Second run with pot still

belialNZ · Post by **belialNZ** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 12:32 am

Hi there.

I realise I will find this out myself very soon, but, I am just doing a run of UJSM with my pot still, and after this will have 25-26 litres of "low wines".

I've been collecting about 4 litres per batch, and tomorrow I should be able to re-run them to produce the product I plan to put on a barrel.

However, after taking of heads and tails by taste, I'm concerned I'm going to come out with not enough to fill the barrel (not significantly worried, I admit, as I can just keep it in bottles till I have enough.. but it had got me wondering).

I realise heads and tails are heavily "to taste", my first use of a pot still I thought I quite liked the results of a single run, however after some time in a small barrel, I wasn't as impressed as I was from using a de-tuned reflux, so this lead to my decision to fill my main barrel from a double distillation.

Given 25 litres at an average of 60%, what are peoples experiences with final quantities? I'm after 10 Litres to fill my barrel which I plan to age for a year. If I only end up with 5, I might give in to temptation and fill a smaller barrel and age for less.

But yeh, just wondered what peoples experiences are within their taste parameters for the proportion of low wines going into the still, vs. "good" product coming out... 50% of what you put in? 40%? less?

Anyhow, I guess I'll be running it tomorrow anyhow, and I'm hopeful that I'll get around 10 litres of hearts, but my suspicion is that I won't.

arkansas · Post by **arkansas** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:55 am

Belia, how low % is your low wines would be my first question. If they are around 30-40% I can't see how you won't get well over the 10 liters of hearts you are looking for. But it is mainly the taste that will decide where your cuts will be made and that lends itself to the mix for sure.

belialNZ · Post by **belialNZ** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 2:58 am

My low wines are approx 60% on average.

arkansas · Post by **arkansas** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 3:04 am

I am sure someone will weigh in on this that can give you some figures, but at 60% low wines, 25-26 liters, you should have well over 10 liters of hearts for the barrel. Just my .02 cents worth.

punkin · Post by **punkin** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:23 am

You'll have twice as much as you need, if you are cutting to 65% for barrell aging.

You'll have 15 - 20 litres of nice hearts at 65%, with no need to add any more heads or tails than you like for flavour. You'll also find the cuts a lot easier to make.

belialNZ · Post by **belialNZ** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:17 pm

punkin wrote:You'll have twice as much as you need, if you are cutting to 65% for barrell aging.

You'll have 15 - 20 litres of nice hearts at 65%, with no need to add any more heads or tails than you like for flavour. You'll also find the cuts a lot easier to make.

Awesome! I'm just starting now, and you've set my mind at ease

Well,

Ended up with 21 litres, the majority came off at 80% but obviously dropped off near the end... collected in 500ml bottles for first 2 litres, and the rest in 1 litre bottles (well, ok, ran out of 1L bottles at the end so thats all gone into a 5 litre bottle, but by that stage I could smell the marmite taste and the % had dropped to the point I was sure it wasn't any good).

Waiting till tomorrow night to taste and mix down for barrels, I want to get the cuts "right".

belialNZ · Post by **belialNZ** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:03 pm

Well.

After cuts, and mixing down to 65% I had a happy 14 litres, 10 litres in barrel to age for a year, and 2 2Litre barrels full for shorter time, mainly to oak/flavour.

It was an interesting exercise for me, doing the cuts the next day after leaving roughly 20 hours airing was a LOT, and I can't emphasise enough how much I mean by a lot, clearer to determine.

I am pretty sure that all my previous runs, both with the pot still and detuned reflux, have been cut poorly (mainly with regards to heads, as testing on a bottle by bottle basis, the acetone'y taste was easy to pick out and eliminate).

So I am SO looking forward to tasting the product from the 2 litre barrels (one has never been used before, so I expect it to oak/colour up in a week or so, the other one can wait longer). And I've marked the date in the calender for opening the 10 litre barrel after a year.

Of the 21 litres of product, I used 11 litres of hearts, and 10 litres are waiting for using as feints in next wash, or washes (don't think I'd be able to fit an extra 10 litres into the 20 litres of distillable ferment coming off the fermenters).

once again, LOVE this hobby

Oh, and on a totally unrelated product, my apple fruit distillate macerated on more apples, has turned out extremely nicely. its 50%, but you really can't tell from a shotglass of it, warms the stomach nicely, and then a few seconds later, the taste of the source apples clearly shows up in your mouth. Gave a shot to a few of the wrestlers after training, and they where able to identify that it was made from granny smith apples. it gained a bit of a apple juice colouration along the way with macerating.

punkin · Post by **punkin** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:22 pm

Jeez, your cuts are a whole lot tighter than mine. I did a 26-28 litre spirit run on UJSM with maltbarley this morning and i have 14 litres of hearts in 4 litre bottles without doing my cuts yet. Will probably add tween .5 and 1 litre after sampling my small cuts either side, and then cut from an average 80-82% down to 65, should give me close to 20 litres.

