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Just curious, How much does a parrot add to the smearing in a pot still? Seems that some smearing must occur even if minute? I understand that the new product entering pushes out the existing product but when going very slow on a spirit run I feel that some smearing is occurring that I would rather not happen.

Also, It was suggested to me to not use the parrot and look for the oils in the tails to know when the run was over. I really like this idea as I have grown dependent on the parrot but I am afraid I will not notice the oils in the tails to determine the stopping point. I have never noticed the oils before (wasn't looking for them either); I just relied on my parrot to tell me when I hit 20% to stop the run.

Depends on the size of the parrot but, yes, it does cause a little more smearing. It's really not enough to make a huge difference in my experience. You'll learn when to shut it down by smell and feel of you just pay attention. I never notice a lot of oils in my runs either. Smell, taste and touch tell me what's happening and I can use the parrot to confirm what my senses tell me.

I don't remember who, maybe bearriver, but someone put some food coloring in a parrot and found extreme smearing. it apparently took a long time for the coloring to be pushed though. I know i do not use a parrot during the a spirit run other than checking abv and ill dump the contents into a jar and move on to the next jar without it. I use the parrot during the spirit run just to check abv every few jars. I will use it during the striping runs so I know where im at with the run but I don't make cuts using it. .

You only need a parrot if you want to make cuts on the fly based on ABV. If you intend to air jars overnight, then blend, what would be the point in having a parrot?

I love using a parrot to assist in my cuts. It's a great tool.

The comment about the food coloring is just what I was wondering (suspected). I might even try that experiment myself.

thanks

Add a drain at bottom of parrot for taking fores and heads,once gone close valve and take hearts as normal when tails show up at spout switch to the tails jar!

bentstick wrote:Add a drain at bottom of parrot for taking fores and heads,once gone close valve and take hearts as normal when tails show up at spout switch to the tails jar!

Good one Bentstick...
I never use a parrot, i just fill a graduated glasscylinder when i feel the need to meassure the proof.
For the most, i just stick my finger into the stream.
Rub the distillate between the fingers, smell it..that tells me a whole lot.
If i ever was to build a parrot, i would definatly add a drainvalve at the bottom, as suggested.

I'm a little skeptical about the amount and influence of smearing in a parrot.
With regards to food coloring, a couple of mls of color in solution may influence the color of the liquid for some time before it clears, but what influence would a few ounces of product really have in regards to detectable flavor, ABV, smell, etc. in a pint jar. It's not like you are taking some of the initial heads and putting them directly into the center of the run. In a 12 gallon charge I may have 4-5 pint jars (or more) in the center of the hearts that I can't detect any difference in. If it's smearing the initial heads or late tails those are going in to the feints jar anyway. Don't run your fores through the parrot, that would serve no purpose. If you want an experiment take a few ounces from the previous jar collected and put it in the next jar and see if you can detect any change or how much it takes to make it detectable.

I used a parrot and thought it improved my running but switched to monitoring my overhead vapor temperature to calculate the abv. In my case, there was quite a bit of smearing.

It wasn't me, but other members have done the food coloring test with mixed results... I have a parrot but only used it a dozen times before the novelty wore off. It's not a tool I choose to use.

Never built one, probably never will, and don't see the point. We talk a lot about how a pot still smears, so what would be the point of adding to the smearing for some dubious advantage? Is it really that difficult to pour the contents of a collection jar into your alcometer test jar to take a reading? Tails are fairly easy to detect. When I know that I'm into tails, I occasionally do a flame test with a small sample (tsp., or so). When I can't get it to flame, I shut down.

It's been discussed many times here that ABV isn't reliable for determining cuts. If you accept that, then what advantage could there be to using a parrot?

S-Cackalacky wrote:It's been discussed many times here that ABV isn't reliable for determining cuts. If you accept that, then what advantage could there be to using a parrot?

I guess I would argue that it isn't all or nothing thing but rather additive. I would agree that if you make your cuts based primarily on ABV you are seriously missing out on the potential of your product (insert really screwing it up). I run the fores into a fores jar and then put my parrot in. It might be a little anal but I record time, temp, and ABV at the beginning of each pint jar and at the end of each jar. I smell it, feel it and taste it with my finger under the stream during the run and make notes for each jar. When I make the cuts 24-48 hours later I look at all my notes including the information that my parrot provided throughout the run.
In the end my taster makes the final decision but all the other things helped me do that.

