Build up of methanol with using feints?
Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:01 am
O.K. another pot still question. Imagine this cycle:
1.) Pot distil a 25L, 10% wash. Throw the first 250ml. Keep the hearts. Save the heads and tails as feints in a bottle. Add backset from still to next wash and ferment.
2.) Add the feints to the still with the next fermented wash (of the same stuff). Distil again.
Now, as the heads from the distillation before contained some methanol there will be more methanol in the next distillate. Therefore the heads section will be longer. There will also be more ethanol as both the heads and the tails contain some so will the ABV of the distillate increase?.
If you repeat the process you get more and more methanol, therefore and longer and longer heads section, and more ethanol.
The question is: is this right? If you always use feints from the run before do always have to wait longer for the hearts and does the ABV of the distillate increase?
Cheers.
1.) Pot distil a 25L, 10% wash. Throw the first 250ml. Keep the hearts. Save the heads and tails as feints in a bottle. Add backset from still to next wash and ferment.
2.) Add the feints to the still with the next fermented wash (of the same stuff). Distil again.
Now, as the heads from the distillation before contained some methanol there will be more methanol in the next distillate. Therefore the heads section will be longer. There will also be more ethanol as both the heads and the tails contain some so will the ABV of the distillate increase?.
If you repeat the process you get more and more methanol, therefore and longer and longer heads section, and more ethanol.
The question is: is this right? If you always use feints from the run before do always have to wait longer for the hearts and does the ABV of the distillate increase?
Cheers.