Smearing with a Thumper/Liebig vs Liebig

[my98xc600]

I'm looking for a little more info on running a pot still with just a Liebig and doing stripping runs and then spirit runs, or adding a Thumper with a Liebig condenser and running once and done.
I've been doing a lot of reading and I'm getting a little confused. So far I've had good results doing stripping runs followed up with spirt runs. I've been thinking about adding a thumper to my system but in the prosses of doing my homework, I'm not sure I will have better results with a thumper or just continuing with what I"m doing.
I'm running a 13-gallon pot still and have to do quite a few stripping runs in order to have enough low wines to do a spirt run. It takes 2 gallons just to cover the element. My thought is if I add a thumper I'll cut my time and energy in half but what I've been reading is adding a thumper may increase smearing and it makes it harder to make cuts. Am I miss understanding what I'm reading or is smearing more of a problem with a thumper?

[still_stirrin]

Adding a thumper adds options to the product list. It gives you the opportunity to increase flavor in the spirit by putting some wash in the thumper when you do a spirit run. Or, you can add some low wines in the thumper to boost the product %ABV.

In general, adding a thumper adds a plate, giving you one more redistillation over what you’d get if you were just running a potstill. But, you’re doing strip + spirit runs which will give you a higher purity due to the 2nd redistillation. Plus, you’re starting the spirit run with a higher purity (low wines) charge in the boiler.

If you were to add some fresh wash to the thumper during your spirit run, then you can get the advantage of more flavor and still get a higher %ABV off still. But that is a strip + spirit protocol, not a “one & done” protocol. With the “one & done” I think you’d be hard pressed to pull the purity off you’re currently getting with the strip + spirit run. Sure, it may be quicker, but the product will certainly be different (better or worse depends on what you’re trying to make).

In the end...if it ain’t broke...why fix it? A thumper could be a useful tool, but will it give you what you really want out of your still? If you like a spirit run to produce hearts at cask strength, then the strip + spirit is probably your best bet. If you’re wanting a full flavored spirit ready to drink white right off the still, then a thumper would be a great tool. Similarly, if you’re wanting to make a brandy, then the thumper is quite a useful tool as well.

So, you’ve got to decide what you want...nobody can tell you what to do, although everybody has an opinion.
ss

[shadylane]

I'm looking for a little more info on running a pot still with just a Liebig and doing stripping runs and then spirit runs, or adding a Thumper with a Liebig condenser and running once and done.

How about using the pot and thumper for stripping runs

[jonnys_spirit]

I’m very happy with my simple pot still. I will collect low wines from 2-3 stripping runs for a spirit run batch but that also allows me to collect, concentrate, infect, and reuse the backset as part of my process.

This works great for pretty much everything I have made so far which is whiskies, brandies, grappa, blue agave, all grain mashes, etc.

I get the urge to complicate it often then eventually decide to leave it simple. The auality i am getting now is outstanding.

I have parts for a modular reflux column which I will run when i’ve got enough feints.

I think next and final still purchase will be a small alembic for 1-2gallon gin runs of already cut neutral or similar. Probably a 10liter alembic will be great for that.

One thing adding a largish thumper allows is for steam strips on grain and some increased capacity for yoir stripping runs.

Best luck!
-j

[Truckinbutch]

All good advice . What suits your taste is part of the learning experience . I run a thumper equal to the size of the boiler and condense with a liebig . Strip run hard and dirty and slow spirit runs .

[my98xc600]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I like the results I'm getting so far so now may not be the time to mess with a good thing. Maybe down the road I'll give it a shot once Ive learned more, but it's to early for me to start changing that large of a variable when I'm still new to this. I need to focus on one thing at a time.

Thanks again.

[shadylane]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I like the results I'm getting so far so now may not be the time to mess with a good thing. Maybe down the road I'll give it a shot once Ive learned more, but it's to early for me to start changing that large of a variable when I'm still new to this. I need to focus on one thing at a time.

Thanks again.

There Ya Go

[Truckinbutch]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I like the results I'm getting so far so now may not be the time to mess with a good thing. Maybe down the road I'll give it a shot once Ive learned more, but it's to early for me to start changing that large of a variable when I'm still new to this. I need to focus on one thing at a time.

Thanks again.

You just graduated . Eat the apple one bite at a time . I think you will do fine .

[Smokee]

I run a thumper on all my runs. I do two 6 gallon batches of all-grain then strip them using water in the thumper, fast, then do a spirit run with water. I usually get excellent results.

[vagabondmountainman]

Hey everybody I have a similar question to my98. Hopefully it helps my 98 with his decision to run a thumper or not as well as answers my question. If this is not the best place to post it, if not let me know and I will start a new post. It's kind of a long post, because I have a few related questions and I want to put ss much of the relevant information as I can out there rather than adding it as people ask more questions. I hope that's okay.

I've been doing all Grain bourbon distillations with my two inch pot still for the last 8 months or so and having good results with a stripping run, followed by a slow spirit run. I'm fairly new to distilling, but I've been making beer for about 15 years, and have added a setup to convert one of my 26 gallon Brew pots into a pot still. So far for the bourbon runs I have been doing,the final product has been very good, but I decided to add a thumper to see if I could do everything in one pass and is still in one day, rather than the two days it normally takes me for stripping and spirit runs. However while it worked, I'm not sure what to make out of the results as I seem to have ended up with many more heads and tails and less hearts than I get going the runs the other way.

