying its the ideal thing to do if your aiming for the perfect Neutral.

[jog666]

Ive done all feints runs and have been pleased with a tight cut to drink white. I have also added feints back during strips and spirits. I dont really remember how they worked out but I didnt have a bad run doing it. I have several gallons put up now that I plan to add back to the barrel of gumball that I need to rack off. Not sure how Im going to add them back but I will.

As long as you like it, drink it. If you dont, rerun it or flavor it.

[jonnys_spirit]

If you;re goal is a neutral via reflux it might be worthwhile to run your spirit runs with low wines only and save feints for an all feints run then discard those feints or use as lighter fluid /etc. All you probably want is the hearts for your neutral cut. Feints in a reflux setup are typically more concentrated.

If you're pot stilling a flavored spirit like whiskey bourbon or rum another approach might be to recycle feints into subsequent spirit runs.

You have 100% control over this and it's part of the protocol you develop as you experiment and learn with different recipes and protocols. For instance you might fraction out your spirit run and perhaps blend two to four or more cuts - You might blend up a spirit run with low wines and fresh wash as a 1.5 run and/or recycle some feints or not.

Flavored spirits example
1. Feints to discard or use as lighter fuel.
2. Feints to recycle into next spirit run.
3. Clean white hearts of hearts for drinking soonest.
4. Barrel cut for aging longer term on oak

Neutral example
1. Feints to save for all-feints spirit run.
2. Feints to discard or use as cleaner.
3. Clean hearts.

Other example
1. Feints
2. Hearts

You can get as fiddly or as loose as you like and still make very good product. One suggestion is to research commercial product you enjoy and discover how they do it and how much you want to mess with it all.

Cheers!
-jonny

[8Ball]

Here’s what I’ve collected from my readings on how to incorporate low wines & feints into spirit runs using a pot still:

Assuming you can brew: 100% pale 2-row barley malt, you can buy light, medium, or heavy peated malts from English maltsters, with different phenol contents. You can of course buy the heavy then mix with standard pale malt to taste. 100% heavy for a highly peated number, maybe a little shy of the peaty Islay's.
Mash low, for maximum fermentability. Some sparge, some don't. If you're doing a few mashes in quite quick succession, you can sparge and then use the 2nd runnings as strike water for the next mash.
You can boil or not boil. traditionally you wouldn't, but then you can't reuse the yeast. If you don't boil you'll have a dirty ferment, and you'll need to run quickly after fermentation. 
Use an attenuative yeast, a whisky yeast if possible, something based on the M1 strain? Safspirit Malt would be good.
Run swiftly after the wash has attenuated, so the yeast don't have time to clean up. Strip until the collected volume of low wines is at 27%.
When you have enough low wines, make your spirit run. Scotch traditionally takes a lot of what we consider heads as hearts - They take a foreshot but not much more. They make a normalish tails cut. Keep the feints for the next batch, but make sure the mix going into the still is always around 27% - then you'll get the right ABV out for aging.
Age on used oak or a used barrel for a long time, then finish with some interesting oak that has had sherry, rum, port, whatever you feel like...
Boom, scotch. Oh wait, I should have started with "be in Scotland" or it isn't scotch.
I'd also add that if aging, you're generally well served to finish with water until around 60ish percent ABV before aging. 
If you charge a pot still with 27% low wines, the hearts cut comes out in the low 60's - perfect for oaking. The idea is that water is flavorless, so it's better to have the distillate at the correct strength rather than diluting.
Scotch is more formulaic than moonshine. Each distillery selects their lower cut point depending on the character of whisky desired. 
The upper cut point is determined using the demisting test. Mixing spirit still's output with water - when the mixture is clear, you're in the hearts. You cannot do this unless your spirit still charge includes feints and foreshots from the previous spirit run. I usually take about 300ml from my 14 liters (10 oz in 3.7G) 2.7 oz per gallon of low wines as foreshots. Also, you'll see the foreshots hold at over 80%, then drop fairly quickly to 75% or so, then slowly drop over the hearts run. I consider this drop to be the changeover. No real harm in taking more foreshots. You lose a bit of alcohol in the name of safety but all the flavor's at the end of the run anyway.
The lower cut point ranges from about 64% to 58%. 64 is pretty light spirit, 58 is really beefy spirit - lots of taste. Below that and it'll taste feinty.
Moonshiners "proof" their output. Scotch distilleries never do this. Upper cut is demisting test, lower is as prescribed. That's the end of it. Scotch distilleries are factories with processes. Obviously if it's your first time and you're not going into production, it wouldn't be unwise to proof. You will find, however, that it's only the last, say, 500ml to 1000ml which makes all the taste difference (64-58%) (about 40 liters of wash, about 14 of low wines). There's no great use in taking wee samples of the higher proof hearts cut. It has a very consistent taste compared to the end of the heart run.
Typically hearts are cut with the same water source used in the wash to 63.5% for casking. Apparently higher abv creates greater losses due to the Angel's Share, lower is an inefficient use of barrel resources. Also, Diageo uses 63.5% so they can swap casks between distilleries at a 1:1 ratio for blended Scotch (convenience) which means the industry is likely to adopt a similar number.
Cloning Glenmorangie
Part I

Still design:
By and large, copying still designs of the old Scotch distilleries is not really much use to a home distiller, unless you've got a lot of money, time, metalsmith skills and patience. They don't scale well. It is better to understand what the various designs achieve in the final product, then build a standard home potstill with a few tweaks to mimic the outcome of their much larger cousins.

