Fore shots

[Melvin]

How many ml per gallon of foreshots should I remove from 5 gallons of wash? Thanks.

[just-a-sip]

please do a search

[Melvin]

please do a search

You cant just tell me?

[junkyard dawg]

He could but he'd have to ....

There is not a set number... I would take a couple of ounces out per gallon. Some may take more, some less. The parent site has lots of good reading on the subject.

[Im gone]

Numbers that people state are 50 ml to 200 ml. It really depends on the wash. The best way is to use your nose and tongue as guides.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[midnightmaraude]

Hmmm I take like 3oz out per 2 3/4 gallons.

[junkyard dawg]

In practice, its not a critical cut.

Its not critical because heads follow after the fores and I don't drink all the heads either. I cut out a lot of early heads from what I'm saving to drink.

[Marshwalker]

I take 200ml per 12 gallons...give or take... that might not be right though..

[Melvin]

Previously I believe I used to take 50 ml per gallon. Just havn't done it in a while. Sound good?

[Durace11]

On a 5 gallon wash, I typically consider the first beer bottle fores and the second early heads and discard them both without even a taste.

[midnightmaraude]

On a 5 gallon wash, I typically consider the first beer bottle fores and the second early heads and discard them both without even a taste.

Really? 12ounces of heads???

I was told that 2 ounces for my 3 gallons was a good amount.

[Durace11]

I actually only fill them to about 10oz but yeah, I don't like the bite of heads and I don't even mess with foreshots. Wider cuts are my personal choice and I like the end product so who cares if I throw out a couple of extra ounces of maybe drinkable product. I make up for it the next day by not having a hangover. I also air it out a lot longer than most people, 1 week minimum, sometimes longer. Call me wasteful or stupid but it tastes damn good to me so that's the way I do it.

[rad14701]

The real and proper answer here is to do research on making proper cuts and go by the guidelines of taste, smell, and feel... Tossing numbers about is sheer folly until YOU know how to properly make cuts with YOUR still and have the proper numbers for each different wash/mash recipe being run...

[Roundyround]

For me Duracell is on the right track. I usually take most of a quart off of 6 gallon boiler charge and pitch it. I don't reflux, just pot still... so why just keep processing the same distasteful alcohol over and over. It seems to me to be smarter to make cuts early in the process and strive for a high quality not quantity. If I was after quantity it would probably be cheaper to just buy some swill by the handle and call it good. I seriously didn't think I would be able to made a decent product so early on. Decent not great, but it gives me hope for things to come.

[Prairiepiss]

For me Duracell is on the right track. I usually take most of a quart off of 6 gallon boiler charge and pitch it. I don't reflux, just pot still... so why just keep processing the same distasteful alcohol over and over. It seems to me to be smarter to make cuts early in the process and strive for a high quality not quantity. If I was after quantity it would probably be cheaper to just buy some swill by the handle and call it good. I seriously didn't think I would be able to made a decent product so early on. Decent not great, but it gives me hope for things to come.

Even with a pot still. Feints can give up quite a bit of good alcohol. One of the keys is collecting enough feints to get something out of it. If you take the feints from one run. There is just a little good alcohol left and hard to separate out. Because the hearts cut you got from just running it would be very small. But if you take the feints from say 5 runs. Now the hearts cut of good alcohol is 5 times larger.

And if your like me. I make very conservative cuts. Probably adding a lot of what others would keep into the feints jug. Only keeping the best hearts. With maybe a touch of heads and tails for flavor. But I do this knowing that when I run it in the all feints run I will recover a much better portion of the good alcohol. And really it will be cleaner then if I would have kept it from the first run. When I do an all feints run I do a version of Big R's pot still feints run. Run it twice through in pot still mode. Removing a little more heads and tails each run. Then a heavy reflux run for the keeper run. Although the last run could be done with a pot still. And would give you a nice product. The hearts from my second pot still run are great. I can just get much better heads and tails compression with the reflux. So I get a little more out of it. But you just gota work with the equipment you have. And it can be done successfully with a lot still. And you shouldn't discount it if you haven't at least tried it once.

Doing it like this will also aid in getting over the greed factor. Knowing you will get mote from it later.

[Dirge]

Doing it like this will also aid in getting over the greed factor. Knowing you will get mote from it later.

Good point, at least as far as I'm concerned!

[Prairiepiss]

Now as far as foreshots are concerned. I make larger then normal foreshots cuts on all my runs.

And my feelings towards tails is this. If I have at least some tails in my still charge. That's what will be left behind in the boiler. If I didn't add any tails to a charge. Then good alcohol would be left behind. Seeing how you can't collect all the alcohol.

This is all personal preference and opinion. Your mileage may vary.

[Bushman]

PP, I think a lot of us are like minded in this, some of my best runs have been saved feints from 5-6 previous runs.

[Prairiepiss]

I would agree with that. Bushman. I wish more would realize the usefulness of feints.

My last all feints run I recovered over a gallon of good clean 95%. I'm gona guess to say it was the feints from 5 to 8 runs. I can't remember really? But still that's a gallon of 95% I would have tossed out.

[Hawk_]

For me Duracell is on the right track. I usually take most of a quart off of 6 gallon boiler charge and pitch it. I don't reflux, just pot still... so why just keep processing the same distasteful alcohol over and over. It seems to me to be smarter to make cuts early in the process and strive for a high quality not quantity. If I was after quantity it would probably be cheaper to just buy some swill by the handle and call it good. I seriously didn't think I would be able to made a decent product so early on. Decent not great, but it gives me hope for things to come.

Even with a pot still. Feints can give up quite a bit of good alcohol. One of the keys is collecting enough feints to get something out of it. If you take the feints from one run. There is just a little good alcohol left and hard to separate out. Because the hearts cut you got from just running it would be very small. But if you take the feints from say 5 runs. Now the hearts cut of good alcohol is 5 times larger.

And if your like me. I make very conservative cuts. Probably adding a lot of what others would keep into the feints jug. Only keeping the best hearts. With maybe a touch of heads and tails for flavor. But I do this knowing that when I run it in the all feints run I will recover a much better portion of the good alcohol. And really it will be cleaner then if I would have kept it from the first run. When I do an all feints run I do a version of Big R's pot still feints run. Run it twice through in pot still mode. Removing a little more heads and tails each run. Then a heavy reflux run for the keeper run. Although the last run could be done with a pot still. And would give you a nice product. The hearts from my second pot still run are great. I can just get much better heads and tails compression with the reflux. So I get a little more out of it. But you just gota work with the equipment you have. And it can be done successfully with a lot still. And you shouldn't discount it if you haven't at least tried it once.

Doing it like this will also aid in getting over the greed factor. Knowing you will get mote from it later.

+1, Ive got a good 3 gallons of feints now and will run it soon.

[Roundyround]

I apologize if I misspoke , I keep feints just not the first heads. Probably 1/2 the heads I toss. But rest and all tails go into my feints jug. As I type I'm running a seven gallon charge of feints treated with sodium carbonate on first leg of a distilling trifecta.