How fast were you running?

CoopsOz · Post by **CoopsOz** » Fri Feb 01, 2008 11:32 pm

They are akin to my yields belialNZ, I never seem to get what others can get. I always blame it on my use of bakers yeast.

belialNZ · Post by **belialNZ** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:16 am

mines probably the result of using a still spirits still. Don't have any control over the heat other than plugging it in and unplugging it.

I am going to build my own column first, to use with existing heater/bucket.

But, I wanted what comes off a year from now to be "good", so I was very aggressive with the cuts. if I had a smaller pot still, I'd re-run the feints by themselves I suspect, but I think I'll be better off using them in future runs.

Absolutely loving the vodka (well, ok, sugar wash results) I got from my last sugar wash run, distilled it 3 times through reflux that I removed ceramic saddles from and replaced with copper wool. Tasteless and smooth.

I actually regret purchasing a pre made solution for distilling, but on the plus side, by paying attention to the great input from this forum, and a bit of time, I'm getting results that are making me very pleased.

pintoshine · Post by **pintoshine** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:33 am

I never get the yield off my column others specify either. Mine is similar to yours too. I am pretty picky about the cuts for vodka too.

punkin · Post by **punkin** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:16 am

Ujsm, not vodka

punkin · Post by **punkin** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 12:54 pm

Here's y'days spirit run UJSM with malted barley.
26-28l low wines taken off tween 65% and 20% assume the same as yours at around 58-60% average (although i didn't test)

Start7.45am,
250ml 4 shots pulled off then (in litres);

B1, .5 @ 86% (8:30)
B2, .5 @ 87% (8.37)
B3, .5 @ 86% (8.45)
B4, .5 @ 86% (8.52)
B5, .5 @ 85% (9.00)
Switch to hearts jars by smell and taste, i'm sure i'm well into it.
A1, 4l @ 85% (10.00)
A2, 4l (2l @ 84%, 2l @ 83%) (10.50)
A3, 4l (2l @ 82%, 2l @ 79%) (11.47)
A4, 2l @ 70% (12.23)
Switch back as tails are about starting to make emselves known
B6, .7 @ 65% (12.38)
B7, .5 @ 60% (12.45)

Ran about two litres of tails off after that to 25%.

Did my cuts this morniing, added B5 the half litre of head to heart transition, but left B6 the first of the tails out.

So to 14.5 litres of 81% hearts i added 3.6 litres of boiled water to make 18.1 litres at 65%. No heady shudder or tail wince, just good clean sippin whiskey that'll go on toasted sticks till i can tell if it's very different from the UJSM straight.
If the sharp scotchy type taste i'm half expecting is not there it'll go into the barrell ontop of my straight ujsm.

Gotta pass my Bourbon girl's inspection yet

Can you see where i cut different to you guys?

Am i going wrong somewhere to get too much?

AdviceOrReassuranceWouldBothBeGoodPunkin

glassman · Post by **glassman** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:50 am

i can see the big differance between your %abv and mine which i posted on a differant thred. my % were way lower...70's to 60's. but our times for the heads seem similar. guess i'll turn down the burner which is ~ 22000BTU OR ~8000WATTS i believe. everyone still loves the stuff. gman

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Second Run #2 ~ 19L of 45% Low Wines– corn/sugar mash

100ml foreshots removed

Time of Collection Name Head Temp Corrected Distillates % Amount Collected

7:13 start collecting

7:25 H1 80.5 C 81% .5 Liters
7:31 H2 80.7 81 1
7:39 H3 80.8 80 1.5
7:45 H4 80.9 79 2
7:52 H5 81.0 75 2.5
7:58 H6 81.4 75 3
8:05 MR1 81.5 75 3.5
8:11 MR2 81.7 74 4
8:18 MR3 81.9 74 4.5
8:24 MR4 82.2 74 5
8:30 MR5 82.5 74 5.5
8:47 MR6 83.0 74 6
8:44 MR7 83.5 73 6.5
8:50 MR8 84.0 70 7
8:57 MR9 84.8 68 7.5
9:04 T1 85.6 65 8
9:11 T2 86.5 64 8.5
9:20 T3 88.1 59 9
9:28 T4 89.4 57 9.5
9:38 T5 91.0 51 10
9:44 T6 92.5 43.5 10.5 End

Collect down to 20% @ 96*C for neutral run

9.5 liters of spent lees in boiler