Home Distiller

I do a stripping run and a spirit run. All through a reflux. Stripping run is @ 30%. OG is 6.5.

Fores are 6%. Heads 2%. The cut is dramatic to the nose so easy to define. Same going into hearts.
That cut is 62%. The rest is saved as tails and collected in smaller segments to be added to finish product or to the next run.

ah yes, forgot that crucial question.... What kind of still. LOL Looks good. Im in that ballpark too.

I would suggest the reflux still is more responsible for the low heads (more compressed) than your fermentation practices.

Jimbo, aren't you a pot stiller? Either way please tell how you have achieved this? I love methods applied to the individual. One of the many things that make this art so rewarding.

Certainly a part of it belly but just that, a part. I don't imagine many reflux users are getting 2% heads. Could be wrong as well. As I said before within the family this heads issue has been looked at for many years. Yeast and ferment are more important than you seem willing to give them credit for.

I've dropped many hints in previous posts as to my methods. The rest is up to the individual to experiment with or disregard. I'm good either way.

The recipes in my signature talk about yields. Yes, Im a potstillerer'r

Basically 3.5-4 lbs grain per 80 proof fifth. About 60% keep to theoretical.

Indeed they are. I knew that just failed to follow up. Been 9 days straight for 10 hours a day at the distillery. Takin tomorrow off then back at it.

Wishing you all the best Woodshed. Its fantastic to see. I would love to give it a go, if the stars aligned and circumstances allowed. There's a good story about High West starting up in Park City in the Fall issue of Whisky Advocate. Did you read that?

Cheers.

Yes, I'm a big fan of W A. The struggle is worth it. I have paid for everything out of pocket. And I have a very supportive wife. Plus an all consuming passion which on occasion wakes me up at night.

Jimbo wrote:

Odin wrote: Or why is it so that my whiskey has improved since I shied away from those "boring" brewers rules, stating everything has to be sanitised 100%?

MitchyBourbon wrote:That was not my experience, my experience was that when I applied some of the practices from fermenting beer that's when I saw the taste of my bourbon improve. For me it was about eliminating all of the things that would cause stress in yeast. What I have found is that yeast produce plenty of flavor/congeners when they are "happy". As for adding other bacteria such as lacto, I'm all for it. But I want control. I want to isolate a culture myself or buy one. Good or bad, i want to add it on my terms. I don't want it to happen by accident. This is why I have applied many of those pesky beer rules to my bourbon mashes and ferments.

MitchyBourbon wrote: I think many people on this site don't give yeast the respect they deserve. I was in this camp myself for many years. My epiphany came a couple years back when I started to brew beer. I learned early that the treatment of yeast was very important to the outcome of a good or bad tasting beer. I have attempted to make this point to people and the response I get is "we clean all that up during distillation". I firmly believe the best way to keep off flavors from ruining a good product is to avoid creating them in the first place.

i am 1000% on board with Mitchy on this. Sorry Od.

My reading time has been drastically refuced lately. That being said I just got into this thread.

As far as those peasky beer rules... I pick my poison. I'm pretty slack on my beer rules when it comes to rum. And because of that, I now have buckets that are marked rum fermenters. I'm far more strict when brewing beer. Sugar heads, I'm not as anal as I am when say making a stout. Now I've been doing all grain so I've started out being anal again but I'm sure I'll lazy it up at some point. Fruits I'm pretty lazy with as well since they are pretty far from sterile to begin with. I'm looking forward to playing with some natural yeasts and fruit VERY SOON.

I've been very into making the yeast happy at the start... Making starters instead of pitching it dry, acclimating temps... Monitoring pitching temps tighter, being patient with ferments, working with ferment temps... This has been one of the more interesting reads I've had in weeks.

Jimbo, your talent is obvious to everyone. It's people like you who inspire and should be in the business. If you only lived in my neck of the woods.

woodshed wrote:MB & Jimbo, I feel your both right. I would say it's what you do with those dirty yeast that makes the difference. Which is why I run a secondary fermentation. Belly makes a good point as well. Probably never make it down to no heads but I'm at 2% and pretty happy with that.

When you say secondary fermentation, are you simply racking into another fermenter and allowing the process to continue or are you re-pitching (new yeast) to the second fermenter?

Thanks

Reed

The single biggest improvment I have made was too ditch the bakers yeast, use an known yeast with temp requirements and ferment in my temp controlled chamber which is a huge kegerator with a pid controller. I make the same cuts but the amount of "heads" is less than half of what it was.

