re distill

[Enduser]

Can I re-distil heads and tails to drink?

[Swedish Pride]

most do

[Expat]

Can I re-distil heads and tails to drink?

To a limited extent depending on what type of still you are running.
For a pot still you can recycle heads and tails for a future run, but after awhile you'll have to remove the worst stuff as it builds up.

You can save pot still heads and tails for a neutral run in a reflux still with great results. Heads and tails from a reflux still are generally so compressed that they are only useful as cleaner or ant killer.

[Enduser]

Sorry I should have said, yes I am running a reflux still ( T500 )

[elkay2882]

I was also under the impression that you can redistill the heads and tails to get more volume on the next run

[Expat]

I was also under the impression that you can redistill the heads and tails to get more volume on the next run

Yes and no, there is still good alcohol in faints, and you can game a bit more out by adding to the next run... but no matter what type of still your using you eventually will end up with so much crap that its not usable.

[zapata]

I don't bother with it for neutrals anymore. My time is more valuable than a few gallons of crappy still charge. Add it up, how much alcohol is in your heads n tails? And how much time and money is it to make that much alcohol in a new clean wash? About 30% of my neutral alcohol is feints, not sure about you and the t5000. I gotta save 3 or 4 batches of feints to equal a new wash, and it's gonna be dirty and much smaller hearts cut. So ultimately it's like getting a "free" wash every 5 or 6 washes. All you gotta "pay" is collecting, storing, running and cutting crappy stinky feints. Repeated forever and you save maybe 20% on wash ingredients. No thanks. Clean wash is cheap and pleasant. And all the vessels and storage cupboards are filling up with different flavored feints, low wines, aging stock, backset, dunder and experiments. I won't miss that $5.

Now, for flavored washes, there are proven ways to re-use feints. But in that case I'm saving the flavor, not the alcohol.