Not trying to convert anyone to using a parrot, I made my first handful of runs without one. I just have my doubts as to what influence a parrot may have on detectable smearing.

( I use the word argue very loosely because many times when I comment on here I feel like a once a year golfer trying to give golf pointers to Phil Mickelson)

S-Cackalacky wrote:
It's been discussed many times here that ABV isn't reliable for determining cuts. If you accept that, then what advantage could there be to using a parrot?

Makes my collection point consistent when reconfiguring my column, and for "some" still heads ABV is not reliable my column seems to be reliable for the the same ABV on the heads cut,hearts cut and tails cut with almost all recipes I use! and as your statements,my statement is my experince and opinion!

Bentstick, I'm not sure I fully followed what you were saying. The OP was specifically asking about using a parrot with a pot still. I don't run a reflux still, so I don't know if what I said makes sense in that context.

I made a parrot during my initial build and kept using it when I added a thumper . Collect in half pints after foes for 16 or so on a spirit run . When nose , feel , and taste tell me I'm into hearts I increase the collection size until I approach tails . Experience is the only real teacher and the only real experience you gain is what tastes good to you .
>After all , this is craft distilling for our own use/tastes . If you like it , own it . If not , change your way of doing it . This is your own creation .

+1 Truckingbutch

I don't really care about the ABV, my nose and tastebuds, tells me where to do the cuts.
This is especially true, when i run my potstill.
It's also the reason why i don't do a run if i have a cold, nose and tastebuds are worthless at that point.

So, when you folks with parrots use them, do you drain it into a jar after each time it fills and you take a reading? If not, you're smearing your product. Think about it - you're in heads, that is, the parrot is full of heads. Then, the output of your condenser transitions to hearts. How long might it take the hearts production to fully purge the parrot of its full charge of heads? For ever how long it takes, you are smearing heads into hearts. These are hearts that might have made it to your cuts blend. Same goes for the hearts to tails transition - you have a parrot full of hearts and then along comes tails. How long does it take the tails to completely purge the hearts from the parrot? So, there you have hearts smeared with tails on the back end of your run. Do those smeared jars get dumped into your feints jar or into your cuts blend?

I can see how a parrot might have some use in large scale commercial production, but on the hobby scale it seems self defeating. I get the feeling that pride of workmanship is clouding the ability to see the reality of the situation. Is it really so difficult to pour the contents of a collection jar into a test jar and take an alcometer reading, or use your senses to know when you're collecting tails? Sorry, but I see using a parrot as sacrificing quality for convenience.

Good point S-C.
And that's excactly the reason why i don't use a parrot.
I don't mind to hold a graduated cylinder and fill it, to get a real time reading.
If one hasn't a really big still, it seems to me a parrot will just be there for "show off" and do more harm than good.

I'll bite-
For those that don't use a parrot do you know exactly when your heads -hearts -tails transitions take place and are you able to isolate each transition from the other? Do you use collection jars that are small enough that you are not smearing the transition in the jar? If the transition occurs in the middle of a pint jar (and you can determine exactly when that happens) do you pull the jar and start another?

My point is, there is smearing in a transition and there is smearing in a collection jar. I'm not sure the small amount of smearing that occurs either in a parrot or in a collection jar is compromising the end product. If you ran your spirit run into 3 jars and changed out your collection jars based on the timing of the transition it might be a different story.

Bunch a bird haters I tell ya.

Joking aside, how much smearing do you want?

I mean, a pot still smears. A parrot smears. You intentionally smear when blending. It all comes down to making the spirit you like and then being able to repeat the results that you like and avoid the mistakes you don't like.

+1 kegg jam.

midlife-u-turn wrote:...For those that don't use a parrot do you know exactly when your heads -hearts -tails transitions take place and are you able to isolate each transition from the other? ...

Yep...taste, smell, and touch plus a lot of experience. Also, the recipe and ferment will give you a hint on where the cuts will be.

midlife-u-turn wrote:...Do you use collection jars that are small enough that you are not smearing the transition in the jar? ...

Affirmative. You're starting to "get it".

midlife-u-turn wrote:...If the transition occurs in the middle of a pint jar (and you can determine exactly when that happens) do you pull the jar and start another? ...

