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Hi all,

Never had everclear before, so I'm not quite sure what to expect as I taste the 'hearts' of my distillate. Using a Gerber wash, heads and tails both have noticable taste and smell (heads are nasty, tails smell shockingly good), and the hearts are very 'neutral' in that it tastes to me like very strong vodka. The only thing I can really taste at all is a slight sweetness. My 1st wash may have had some residual sugar in it due to my impatience in waiting for it to fully finish, but the 2nd one had a S.G. of 1.01 and had no sweet taste to it at all (very dry). Still, the hearts taste a little sweet to me, about the same as the 1st batch that may have still had a bit of sugar left in the wash. Maybe my tongue's just crazy, as a drop of Skyy vodka tastes a little sweet to me too (and sadly, better than my stuff, but I'm just learning . . .). Just curious if this is how the hearts should taste or not, thanks for any feedback.

Yes, ethynol has a slight sweetness to it.

they can taste sweet to you or like corn or plums if thats the ferment. i don't think any unused sugars come across, they are still in the dunder. as long as they dont taste like nail polish remover or the wet beagle nextdoor sweet is fine

If its real sweet could still be into some heads

I was a little concerned that my first run had a sweet odor, but not really taste, through almost the whole run, but now after a couple of days airing it has almost completely gone. I just have a hint of it now. Glad to hear sweet is fine.

what makes this a tough call is.... what's sweet to one is on the savory side to some one else. you could be one of them guys who likes 6 cups of sugar to the gallon of sweet tea. early tails on sugar based washes tastes sweet to me

Thanks all, next run I'll split the hearts into early and late, and taste the two side-by-side later to see if I notice this sweetness all the way through or not. I'm beginning to see that the 'art' of distilling is going to be a lot harder to master than the mere 'science' of it!

If you are using a potstill with no doubler or other reflux,there might be a jar or 2 somewhere...but it's mostly going to be in transition from heads going in, to tails going out through the run. So, your "hearts" are going to have "some" faded /smeared parts of both heads and tails in it that are to be expected. The trick is to know how much of it to make it blend right and taste like you want...without overdoing it and end up with burning/stinging/or heavy tails off flavors dominating. If you are using some reflux, it "compresses the heads/tails more out from the middle, leaving a larger clean (but higher proof..ie, less flavor) hearts section to blend. All to taste..but that's the basics of it.

I've had early tails taste sweet too. Seems to differ on nearly every run. Have to just taste it out. Do a small sample test blend to see how it blends together. Sometimes that can change things a bit too. Use a shot glass of each jar and blend together. See how it tastes then. That way, if you screw up or find something really off, you aren't throwing out your jars.

carl1078lewis wrote:Thanks all, next run I'll split the hearts into early and late, and taste the two side-by-side later to see if I notice this sweetness all the way through or not. I'm beginning to see that the 'art' of distilling is going to be a lot harder to master than the mere 'science' of it!

So true, Carl.

blanik

carl1078lewis wrote: I'm beginning to see that the 'art' of distilling is going to be a lot harder to master than the mere 'science' of it!

Takes time for your palate (taste and smell) to start recognising the differences. But that skill is the heart and soul of the whole thing.

One good trick is to smell the spirit as it slowly evaporates off your finger, and note how it changes from start to finish. The different smells (components) can be very different, and they come off in order of boiling point, with the lowest boiling point evaporating first. It is one way I use to pick early tails, they start appearing right at the end of the smell taste, the last component to evaporate off.

In my last 2 runs, I split the hearts into 2 parts. The 1st run I didn't really make the cuts by taste, but just went by measurement of the volume of the output. The 2nd run I did sample things as I went along. The late hearts jar from the 1st run wound up with a lot of tails in it, enough that it tastes like the wet cardbord that everyone talks about here (now I know!). The 2nd run I was able to actually taste the tails as they started to come out and cut over to a new container in time to hopefully save the 2nd half of that run of hearts (it's airing now, and I'll taste it soon). What a feeling of pride to actually feel like I made a half way decent decision on what to do based on taste. If I'd stuck to the formula I know I would have ruined it. Also, while tasting the run as I went through the heads, it seemed to me that the taste cleaned up much faster than my cuts according to formula. I felt like I was tasting good ethyl quite a bit before I cut to the hearts. I'll be sure to keep experimenting with this now that I'm starting to get an idea about a few things.

Collecting in smaller lots helps as well. If you miss a cut on a 300ml jar, it's not near as bad as doing it on a 1 or 2 litre jug.