Yields

[zirtico]

For those of you making flavoured spirits (i.e. rum and whisky primarily), what are your yields like after cuts?

I do 16 L runs in my small 19 L pot still starting at ~8% ABV and I get about 1.3 L of final, good quality whisky at ~43% ABV. This means it's about 8.1% yield.

They say for a lot of whisky runs, that you collect 1/3 of the volume for each run, which would theoretically mean 1/9, or 11.1% yield but I find that that much means including a fair amount of feints in the final spirit.

What do you guys get?

[Jimbo]

I do the math a little different, my cuts are usually around 60% of the alcohol yield. So in your case 16L at 8% is 1.08L of 100%, but you'll get less due to losses in the boiler, so maybe 1L. You keep 1.3L at 43% which is .56L at 100%

So .56/1.0 is 56%. We're in the ballpark. For whiskies I intentionally go into the tails a little bit (it mellows up nice with age) and just a hair into heads. Heads never mellow but bring a little spank and character. Straight hearts would be too smooth and lacking character after several months aging on oak.

[ga flatwoods]

+1 jumbo knows his cuts well. Cold ass winter in Iceland leave not much else to do other than brew!
Ga Flatwoods

[jedneck]

I usually keep 60-65% unless I'm running low. Then it drops to whatever clean hearts I get.

[T-Pee]

+1 jumbo knows his cuts well.

*snort...snicker*

tp

[zirtico]

Good to know, Jimbo. I agree that keeping some tails is definitely good, but I think a lot of the final flavour is determined by the shape and design of the still. Less efficient stills probably smear the cuts a bit more and end up with more flavourful "pure hearts". I tend to keep very little heads and only a bit of tails because I find that if I include more tails, even the very flavourful, non-cardboardy tails, the final spirit ends up with a grain flavour which is a bit stronger than I like, even though its very good and quite drinkable. If I had to get super technical, I'd say my final spirit is 92% hearts, 6% tails, and 2% heads.

Anyway, its a little off-topic. Good to know that I'm roughly on target at about 60% of total ethanol as drinkable spirit and not too far off from what is recommended practice.

[Jimbo]

I find that if I include more tails, even the very flavourful, non-cardboardy tails, the final spirit ends up with a grain flavour which is a bit stronger than I like

after how many months on oak? this is all about age. 4 months minimum, 6 better, and at 1 and 2 years wow. but 4 months is hard stop minimum.