Continuous distillation ? Heads and Tails

[Dadismad99]

Sorry if my questions come from an odd point of view but...

In a continuous run column still, how do they remove the foreshots, heads and Tails?
I understand the chemistry and the theory of the distillation process.
I have seen, helped, witnessed both the good and the bad methods.
As a guy who really needs to sort fact from fiction, I have also visited quite a few commercial operations.
Most lower level brands use continuous fractional towers.
Beer is introduced into the column, quite high up.
Tails drop out the bottom and into the bottom tank and just overflow.
I can understand that part and the theory of how it works.
But what happens to all the nasty stuff, the methanol, acetone and such.

When grilled, most tour guides just beat around the bush, or changed the subject.
A few clever guys invoked the old trade secret talk.
Can someone here help with this question?
I can't get it out of my head

[bluefish_dist]

I have not run a continuous still, but I would expect that it's like other chemical processes where they pull off fractions at different heights. The really light fore shots probably get pulled higher up than the ethanol. They are lighter weights.
If it's the cheap stuff, probably explains why it always has some heads.

[Single Malt Yinzer]

http://startwith.stoli.com/read/1/vodka-distilled" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

If you scroll down you'll see a diagram. It shows what Bluefish was describing. In a continuous still the tails are called bottoms and are recycled or get moved out of the vapor flow of the column. Heads are condensed back to a liquid and then get recycled into analyzer column. The spirit plate is where the product is taken from. From the ones I've seen there are product take off at most of the plates and the product is a mix of those different plates. The rectifier (where product is take from) is similar to a standard column with take offs.

Also know as a Coffey still: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_still" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

It took me a long time to wrap my head around how they work, it's pretty complicated.

[Cu29er]

Maybe this helps. High volatiles go out (via #6 port).
I suspect this could be simplified down to a boiler and a thumper, in a manner.

[Dadismad99]

Viola!
So that is why Jack Daniels uses continuous AND what they call a thumper.
Seems like they are "stretching" the commonplace definition of the word.
They are using the column to recycle tails.
The second column (thumper) to remove undesirables.
I am guessing with that big of an operation the tuning is key.
Being continuous, once tuned you don't want to shut down.

Thanks guys, it clicked.

[der wo]

In a typical Whiskey column and thumper distillation no fores are cut.The angels share will cut them. The diagram above is not suitable for flavored spirits, only for neutral alcohol. And also for this purpose the foreshots removal is less inefficient than with a batch distillation.

[Single Malt Yinzer]

In case someone finds this post I wanted to add the wiki article: http://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Coffey_Still" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow Hopefully between this post and the wiki most people will be able to figure it out.