Glenmorangie pot-stills have a neck (column) some 5.5 meters tall, quite a bit more than the average, in fact the tallest of the Scotch pot stills. At the base of the neck, where it joins the boiler lid, is a spherical shape known as a 'boil-ball'. The boil-ball and the over length neck have but one purpose; to produce as much reflux and separation as possible in a potstill. This brings about an end product considerably lighter in congeners compared to other Scotch Malts. This, combined with Glenmorangie's much stricter cuts (1/5, most others cut 1/3) makes a product that home distillers should be able to duplicate more easily than the heavier malts, as home distillers pot-stills invariably make lighter spirits than commercial stills.

At this point I must say one thing. Home distillers reflux stills are NOT pot-stills. However, it is quite possible to use them as pot-stills if you remove about 3/4 of the mesh packing, leaving just a little to increase the separation, just as the boil-ball does in the commercial stills. If you already have a potstill, you can achieve a similar result by angling the lyne arm at the top of the neck to a 45° angle for about 60cm of length, then direct it downward to the condenser or worm. The
suggested tweaking methods for the two still designs will give product lighter than the usual, which is the first step in trying to duplicate Glenmorangie. By the way, it hasn't yet been decided just WHICH Glenmorangie is to be cloned. Is it to be the
Glenmorangie 10 Years ?
Glenmorangie 18 Years ?
Glenmorangie Madeira Wood Finish ?
Glenmorangie Port Wood Finish ?
Glenmorangie Sherry Wood Finish ?
Or just Glenmorangie in general, then worry about the finish later? As a famous TV ad from years gone by said "Oils ain't oils, Sol".

Part II to follow, when I get my second wind.

Part II

The Mash:
There are two methods of preparing the mash. This goes for all home-styled Scotch whiskies, not just Glenmorangie. The first, most traditional is all-grain. The second, is a combination of peated malt and extract (LME). The all grain method is suitable for those who have background and skills as all-grain beer brewers. The second is for the many who have difficulty with conversion of starches, or just plain don't like the work, mess and fuss attached to all-grain (that's most of us). With beers a connoisseur can tell the difference. With distilled spirits only a 75 year old Highlander could pick it, and he wouldn't say 'the nay' if the dram was free.

All Grain Mash
The first thing you need to consider is the peated malt. This is the one constant distinction between Scotch malts. When you talk of peat, you are really talking of the phenols imparted by the peat smoke. These are measured in parts per million (ppm) of finished whiskies. Glenmorangie is light to moderate in phenol, around 8 or 9 ppm. Some, like the Islay malts, are closer to 45 ppm. If there's one way of experimenting and adjusting your mashes that will produce noticeable changes, it's varying the peated malt fraction of the grain bill. You need to use a peated malt somewhat higher in phenols than your desired finished product, as some of the phenols get left behind during distillation, although most are recycled through the feints to the next batch (more on that later).

You can buy peated malt grain from home brew outlets, but it is only around the 15 to 17 ppm mark. Consequently you can't make the stronger Islay type malts at home, unless you get really enthusiastic and peat your own malt, or add something like a smoke essence to your finished spirit. However, 15 to 17 ppm is ideal as a starting point for Glenmorangie. Just tone it down a fraction by mixing it 3 : 1 with unpeated malt (3 of peated, 1 of unpeated). This will give a finished spirit in the range of Glenmorangie.

Do your mash & sparge as per the usual brewing methods, with one very important exception i.e. do NOT use hops. Hops when concentrated by distillation give a very overpowering bitter taste and is the reason you can't just take beer and distill it. Aim for a wort of around 8% potential alcohol and a quick ferment with a combination of baker's and brewer's yeasts, to finish in about 3 to 4 days. Let it settle for a further 1 or 2 days after the bubbling has all but stopped, to let the yeast re-absorb excess diacetyl, then do the first distillation.