+1!

Odin.

I pitch a new yeast into the secondary with a percentage of wort saved from mash and aerate. This is also where the little bit of infection I mentioned earlier occurs.
Yeast in the first ferment is deliberately stopped at a determined SG. This "starter yeast" likes things fairly warm. The second yeast likes things fairly cool. Sorta like going from ale to lager temps if you were brewing beer. Which we are. I have two rooms which offer me the ability to control the ferment temps.

Woodshed & Stogie,

Excelent contributions! I have experienced the same, and will act on it from now on. With your confirmation I feel this is a great way to go:
1. Use pre-selected yeasts tailored for your wash and create the best environment possible from them. I have had very small cuts for heads and tails both on a beer ferment with special whiskey yeast and on a wine I made with Tokaj yeast.
2. The higher the abv in the wash gets, the more the end result will benefit from lower temps.

Thanks again!

Odin.

woodshed wrote:I pitch a new yeast into the secondary with a percentage of wort saved from mash and aerate. This is also where the little bit of infection I mentioned earlier occurs.
Yeast in the first ferment is deliberately stopped at a determined SG. This "starter yeast" likes things fairly warm. The second yeast likes things fairly cool. Sorta like going from ale to lager temps if you were brewing beer. Which we are. I have two rooms which offer me the ability to control the ferment temps.

Interesting! Do you boil your wort?

I ask because I was on a tour of Stranahans and it seems that they handle their wort like they were brewing beer. They add Irish moss which suggest to me that they must have a boil off at the end and they also filter their finished wort prior to distilling. They said it was to reduce the proteins that lead to the off taste. (Heads)?

Reed

I do not.

Not boiling makes for a more complex product. Not sure if it has an effect on the creation of more lower/higher BP alcs.

Odin.

Reed, Stranahans uses spent grain from a local brewery to a large degree. May be the grains they receive are high in proteins. Maybe they do so to achieve their flavor profile. I do enjoy Stranahans and they were an early influence in my opening a distillery myself. Not a very complex drink though.

Odin, ABV for my Bentfinger Bourbon is 6.5%. Quite low. This is predominately for flavor profile but I do believe it aids in reducing heads collection. I only say that from years of experimenting. I have no hard evidence to back it up. But it helped me get where I'm at. That I know for sure.
My primary ferment is 5 days @ 80F. My second is 14 days @ 60F.
I ferment to 0.990. 7.74%.

RNaka wrote:... and they also filter their finished wort prior to distilling. They said it was to reduce the proteins that lead to the off taste. (Heads)?

Any thoughts about what equipment could be used to filter the wort before distilling?

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether heads and/or off-flavors can be reduced by bringing the wash up to temperature slowly instead of quickly at 5500 watts?

Most homebrew shops sell a form of wort filter. Hop blocker by Blichmann Engineering is one I use when homebrewing. I don't filter when distilling. Have found no advantage to doing so.

I can imagine filtering to be good as well as bad. Good, where it takes out the yeast. That would mean less taste transfer of yeast (probably being stressed out by being cooked). And it would mean less taste transfer from grain particles into your final drink.

But does it have an influence on the heads faction? The formation of lower BP Alcs?

Even if not, I feel this tread is accumulating lots and lots of info on how - by improving our fermentation process - improving our drink. With smaller cuts for Heads needed.

Great!

A few things we learned so far, and please add, where I forget things:
- Ferment at low temps;
- Use specialized yeast;
- Use that yeast in its suggested environmental conditions (temperature, SG, etc.);
- Ferment in a place (or places) that get cooler as the abv in the wash increases
- ...

Odin.

lampshade wrote:

RNaka wrote:... and they also filter their finished wort prior to distilling. They said it was to reduce the proteins that lead to the off taste. (Heads)?

Any thoughts about what equipment could be used to filter the wort before distilling?

They, (Stranahans), mentioned the use of perlite. Not sure how.

Odin wrote:I can imagine filtering to be good as well as bad. Good, where it takes out the yeast. That would mean less taste transfer of yeast (probably being stressed out by being cooked). And it would mean less taste transfer from grain particles into your final drink.

But does it have an influence on the heads faction? The formation of lower BP Alcs?

Even if not, I feel this tread is accumulating lots and lots of info on how - by improving our fermentation process - improving our drink. With smaller cuts for Heads needed.

Great!

