Home Distiller

Isn't a small amount of smearing desirable if making rum or whiskey? For flavor.
My parrot doesn't hold enough to worry me about too much smearing anyway. With alchometer in mine holds 40-50ml depending on proof.

Think of a parrots beak and alcoholmeter as merely being a tool
I agree Rad. Think of a craftsman, matters not what trade. There are tools that make your job easier and allow you to do a nicer and higher quality job. That's just what a parrots beak does for us, why would you not want to use a tool that would be to your advantage???

Agree StainlessDude, and I use a lot of tools to my advantage. Beats driving in the dark with the headlights off

For those not using a parrot, How do you know when to stop collecting? Mostly talking about spirit runs as a parrot in a stripping run is a non issue. I suppose I can collect without a parrot until I know I am into heads then switch to the parrot. that or keep pouring samples into my test jar when I think the run is finished. Having only used a parrot thus far, I would like to try a run or two without it to see how I fair in the collection process.

When originally thinking about the parrot smearing I was considering cuts. If I collected in pint jars using a parrot and say jar 10 I determined was the start of hearts would jar 9 be the cutoff if I didn't use a parrot or jar 8,7,6? Knowing now that a parrot will add some smearing I am thinking that at worst I'll toss an extra pint maybe 2 into my feints jar? If worse than 2 pints though, I think I'd rather not use it.

i could build a house without a trailer & pouches full of tools. but why would i ?
every tool we have & use makes distilling easier, period.

I like to pull my whiskey off my bubbler at around 80%. While I know my controlls and my still, gate valves can be tricky and the parrot makes life easier on me. I have a dump valve on it which I use periodically throughout the run. All said and done I like it and it helps me stay in the range I want, not cuts. I'm gonna use it till shtf and I run out of suicidal alcometers.

SirPuFFaLoT wrote:For those not using a parrot, How do you know when to stop collecting? Mostly talking about spirit runs as a parrot in a stripping run is a non issue. I suppose I can collect without a parrot until I know I am into heads then switch to the parrot. that or keep pouring samples into my test jar when I think the run is finished. Having only used a parrot thus far, I would like to try a run or two without it to see how I fair in the collection process.

When originally thinking about the parrot smearing I was considering cuts. If I collected in pint jars using a parrot and say jar 10 I determined was the start of hearts would jar 9 be the cutoff if I didn't use a parrot or jar 8,7,6? Knowing now that a parrot will add some smearing I am thinking that at worst I'll toss an extra pint maybe 2 into my feints jar? If worse than 2 pints though, I think I'd rather not use it.

I simply do it by taste and smell.
The foreshots are collected in a testcylinder, so i can keep a track of how much foreshots i have in a given charge.
Heads are collected in a small jar and when i definatly know i am into the hearts i switch for a literbottle.
Having calculated how much potential alcohol there should be in the boiler, it gives me a idea of how many literbottles i can fill, before i again switch to smaller jars.
Doing it that way, ensures i would not smear good hearts with tails.
Now and then i take a reading with the alcometer in my testcylinder.
When the reading drops below 40% ABV, i know the tails won't be far away.
Usually i collect down to 20% ABV and shut down the still.
For every run i take notes, so i can compare the outcome on the different ferments and stillcharges.

Taste, smell, feel. It's just one of those skills you have to build like playing an instrument or something (I'm still working on it). Gadgets are cool, handy even, but they can't make your cuts for you.

While my parrots beak only holds ~1.5oz of spirits it can still smear into more than one 4oz collection jar so I just collect in the 4oz jars and then take an alcometer reading in a test cylinder... I get better heads to hearts and hearts to tails separation that way... A bit of extra work but what the heck else would I do that didn't distract me other than trying to convince the alcometer to stop turning away from me...???

That being said, I do use the parrots beak at times for stripping runs where smearing is a non-issue...

rad14701 wrote:......what the heck else would I do that didn't distract me other than trying to convince the alcometer to stop turning away from me...???

Gawd....I HATE that. I thought that it was just me...I thought the world revolves around me and causes the hydrometer to misbehave like that (all the time).

Seriously, I do just like you do, Rad...collect in small containers and measure each one as I get it. It keeps me from dozing on the long runs, if you know what I mean.
ss

Might as well throw in my $.02 worth.
A parrot on a potstill is more useless than a thermometer that measures the temp of the boiler liquid.
You can't make cut's with either of them, but the thermometer will tell you when the pot is warm enough to turn on the condenser cooling water and what the ABV of the liquid and vapor are.

Y'all think a parrot smears? Try wiping your ass with a fish! HA!

MichiganCornhusker wrote:Y'all think a parrot smears? Try wiping your ass with a fish! HA!

You owe me a sandwich

Make sure it ain't a cat fish. Ouch

pfshine wrote:Make sure it ain't a cat fish. Ouch

Or an electric eel. But MCH would prolly like that.
On topic when I was running a single plate flute on a five gallon boiler I found that my keep cut was smaller with the parrot. Collected in 100ml lots. Heads would be smeared in three at least 3 jars. Now I run a pot and thumper and don't use an alcoholmeter till I'm done blending and proof to cask or drinking proof. I collect small lots till I'm sure I'm in hearts the go bigger till tails start buy feel taste and smell.

