distilling heads and tails?

[hopkins21]

I have noticed a lot of ppl say that they will re run the heads and tails of a run, so I have a couple of questions about this. First one is after you have collected enough and decide to run it back through, do you still have to collect a certain amount at the first (forshot) or no. If yes do you collect the same amount as you would in a regular run. And would Ur cuts be the same.....just a couple questions I had that I couldn't really find in the other threads.

[Bushman]

I have noticed a lot of ppl say that they will re run the heads and tails of a run, so I have a couple of questions about this. First one is after you have collected enough and decide to run it back through, do you still have to collect a certain amount at the first (forshot) or no. If yes do you collect the same amount as you would in a regular run. And would Ur cuts be the same.....just a couple questions I had that I couldn't really find in the other threads.

Some folks add to next run others save up and do an all feints run. If doing an all feints you should add enough water to get the abv down to a minimum 40%, personally I like 30% for safety. Yes you would collect just like any other run by using all of your senses, taste, smell, feel to determine when you have moved from heads, to hearts, to tails.

[Richard7]

hopkins21, When I do a feints run I do toss foreshots to be on the safe side. I also make sure I am below 40% ABV.
The cuts are made the same way,by feel,taste,smell ect. but the amounts differ.
There is a lot of good alcohol in feints if you are picky when you make your cuts on your ferment runs.

posting while Bushman was

[hopkins21]

Ok, thanks fellas.....I am in no way ready to do this yet, I was just curious. I have been doing little 5 gallon runs just to try and figure out how to.do cuts and that alone is difficult for me. I have been reading all the threads about it but I'm.just a hands on learner so reading it is harder for me to understand. But hey practice makes perfect right.....thanks again guys.

[Jimbo]

If you recycle your feints into the next batch of the same product, the quality will improve (more flavor), and the yield will increase (more ethanol). For 'all grain' stuff I do 2 runs, stripper and spirit, so feints from the last spirit run, go into the next stripper run. And all that goes into the next spirit run. And so on. So the feints are actually run twice more before finding their way into your drinkin likker. I take some fores out of every single run regardless of stripper or spirit. For apple brandy I do a single run. So feints are just added to the next batch.

[CuWhistle]

I asked similar questions a while back. http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 2#p7001902 There is recoverable ethanol in the feints but it gets increasingly more difficult to extract. You can go through the process of using Bicarbonate of Soda which removes the nasties from the ethanol giving a higher yield of usable heart product.

I have to say that this has been my personal experience as well after putting the advice into practice.

[Jimbo]

Dont neglect the last post in that thread whistle, from Myles. Wise words those.

At some point, if you try to be greedy and recover everything out of your spirit run, and add the feints to the next go, and then try to recover everything again there's a point of diminishing returns. Often times it just makes sense to capture some tails, and call it a day. For me, with a 15.5g stripper, and 7.75 spirit still, heads and tails is always aimed at 2 quarts. The rest is just offered up the Gods, and the propane is shut off.

[CuWhistle]

Dont neglect the last post in that thread whistle, from Myles. Wise words those.

At some point, if you try to be greedy and recover everything out of your spirit run, and add the feints to the next go, and then try to recover everything again there's a point of diminishing returns. Often times it just makes sense to capture some tails, and call it a day. For me, with a 15.5g stripper, and 7.75 spirit still, heads and tails is always aimed at 2 quarts. The rest is just offered up the Gods, and the propane is shut off.

Having read the advice about not being greedy, I actually consider myself to be quite wasteful in my collection and re-runs of feints. I shut my gas of very early in the tails and make a pretty wide heads cut. I do occasionally put feints in my pot still strips and then eventually run the whole feints collection through the reflux column (about the only way I use it now) to collect anything useful. I recently did 30 litres of feints after 2 weeks on Bicarb soda for the first time which seemed to work pretty well.

Having said this though, it is really quite surprising how little I actually discard, other than what is left in the boiler.

[Jimbo]

what does the bicarb do? how much do you add?

[CuWhistle]

what does the bicarb do? how much do you add?

The Bicarbonate of Soda is used to apparently make more hearts available for extraction from the feints. As I said this was the first time I tried it and the result was pretty good. Without doing a duplicate run without it for comparison though I can't really say if it achieved anything or not. From memory I used 1 Teaspoon per litre (quart) at 40% ABV and let it sit for 2 weeks, stirring daily. I got the quantities from the thread here in the novice section which is titled "Baking Soda".

Here in Australia we have 2 products, Bicarbonate of Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) and Baking Powder (mix of Bicarb and cream of tartare). Apparently the US refers to Bicarbonate of Soda as Baking Soda.