A few things we learned so far, and please add, where I forget things:
- Ferment at low temps;
- Use specialized yeast;
- Use that yeast in its suggested environmental conditions (temperature, SG, etc.);
- Ferment in a place (or places) that get cooler as the abv in the wash increases
- ...

Odin.

Give it time to clear. A slow ferment can be hard to wait out. Drop the temp if you can when you reach FG. It will speed up clearing.

Woodshed wrote,

Give it time to clear. A slow ferment can be hard to wait out. Drop the temp if you can when you reach FG. It will speed up clearing.

I would add, After reaching FG you should first allow for a rest period of 4 to 5 days. The yeast will reabsorb some of the components that cause off flavors. If it still has not cleared, crash cooling should speed things up as woodshed said.

Clean in: Clean out. Keep your abv and your temps down and use healthy yeast. Don't stress your yeast....by temp and/or by trying to push it too hard. Do keep yeast happy and they will make you happy. As long as I can remember being here, that's been the general consensus/understanding/advice.

Not sure where the premise that this thread is based on came from (ie., that you don't need to worry about stressed yeast because you fix it when you distill it). I've never seen any suggestion that you can fix off flavors from a bad/ stressed yeast ferment with your heads cut. Not even sure where that came from. I do know that oaking...and time...can smooth out some rough spots for any whiskey/brandy. I've had some rough cut, that the ferment wasn't perfect..that made goodl aged whiskey. I do, however, get more variances in flavor even after aging...than a commercial distillery would probably like to have in a product they are selling under a particular brand.

As to experimenting with yeast...I find the subject fascinating. I met someone informally who used to be a flavor chemist for Seagrams. I gave him some of my stuff that was straight up potstilled and made with wild yeast that had sort of a honeysuckle nose to it. It was otherwise, UJSM, oaked and well aged. I put it in a snifter for him and he nosed it for a good long time. Took a sip and said...that's delightful. He drank all of it, and asked if he could have a bit more.

I had a lot of failures too. And frankly, was never able to reproduce that strain that I had captured. I recycled it (saved lees in a sanitized jar) for a few rounds...but made the mistake of using all of it each time (doih!) and the last batch got an infection and ruined it. But, it was a very interesting experiment. Mitchy, you must have a damn lab/ microscope, etc in your house? I find it all very interesting. Would love to play around with it more ...but for now...I just don't have the time to. It's bad enough I've got all the plumbing, etc..crap around. If I was to start setting up a "lab" , etc..I think my wifey would pull the plug on me

Anyway, I think it would interesting to cultivate your own yeast. And or learn to manipulate them, etc.. in some ways. Very cool

As far as commercial yeasts...I can't say I've tried everything. But, I've tried EC_1118, Whiskey Yeast with AG from Bert Strand, Nottingham Ale Yeast, a couple different safale ale yeasts and good ole Flieschmanns or Red Star bakers yeast. Out of all of those..the bakers yeast I have the least amount of problems with off-tastes/flavors whether I pitch it dry, and or make a good starter, etc. That's just been my experience. It's more neutral, and more consistent for me with what I'm doing and the conditions I have. Nottingham I used primarly on AG ferments and it mostly worked well was fairly consistent. Had a good flavor profile. I liked it. But, in a side by side with bakers yeast...it didn't make enough notable difference after a year on oak to warrant the extra cost. But, when I can..I use it for my AG.

In my experience...specialized commercial yeast like that are not nearly as forgiving in other than optimal circumstances. And most home distillers do not have temp controlled fermenters, in dedicated space, etc., although with the growth of homebrewers...that could be a changing/growing segment of members as well. Given that, I just find it easier...to use something that is healthy, consistent, and fairly neutral so I can get some sort of consistent or predictable results from that end of things in my less than optimal environment and concentrate in other areas that I have more control over to get the flavors I'm after (like what I put in my thumper). Good discussion! Thanks.

We need to keep cutting for heads so that we can clean the copper salts out of our still.

woodshed wrote:Reed, Stranahans uses spent grain from a local brewery to a large degree.

My primary ferment is 5 days @ 80F. My second is 14 days @ 60F.

What praytell does Stranahans do with spent grain? Are they making sugarheads? Spent grain get funky quick too. Ever leave your sparge tank full of grain until the next day after making a brew? Even in 24 hours there's a funk coming off there that will make you step back.

You ferment at 80, so I take it youre using distillers yeast? Then your second is 14 more days at 60? wow, you gonna be able to do that commercially after you open? Youre gonna need 20 sets (days) worth of fermenters lined up to do 1 run a day.