Ok, first of all, I apologize for my fish post, unacceptable.

Second of all, it's not my fault. For three days I've been reading "Smearing with a parrot" and "what gas comes before the liquid". I was bound to break down sooner or later.

Third of all, and not quite on topic but as close as I can get, here is how I collect:

Half pint jars, regardless of still charge. When I'm clearly in hearts I start dumping the half pints into quart jars until they start to go oily, then I go back to half pints. Then I measure abv of jars backwards so if I'm smearing anything it's hearts into heads. Then I plot my results in a CAD program. It's remarkable how heads and tails will jump off a parabola that fits most of the run. Still, it ultimately comes down to taste after airing out to make cuts.

Fourth of all, I've been into my whiskey, so again, I lice you guys, and apologies.

We lice u , too , MCH

All this comments promoted me to do a simple test using the parrot that I normally use. It holds about 200 ml of product and it has a valve on the bottom to dump when needed.

I first filled the parrot with 90 abv, then slowly dripped in a solutuin at 70 abv at about 4L/hr or so, just to see how much it woukd take to get the hydrometer to settle at the new abv, and to my surprise, it only took 300 ml.

Then I did it again from 70, down to 55 and it took about the same, 300 ml.

Then I tried it once more from 55 down to 40 and it also took about 300ml.

My parrot holds 200 ml, so it really was not showing that much smearing, and as mentioned before, if you collect in small ammount of 100 ml or so during the transition times, chances are you are only going to smear about 300 ml.

I can live with that, specially when running a plated column and the changes we are looking for in the parrot are only a few points appart, not 15 to 20 like I experimented with.

Hoochy

Thank's a lot for taking you the time for this experiment.
What i can conclude is, that your parrot wich holds 200 Ml, would smear 300 Ml of good hearts if used.
That would not be any issue , if i was running a big boilercharge....
Anyway 300 Ml is almost half a bottle wasted, caused to the smearing...
Why would i want to contaminate this amount of good spirits...???
After all i am just running my tiny 25L boiler...

captainshooch, that is only a quazi-scientific experiment at best... All you've essentially done is to show how much volume it takes to get from one proof to another using already clean spirits... Making decent cuts is a whole different animal...

One item to take into consideration is the volume of the parrot alone and the volume it holds with an alcometer floating in it... My alcometer offsets a lot of spirits in my parrots beak...

Foreshots and heads are gone when they are gone... By your experiment you are saying it would take 1.5x more spirits to distinguish each of those cuts... That is the very reason I don't use one during spirits runs... I was losing an extra 3 - 4 jars to the feints jug that could have remained in my hearts cut because of smearing...

Yes Rad, making good cuts is a different animal, however, using all the tools available, taste, smell, temp, alchometer reading etc... is always better than not using but some.

The stated volume of the parrot was checked twice, with distilled water and with 90 abv and the difference was minimal at best, 190 to 200 mls with the alchometer floating in it.

I run mostly plated colums and the compression ratio between cuts is very distinc and tends to show in the parrot rather quickly, shortly after a slight raise in boiler temp, and a slight rise in the top of colum temp and a change in smell, and a change in taste and so forth.

Not telling anyone to make cuts only by the parrot reading, just encouraging people to use all the tools available to them, to aid in making those decissions.

Also, considering that it only took an avarage of 300 ml to change the reading by so many points tells me that smaller changes will take an even lesser ammount to make a change, and in the video you can see that just 100 ml made a considerable change in the parrot, which tells me it was responding to changes rather quickly, than a sluggish smearing type transsition.

But to each it's own. As far as I am concerned, I will continue to use one.

Danespirits, agree, on a smaller charge you might be better off, hiwever, keep in mind I was making changes of 15 to 20 points in abv and that is probably why it took so much product, smaller changes might take even less, which prompts me to run some more tests.

Thanks for the imput.
Hoochy

I keep forgetting to add info as I go along. Rad, the original parrot fill was 90 abv hearts, the solution used to displace it was from tails, so not exactly clean replacing clean, I tried to follow as true as I could to a real run.
I also tried it with 2 more changes and it seemed to be consistent, yes is volume replacing volume, but I was after a big change, which takes more volume than you would normally see in a regular run.

Thanks for your input.
Hoochy

Could you fill the parrot with coloured water or just a couple drops of colouring at the start of a run and see how long it takes to run clear?

Yes jedneck. So the testing will continue, however I have no way of accurately measuring the degree of tint in soultion, where I can at least test abv pretty accurately. Any suggestions as to how I can tell when the, lets say, red food coloring, has completely vanished... could be a hard one to pull off.

Well DUH, forgot to add a link to the vudeo sorry.

Anyhows, a typo, this video shows going from apprx 60 abv down to 40.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cINHQA ... e=youtu.be" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Nice parrot.

I got a learn me how to post some videos.

Kegg_jam, just upload to u tube n copy n paste the link.

Good thinking capt what about milk, would that be move viable?. Or ink?, just spot balling here lol. I'm gonna have to try this!.

Hi ya Gooman, dunno, maybe ya have an milkometer I can borrow for a while, but yes by all means, try it n let us know.