Some will tell you that you can make a much higher gravity wort and use a turbo-type yeast, or a high-attenuation yeast like Lalvin EC-1118 or Red Star (same strain). You can, but what you finish up with will not even remotely resemble Glenmorangie, or any other Scotch malt. The yeast used plays a far more important role in producing Scotch than mere carbohydrate conversion. It is a huge factor in the taste of the finished article. For this reason, it is better to follow the methods used by the distilleries, that of a fast-acting yeast (bakers, ~1gm/liter) to quickly start the fermentation and stop other yeasts & bacteria getting a foothold, and a brewers yeast (0.6gm/liter)to get the desired flavors into the fermentation.

7.5G=28.4L
28.4L*1g= 28.4g BakersYeast
(0.6*28.4)=17.04 g Brewers Yeast

(28.4+17.04)=45.44 g yeast
45.44/28.4=1.6 g/L


Extract Mash
Extract mash is fairly simple to do. It uses peated malt as a flavoring adjunct, and if the temperature is handled correctly most of the starch will also convert, but this is not so critical as with an all grain batch. For a standard sized wort ~25 liters, heat 15 liters of water to 70°C (158°F), add 2 kg peated malt grain, put a lid on it and wrap the pot in towels to hold in the heat. Let it
sit for about 1/2 an hour. Strain it through a cotton pillow-case, rinse the grains with 4 liters of hot water (77°C, 170°F).

To the 19 liters of hot fluid, add 6 kg liquid malt extract (LME, pale malt extract, NO hops) and stir in until dissolved. DO NOT boil this mixture as you will scorch the extract syrup. Cool the wort as quickly as possible. Use a wort chiller, or decant it into smaller quantities and put it in the fridge. It needs to be ~25 to 26°C (77 to 80°F). Transfer to your fermenter, stir in plenty of
air in the process, pitch the yeasts and airlock it. Follow the same procedure re fermentation time, as for all grain.

This should get you started on the road to Glenmorangie Scotch.
Part III, the distillation, follows soon.

Part III

Glenmorangie Distillation

I mentioned previously in Part I the types of tweaks that need to be implemented for both potstill and reflux still processing of wash destined to be a Glenmorangie clone. Armed with this information, let us proceed...

First distillation(of two); The stripping run

It doesn't matter much which still design you have, either potstill with modified lyne arm, or reflux still with detuned packing. The general distilling concepts, methods and results will be almost identical.

Charge the still to the 3/4 full mark with the wash. This will allow enough headroom for possible foaming. If foaming becomes a problem, you can add a couple of tablespoons of butter to the wash. The oil will break up the foam and reduce the foam head, without distilling over into the low wines.

Run up the still without reflux, collecting quickly at fully open takeoff. At this stage you do not try to separate fractions (i.e. methanol, heads etc. ). Collect approximately 1/3 of the volume of the still pot charge, (1G of 3.5G) then switch to the feints receiver. This first fraction is your `low wines'. The remaining 2/3 is distilled into the feints receiver until the wash is practically spent of
recoverable alcohol. This will be at about the 98°C (208°F) mark, just under water's boiling point at sea-level.

If your boiler capacity matches your fermenter capacity, you are now ready to proceed to the second distillation. If not, then continue to process subsequent still charges in this manner until you have processed all of the wash. The capture of the feints needs to be explained at this point. The remaining 2/3 that is strip-distilled to the feints receiver will be ~28% alcohol by volume (abv) and be only about 1/15 to 1/25 the amount of the original still charge, so it's only a small amount, but nonetheless an important contribution to later distillations, as it contains valuable flavonoids.
(1/15=0.0667 (0.0667*128*3.5)=29.8816 oz)
(1/20=0.05 0.05*128*3.5=22.4 oz)
(22.4+29.9+17.92)/3=23.4067
1/25=0.04 0.04*128*3.5=17.92

The remaining fluid (almost entirely water) in the still from these first runnings is called `pot-ale'. It is of little value in a home distillers setup, however some commercial distilleries use it to sparge grains in an ongoing operation, thereby recovering its heat and any residual flavonoids. Some also process it for animal fodder, but obviously you'd need quite a lot for that to be worthwhile. You could experiment with using it as sparge water, but this is only useful if you are running a somewhat continuous operation. If you have to re-heat it at a later sparging (i.e. batch processing), then it's not worth the effort. You might just as well throw it out and use fresh water for the next Sparge / fermentation.

So now you have the `low wines' and some `feints' in separate containers. You have two choices on how to proceed from here. You can either distill immediately, or you may store the low wines for a future run. This is possible because the high alcohol content (20 –40%, depending on the type of still) protects the low wines from contamination, and the same high alcohol content (28%) of the feints will do likewise, providing the containers are kept sealed. Whichever you decide, the following is the description of the second distillation, also called the `Spirit Run'.

Second distillation(of two); The spirit run

Charge your still pot with a mixture of 60% low wines and 40% feints. Obviously if this is your first time running whisky, you will not have enough stored feints to meet this demand, so make up the difference with clean soft water. Eventually with future runnings you will have enough feints.

