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Odin wrote:My two cents: on a potstill I don't rerun feints as is. You just get more smearing and bigger heads and tails cuts the next run, because the separation power of a potstill is, well, limited (like 1 distillation cycle). Still, since those heads and tails contain lots of good ethanol, what I do is hydroseparate them I dilute them to 17%, so heads will sink off and the oily tails will start to float on top. I syphon out the middle 50% and rerun that with the next spirit run. The feints container gets the new heads and tails cut and because heads and tails concentrate (remember, you take out 50% of pretty good ethanol after hydroseparation) better, you can even see them (if you have a glass feints receiver): foggy bottom (sorry) and oilsy on top. No pun intended.

Regards, Odin.

i get what you are saying, but i have different experience with my equipment. its a tall (54") potstill...but just by virtue of re-running them you are in fact on your second distillation cycle. by diluting with water, i'm basically hydro-separating the same as you...but with the addition of heat.

every time i do a 1.5x distillation, the second go those feints are 2.5x distilled, the third time those same original feints are 3.5x distilled, the second one 2.5x and the latest batch is 1.5x (all mixed together) my experience says the spirit gets better, more flavour and a larger hearts cut.
with each distillation i get more hydro-separation, or scrubbing of the original run. since i'm compressing the fores and tossing them each time, and leaving more and more tails in the boiler when i'm finished, which is also disposed of the feints jar gets cleaner and cleaner with each distillation.

this is just anecdotal evidence of my experience, not science. when i do the first stripping run of, lets say an AG...it is very cloudy. when i re-run these, the spirit run is clean, and the feints don't get cloudy until the tails. when i 1.5x, the cloudiness in the tails comes less and later.

You both have valid points and they make sense.
They way i understand hydroseperation, is to take advantage of the different densitys/specific gravity when the liquid isn't moved.
Some whiskeydistillerys use it in their production.
One would draw off the middle portion like Odin explained.
HDNB..i sure see your point and the spirits will get a lot better for each distillation, but wouldn't dilluting act like a kind of "filter" instead of..?
If you heat the stillcharge, wouldn't it all get stirred up and move by the heat applied..?
So one would not get the different layers like one do in a hydroseperation, but one would filter some impuritys out.
Further additional drawing off the foreshots again, will improve the quality.

I hydroseparate the neutral, but not whiskey, feints at 27%. Got the idea from Harry, and Myles I think.

Dang it! Every time I think I have a decent amount of knowledge of the hobby you guys go throwing big words around again.

Off to research hydroseparation.

I can only draw from my experience and knowledge. More heads and tails in a potstill would create more heads and tails. Hydroseparation does not work in a violently boiling environment. More heads and tails come over in the distilate. That can be desired, for more taste. But without either hydroseparation or a still with more separation power, over time the feints would overrun the total batch. Now, from a theoretical point of view (since I never tested it fully like that), there may be a slight improvement by rerunning feints like say once, when you add them to the next run, when using a potstill. That's when feints have a higher abv and help increase the total abv of what you run. Higher abv simulates as if already a little bit over one distillation took place, thus creating (when ran slowly, because alcohol evaporates easier than water) some extra control over the hearts cut ...

My two cents.

Odin.

Kegg_jam wrote:Dang it! Every time I think I have a decent amount of knowledge of the hobby you guys go throwing big words around again.

Off to research hydroseparation.

Here is a interesting thread.. : http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=19169
Miss Dnderhead around here...

More faints added means more faints collected! .well der but so what, it also means more hearts collected . Get some jars and then there will be no reason to have a full break down over an extra jar of heads. If you think it will make cuts harder. ...bzzzzt wrong and if you are ditching fores and early heads its not going to grow so fast as the jars with the least ethanol are not getting returned

thecroweater wrote:More faints added means more faints collected! .well der but so what, it also means more hearts collected

that's a nice succinct way of putting it. i think we are all saying the same thing.