harsh and hot help!!!

[Shienarian]

I'm sorry in advance I'm sure the info I need is here somewhere, I just haven't managed to put together the right words to get the search results I need
so here's the deal I've had a t500 for about a year, the friend that put me onto distilling has been doing it for years but only does classic 48 turbo washes so that's what I've been doing, other than the odd clearing issue I've always ended up with a clean tasting finished product in the 94% ABV range.
I recently tried my first TPSW. On the fermenting side everything went fine, when it was time to run the wash I decided to try a stripping run using my t500 like George in his "running the t500 like a pot still" video then repacking the column and doing a spirit run with reflux, ever since the stripping run I have not been able to put anything through my still that does not come out very harsh and hot, with barely any noticeable difference in taste and smell from foreshots to tails, I've cleaned and re-cleaned everything with citric acid baths and the bulk pink cleaner I've done a vinegar run and water runs and added new copper to the packing, I sacrificed a 20l tpsw and run 2 turbo wash and it does clean up a bit now after the fores but it is still far from good and nothing close to what I have been getting up until now.
so my question is does anyone know what the hell I did to my still and how the hell i can undo it

[Deplorable]

Stop listening to George

[Saltbush Bill]

His advice on many things is rubbish.
Links to his YouTube channel and his information are banned from this forum.
If your product is harsh and hot after cleaning it is most likely because of the way the still is run.
Run the still slower and make better cuts using your nose and taste buds.
Don't try making cuts by ABV.
It's easier to run a t500 reflux by watching how quickly product is leaving the still rather than trying to run it on where temps leaving the still
Slow drips until foreshots are removed, slightly faster drips to remove heads, fast drips to a broken stream for hearts.
Any faster than that and your reflux ratio will drop and the end product will be second rate.
I learned on one of those still so have a pretty good understanding of what makes them tick.

[Shienarian]

I'm running as slow as I can while still getting returns, less than 1 drip a second, and as said in my original post there is almost no noticeable difference from start to finish of the run taste or smell.
I did 20 to 30 mil cuts from when I started getting returns until I had more than 600ml and other than the acetone smell cleaning up after the first couple of cuts it stays very hot on the tongue and harsh smelling enough to burn ur nose hairs out
I'm just trying to find out if anyone has experienced this before. I don't understand how running the t500 without packing seems to have altered my ability to produce a nice neutral spirit, I went from having someone take a sniff and getting a reaction like "What? It doesn't smell like anything" to flinching and pulling back. the only thing that has changed was the stripping run without packing ever since then everything has been harsh and hot no matter how I have run it

[jonnys_spirit]

This is your first TPSW?
What was the ferment environment like?
SF / FG?
Temp?
What yeast?
Duration?

What’s the pink stuff you cleaned it with?

You said new copper packing. Did you clean it with a sac run?

Cheers,
Jonny

[Yummyrum]

I’m curious how you are sampling it . You should aways dilute a sample down to about 30-35% abv otherwise it will burn . Thats like 1 teaspoon of spirit and 2teaspoons of water.

I’m not surprised at all that you and friends are cringing when sampling during the heads part . It contains predominantly Ethyl Acetate which smells like nail polish remover to most .

Once you have fried your taste buds sampling straight spirit , it is hard to judge the rest .

I really don’t think you could have done anything wrong when you poured the saddles out and them poured them back in .

But if you are now running low wines in your boiler instead of Wash , the still will behave differently . This will alter the “temps “ that you would normally be used to .
Like Salty said , don’t look at the temps , look at the output stream .

I would however recommend stopping with the frequent cleaning . It is absolutely not necessary . All it does is strip the nice patina off the copper exposing raw copper that will create a metalic flavour in the first run until it seasons again .

[worldsbestdistiller]

If you're only getting a drip a second and it's hot and harsh, are you sure that you have your water connections correct? IIRC it is possible to put them on the wrong way after the still is taken to bits.

[Sporacle]

A lot of the time when people refer to "Hot" as in my product tastes hot, it's not a reference to temperature but a reference to taste