Run up the still and distill the low wines, discarding everything up to 77°C/171F as methanol (you will always get methanol with grain based washes). This temperature measurement is taken at a point at or near where the vapors go over into the lyne arm, or liquid is taken from the column, depending on your still design.
It is absolutely necessary to have a `Parrot's Beak' measuring device attached to the still at a point where the liquid emerges as distillate, be it after the worm, or after the takeoff point of a column. Otherwise the next step, `the Cut' becomes very difficult to judge without considerable experience. Temperature monitoring alone is not accurate enough in flavored spirits. There's too much variation.

Divert the first runnings (heads) to the feints receiver until the measurement at the Parrot's Beak reads 75%. Switch to your spirit receiver and collect `The Cut' (hearts) until the Parrot's Beak measurement reads 65%. This is Glenmorangie's 1/5 narrow cut. If you were doing other types of Scotch whisky, the cut would finish somewhere around 55% (more `tails', therefore a heavier spirit).

Switch again to the feints receiver and collect everything until the temperature again reads 98°C/208F, as you did in the first distillation. These feints can be stored for subsequent whisky runs as mentioned before.

The hearts collected will be somewhere in the vicinity of ~10% in volume of your original wash, which is a small return, but nonetheless a very good spirit, ready for the aging process to turn it into whisky.

How you age it is up to you. You may age it in glass with 10 gms oak chips per liter, reducing the strength each month by 10% with demineralized water until it reaches 40% abv. You may continue to distill further batches until you have enough new spirit to fill a reasonable sized cask, then age it for several years. No matter which method (or combination of) you choose, if you followed the whole process to the letter as described above, your whisky will be a creditable clone of Glenmorangie.

If you want to make some of the variations of Glenmorangie, experiment with finishing on port or sherry chips, if you can get them, or add 10 ml per liter of cream sherry to your finished whisky, after filtration and while bottling.

Hope this long diatribe has been of some use in your quest.
Slainte!
Regards Harry





The feints run-out is done monitoring your parrot and your top temperature. Both will tell you when there's nothing worthwhile to collect. The collected amount of feints will be quite small. Just a liter or two. It will be mostly water (and a little alcohol) but will contain many valuable flavonoids/congeners. This is what we're chasing.

You have to add water to this to make up the 40% mentioned for the spirit run.

For example...

Let's say your strip charge is 50lt. of 12% wash. You strip 1/3rd as low wines for further processing (approx. 16 lt.). This will contain nearly all the alcohol (near 6 lt.) and approx. 10 lt. water, and some of the more volatile congeners. You set this aside as low wines. You then run out the remainder of the strip as feints . Collect until the temp hits 98°C & the parrot drops away below 20%. This liter or two will contain the lower volatiles & fatty acids we're looking for.

Now you want to make up a 60/40 charge for the spirit still. You take the 16 lt. of low wines. Call that 60% of the charge. Add the liter or two of feints and enough water to make the spirit charge up to approx. 27 lt. total.
You now have a spirit charge of 60/40 and approx. 25% alc. (promotes hydro-separation) and which contains nearly all the recoverable alcohol AND nearly all the useful flavonoids. Distill this and make heads/hearts/tails cuts as per usual. Heads + tails are saved as feints for subsequent spirit charges. Hearts are barreled for maturation.

[Kareltje]

Very interesting, 8Ball.
One question though: you keep the heart of the stripping run separated from the feints and later you combine them again. Why keep them separate? Why not just strip to about 20 % and dilute the low wine to 25 % before the spirit run?

[Durhommer]

DAMN that was a long read

[8Ball]

Very interesting, 8Ball.
One question though: you keep the heart of the stripping run separated from the feints and later you combine them again. Why keep them separate? Why not just strip to about 20 % and dilute the low wine to 25 % before the spirit run?

Not sure where you read that, in the quoted text on stripping, you DO strip everything out as low wines. Is this what you are asking about??:
The capture of the feints needs to be explained at this point. The remaining 2/3 that is strip-distilled to the feints receiver will be ~28% alcohol by volume (abv) and be only about 1/15 to 1/25 the amount of the original still charge, so it's only a small amount, but nonetheless an important contribution to later distillations, as it contains valuable flavonoids.

If so, then yea, I just strip everything out as low wines, like you alluded to. I use the above as a guide for pretty much all I do now. The 60% low wines plus 40% feints all at ~ 27-30% abv works well for me. I use fresh wash to dilute the charge down if needed.

[8Ball]

DAMN that was a long read

Yea, sorry bout that. But, there really wasn’t a way to condense it. You have to read it all before it starts to make sense, at least I had to. Ha!

[Deplorable]

DAMN that was a long read

Yea, sorry bout that. But, there really wasn’t a way to condense it. You have to read it all before it starts to make sense, at least I had to. Ha!

I read it twice. Then saved it for digesting later.

[Buds]

Brilliant!!