I was working on a recipe and it came out almost all tails.

[mmmmmm]

Is that something that happens with certain recipes? Is there something I could do to prevent this?

What it is, I was playing with a raisin sugar wash, doing five one-gallon batches at a time with different methods and amounts of ingredients, trying to track differences in the fermentation process caused by my variations.

I just use Red Star yeast, I was doing two tbsp per gallon of that, sugar, raisins, water, and fermented them at around 72 degrees (hey it was the best I could do with my setup) for about a week, the sg would go anywhere from 1.07-1.09 depending on how much sugar I was putting in, to 1-.99 during that week.

Did stripping runs on about ten gallons of that, and then I did a spirit run - a very little bit of heads came out, a little hearts, and then strong into tails while it was still pretty high proof. I gathered the spirit run one (american) cup at a time. I passed over the first cup (after throwing out about a quarter cup for fores), and ended up keeping only the three cups after that, and even those, I'm wishing I had only kept two because my "hearts" still ended up really tailsy.

It's kind of disheartening to run ten gallons and only end up with 500 mL, so I abandoned the project.

Is it the raisins? I've heard that the grape skin can do bad things to a ferment...

[Dan P.]

Could be raisins in general, could be the raisins you used in particular. Some dried fruit has shit added to it, like oil. Could be that. Could be how you ran it.
Shit happens. Put it down to experience, and/or play around trying to fix it.

[mmmmmm]

Could be raisins in general, could be the raisins you used in particular. Some dried fruit has shit added to it, like oil. Could be that. Could be how you ran it.
Shit happens. Put it down to experience, and/or play around trying to fix it.

Yeah, I've heard of raisins having sulfites, but the raisins I used claimed to not have sulfites.

Some of the raisins I treated for sulfites - soaked, rinsed, etc. Hell, some of them I even boiled (both whole and chopped), and then rinsed, and they all did almost exactly the same thing as the "control" batch I did where I did nothing to the raisins but throw them in the jug.

[FullySilenced]

Seem like i read that ODIN had a raisin brandy recipe... may do a search for that one... and save some time and effort...

was a great thread and if i remember the product turned out very well...

[acfixer69]

If you are going a 1 gal spirit run you will have smearing a not much can be done to stop that.

AC

[SoMo]

+1 on the smearing

[OBX Phantom]

Did stripping runs on about ten gallons of that, and then I did a spirit run - a very little bit of heads came out, a little hearts, and then strong into tails while it was still pretty high proof. I gathered the spirit run one (american) cup at a time. I passed over the first cup (after throwing out about a quarter cup for fores), and ended up keeping only the three cups after that, and even those, I'm wishing I had only kept

So after doing the stripping runs on the 10 gal. How much product, and what proof did you have for your spirit run?

[woodshed]

It's not the raisins. My grandpa used to make a 80/20 corn raisin mash and it was awesome although an acquired taste. That man loved his raisins. Would put em in everything.

[DeepSouth]

I don't know if this is a source of your problem but 2 tbsp per gallon of yeast is about 5 times as much yeast as you need I think.

[DeepSouth]

Actually it is about 10 times as much yeast as you need. UJSSM is one if the most tried and true recipes on this site and it calls for 1 tbsp of yeast for 5 gallons of mash. That is in line with the pitching rates that most yeast companies call for.

[bearriver]

If you are going a 1 gal spirit run you will have smearing a not much can be done to stop that.

AC

Well there's your problem. You have a teddy bear stuck in your drain pipe Mister...

[WhiteDevil504]

Here is odins recipe. I just did 2 5 gallon batches of this and it came out really nice. I used the sunmaid raisins from costco with great results. I just did a hot water rinse then boiled, hit it with an immersion blended and pitched.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41679

I didn't have any more tail issues than I normally due (still battling the thermostatically controlled heating element on the milehi unit until the router speed controller gets here).

[bellybuster]

You didn't say how much raisin but, you're running sugar and water wash thru a pot still? That tends to create yuck in the first place as far as I'm concerned. Even with the raisins it's still just sugar unless the raisins weren't a good portion of the ferment.

[mmmmmm]

So after doing the stripping runs on the 10 gal. How much product, and what proof did you have for your spirit run?

Stripping runs resulted in about 2.75 gallons, I had to put just a little water in to get to just under 40%, and that's what I ran. This is how I usually do it with, say, the All Bran recipe, and I've had good results.

Proof wise, it was a pretty standard pot still spirit run. Started out around 150 or so, very slow decline, probably around 6 cups or so before I got down to low 140's when the proof started dropping more quickly. But the third/fourth cup were still over 145 when they started smelling like heavy tails.

Actually it is about 10 times as much yeast as you need. UJSSM is one if the most tried and true recipes on this site and it calls for 1 tbsp of yeast for 5 gallons of mash. That is in line with the pitching rates that most yeast companies call for.

I knew it was a little over the top, I did that much because I had recently really liked my All Bran run, and it called for that much yeast, so I went with that to start with this. I kind of don't think it's the amount of yeast since the All Bran calls for this much and I really like my All Bran.

My "control" was 4oz of raisins and 1.5 lbs of sugar per gallon. I experimented down to 2oz of raisins and up to 6oz of raisins per gallon and the whole spectrum of gallons had pretty much the same result as far as SG went. I was going to experiment with different amounts of sugar in each gallon next.

But the tails thing kind of killed the experiment for me. I wish I knew what happened there.


That having been said Odin's recipe sounds pretty good, I'll probably try that in the future, but still I'd love to know why my experiment came out so tailsy.