Too much tails. Is it my recipe?

[mmmmmm]

I've been using a modified All-Bran recipe using Cinnamon Toast Crunch for a few runs now - I had really good results the first time I did it and that's why I stuck with it a bit, but lately I've been struggling with it producing a very small bit of hearts before the tails kick in.

I ferment five gallons of the stuff (1lb cereal, 7.5lbs sugar, 5 tbsp bread/grocery store style yeast per five gallons), do stripping runs, do the five gallons again, and put the product of both stripping runs together for my spirit run.

I collect 1 cup at a time for my spirit run (I run a 4 gallon pot still, medium-to-fast for the stripping runs, and slow-to-medium on the spirit run).

But I swear, by jar six I'm already well into tails. That's a lot of work to end up with less than a third of a gallon of hooch.



Is this just a standard problem for such a smallish still? Or should I try another recipe? I've never been a fan of whiskey, but I've never made it. Maybe the unaged stuff I might like, I'm willing to give it a shot if I have a chance of getting more than one quart jar out of ten gallons of wash and like eight hours worth of runs.

[bearriver]

Yes on both accounts.

Small stills produce small yields. I don't have a 4 gallon still, but less than half of a gallon of hearts per 5 gallons of wash sounds right.

We will always recommend following a tried and true recipe exactly over experimental washes for obvious reasons.

My advice is to try Rads all bran exactly after you buy a keg boiler. Your yield woes will vanish into thin air.

Save those feints for all feints runs. They be tasty indeed. Also, most folks with a pot still prefer the flavor of doing stripping runs before spirit runs.

[still_stirrin]

....My advice is to try Rads all bran exactly....Also, most folks with a pot still prefer the flavor of doing stripping runs before spirit runs.

+1.

All bran makes a great neutral. And Rad's recipe is 100% "scalable"....you can tailor it to what ever wash size you need.
ss

[HDNB]

i'd guess best case scenario with 10 gallons of 10% (your recipe) going into a 4 gallon rig, you would do 3 runs of 3.3 gallons and have result of almost 3 gallons of low wines averaging 33%?

put that in for a spirit run and doubling it would leave 1.5 gallons averaging 66%

60% of the take being hearts thats .9 of a gallon if everything was perfect and you had no losses to solution.

but since it ain't perfect, if you got a half gallon of keepers you would be winning the race, and the extra gallon of feints is gonna add up quick and give you a lot more to work with over the course of a few months.

take BR's advise and get a bigger boiler. and a brute trashcan (or two) that will hold 20+ gallons of wash. then you can use the 4 gallon to finish some nice brandy runs or something.

[OBX Phantom]

I've read that yeastdon't like cinnamon, so the cinnamon in the cereal that you are using could be effecting the yeast. Have you checked your starting and finishing gravity?