Home Distiller

I have a couple of different setups that I use but most commonly it is one of two. I either use a 15 gallon keg boiler attached to an 8 gallon thin keg Thumper or if I'm doing a large wash for stripping I swap out another 15 gallon keg Thumper for the eight gallon thumper to increase by stripping capacity.

now when I run my rig I start to get the thumping in the thumper which I'm guessing contains a little bit of methanol and acetone Vapors from the wash in the main boiler. But all of that gas cannot be cavitating. So doesn't some of the methanol and acetone escape and get condensed when I discard the foreshots but then also come through a little bit later, smeared in with the heads when the thumper comes up to temperature and the methanol and acetone in the thumper wash begins to off-gas?

I throw most heads anyway but help me understand. Doesn't using a thumper necessarily mean you will smear some of the methanol and acetone across the heads as the thumper comes up to temperature?

Well I am still a babe in the woods so to speak but in my limited understanding I can't see how using a thumper would smear any worse than just the pot still alone.

Methanol is considered to be tasteless and is smeared anyway throughout a whole run. But in normal ferments the amount is not a problem.
Nasties, like acetaldehyde, can be a problem. Luckily, other than methanol, they are in the fores and heads.

About the smearing in a thumper: I guess it all depends on the load of the thumper.
Suppose your heads enter an empty thumper. They will condense and be concentrated compared to the original mash. When the thumper heats up, the concentrated nasties in the condensate will start to vapourize, while the hearts coming from the boiler still will condensate. So I do not think the nasties will be smeared.

But why not make testruns????

The temperature of every fraction's vapor point governs what comes off first . Think about it ....... All vapor leaves your boiler into your thumper . You have a captive audience . Now you think that those foreshots are going to hide in the thumper charge and come out and smear with lower volatile product later in the distillation ?
Every fraction vaporizes in it's given window unless you drive too hard .
Thus strip run where you drive as hard as you can without regard for smearing and then the spirit run where you run so slow that any smearing is minimalized .
Running too hard causes smearing . Bad shit doesn't hide in your thumper .

If its the first to leave the boiler , it will be the first to leave the Thumper .