At least the "transition" is limited to that jar. But keep in mind that the change from heads to hearts is not an instantaneous event....it is a transition.

midlife-u-turn wrote:...My point is, there is smearing in a transition and there is smearing in a collection jar...

OK, point taken. But when you "integrate" your product over the whole run, it's a snotty mess....those transitions are loooooooooong, not concise or isolated. And the larger the parrot volume, or held up product, the longer the clearing and stabilzation will take.

No, I don't use a parrot. If I was commercial, where I'd like to monitor the hearts runoff, deciphering where the heat input needs to be adjusted, then maybe the parrot would be a useful tool. For "my hobby", it's unnecessary.
ss

rockchucker22 wrote:

Kegg_jam wrote:Bunch a bird haters I tell ya.

Joking aside, how much smearing do you want?

I mean, a pot still smears. A parrot smears. You intentionally smear when blending. It all comes down to making the spirit you like and then being able to repeat the results that you like and avoid the mistakes you don't like.

I agree, I find a parrot a great tool that helps me "read" the run throughout. My findings are very similar if not the same as Bentsticks, hearts hold very steady ABV and as soon as I see the alcoholometer drop just 2 points tails are coming fast. Mind you this is with a plated still where it holds very steady and consistent no matter what wash in running.

I am getting the same results with my 4" packed column.

rockchucker22 wrote:

Kegg_jam wrote:Bunch a bird haters I tell ya.

Joking aside, how much smearing do you want?

I mean, a pot still smears. A parrot smears. You intentionally smear when blending. It all comes down to making the spirit you like and then being able to repeat the results that you like and avoid the mistakes you don't like.

I agree, I find a parrot a great tool that helps me "read" the run throughout. My findings are very similar if not the same as Bentsticks, hearts hold very steady ABV and as soon as I see the alcoholometer drop just 2 points tails are coming fast. Mind you this is with a plated still where it holds very steady and consistent no matter what wash in running.

Rock, I'm suggesting that by the time you see that 2 point drop, you have already smeared tails into whatever hearts were already in the parrot. You're not getting a reliable instant reading of your output, you're getting a reading of what's smeared in the parrot. You've already drawn off smeared hearts/tails before it reaches that 2 point drop and you also have some of your hearts left (smeared) in the parrot when it reaches that 2 point drop.

I'm sure all of you with parrots are proud of the workmanship that went into building them and I'm also sure that's part of the reason you don't want to accept that they may smear your product. I'm sure this will be taken the wrong way, but I compare it to the newb coming here and presenting their spankin' new, hand built pressure cooker still. They don't want to hear that it might be dangerous and get testy when we point that out to them. They built it and by God they're gonna use it - alzheimer's and a house of cinders be damned. And likewise, with a parrot, smearing be damned.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do. I can't make you accept the logic of my argument. If it suits you to smear your product to get what is probably not a terribly accurate ABV reading, then go for it. It's probably not all that important in the scheme of things.

I used to pour the output into my measuring tube to read abv ect for about the first year, thought many times about buikding a parrot but was lazy, so.one day while distillong i thought I'm sick to death of doing this!!!, used to drive me nuts!, so I built one and will never go back. I really don't see the sense in pouring it into a separate tube when the parrot does it all for me.A still with a slow output would work without a.parrot regarding smearing, because by the time you've poured your product into your tube and gone back to the output you'd only have a few drops in your jar, try doing that at 3~4lph!. But, I guess it's all about ease of use, I like ease of use!.

I think instead of a parrot we need a taste-o-meter.

Because of my eyesight, I only take alcometer readings for proofing my final cuts blend for aging and then just one more time when I draw off enough for the first drinking bottle. My other senses aren't much better. I was so stumped with my last cuts, I had to call my daughter down to the basement to sniff the cuts for me. I might be in the market for one of them "taste-o-meters".

If you ran the parrot with the dump valve open and just retained product when you wanted a measurement that would eliminate a lot of smearing but would decrease your feedback.

Think of a parrots beak and alcoholmeter as merely being a tool to tell you what the average proof/%ABV of the spirits coming off the still are right now... Depending on collection jar size and boiler charge volume that proof/%ABV may have been higher at the beginning of the jar and may be lower when the jar is full, so the actual proof/%ABV of the filled jar will be somewhere between the two... And with that comes the same relative potential for smearing...