On my last batch I ran 20 gallons of and 8% all grain (corn, two row, rye) mix through my 26 gallon pot still with 5 gallon keg thumper charged with 1 gallon of feints from a previous bourbon run at 40%. I normally run my pot still head around a 180 degrees. It starts producing foreshots around 145 to 160 degrees, and I usually get most of the heads from 170 to 180, hearts from 180 to 190, and then tails after that. I do the hearts cut by taste, but on the five previous batches I have run, the proof is almost always between 158 to 160 down to about 120-130.

With my first Thumper run, I seem to have a much higher proportion of very high proof coming out of the still, I'm not sure if that's normal and I need to make the cuts at a higher alcohol percentage, or somehow I just ended up with a lot more heads from rerunning the feints. I had to get the pot still head up to around 200 degrees to start getting anything out of the thumper, and even then it took about an hour to heat up so that I could hear it boiling, despite preheating it to about 120 degrees before I connected everything. Both Thumper and connecting pots were insulated, and I was running everything in my garage with a temperature around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. From the 20 gallons in the boiler plus the one gallon in the thumper, I ended up with 7.5 liters of product in small jars. The first 500 mL jar came out around 190 proof, with the second 500ml dropping down to around 175. I separated this first liter out as foreshots/early heads. The The next 1.5 L of jars (mostly collected in 200 mL increments) we're from 170 proof down to 161. I then ended up with 2 L of what I would normally consider the Hearts by proof from 160 down to 122 (again collected in jars and 200 to 300 ml increments). The last 3 liters I collected from 116 proof down to 40 proof for tails.

At first I thought maybe use of the thumper just skewed my output to all having higher alcohol, and I would end up incorporating a lot of the jars above 160 into the hearts cut, however when diluted they all have the taste I would usually associated with heads, and I'm finding my normal alcohol percentages to be just about right on, between 160 down to 120 for the hearts cut.
Usually I get close to 50% or more hearts, but I'm down closer to 25% on this run and not sure why. Maybe this is normal, but it seems to be a pretty conservative hearts cut if I'm only ending up with 2 L out of 7.5 liters collected. I'm wondering if I possibly smeared everything by running the boiler too hot in that has messed up the flavors.. Every time I would turn the gas down under the boiler at all the condensor would cease to drip anything out. I was running the thumper at a fast drip, but not a stream. I think I ran it slow enough, as it took me around 9 hours at a steady drip to collect everything. Condenser water around 65 degrees, and Ambient Air Temperature around 60.

I'm considering diluting everything other than the one liter of foreshots and early heads down to 40%, and re running just through the pot still without the thumper, super slow to see if I get more hearts. But I was hoping one of you master distillers would have some advice for me. From what I've read and other posts, it seems like the way most people run the boilers for a thumper is to ignore the temperature, and just go based on what it takes to get a steady drip out of the thumper. Maybe I'm just getting so much volume of heads and tails from rerunning the faints from a prior version in the thumper? If anyone has any advice, I would be extremely grateful. I read everything I can on the parent site and in other post regarding temperatures and cuts with Thumpers but can't seem to find a good concrete answer. I would really like to figure out how to make as good of bourbon in one pass with the thumper as I do and to with just the pot still.

Thanks very much for any advice.

[still_stirrin]

This might be a clue:

...I'm wondering if I possibly smeared everything by running the boiler too hot...

You said the heads were wider and the hearts narrower. I suspect it was smearing from driving the boiler harder...to activate the thumper. A thumper should “add a plate” of reflux, thereby boosting the proof offstill.

But, it will make the still “reactive” in that adjustments create a lag (delay) from the setting change to the restabilization of the process flow. Depending on the thumper size and piping size (diameter and length), this “reaction time” could become long enough for you to make several adjustments before the flow stabilizes.

Members here who run thumpers know their processes and their equipment, and I suspect each still + thumper has its own “personality”. Running it again will help you learn your setup as well. But, comparing the thumper addition to the potstill operation may not be a fair comparison.

Sorry if my reply is “vague”. I am not experienced with thumper operations. Yet I want to encourage you to continue the learning process.
ss

[vagabondmountainman]

Thanks a lot for your reply. I'm going to try running everything again just with the pot still so that I can compare the fractions I've taken off and see what they are. Hopefully the flavors will be cleaner and easier to separate. I may have smeared it, but now that I think about it more, I think its very likely the overall more sharp flavors and the volume of heads is due to me charging the thumper with a gallon of feints. I'm not sure how much lower I could have run the temperature on the boiler, and every time I turned it down even a few degrees the thumper would stop producing anything. I still haven't quite figured out how rerunning feints that were undesirable the first time, becomes that much more desirable the second time-- at least for a smooth whiskey like bourbon.

I understand that you are capturing good ethanol, but it seems like to some degree you are just fractionating out the same components again and the heads will still be heads and the tails will still be tails as many times as you rerun them. I assume you can concentrate them somewhat and end up with a little bit more hearts, but I'm not sure how well this process works on the pot still. I was thinking about it yesterday and the amount of heads that were in the feints thumper charge from the previous run, is probably just about equal to the amount of extra heads is that I ended up with on this run, same for the extra tails. Perhaps the main part of my mistake comes from saving both heads and tails to rerun-- I've read some people save both and some just save tails. I bet I not only added a lot more heads, but also smeared them into the hearts.

I will do another 20 gallon bourbon Mash soon, and next time charge the thumper with either water or part of the wash and see if that makes a difference. From now on I think I will either save the heads and tails for all Feints runs, rather than a thumper charge, or better yet just save the tails and toss the heads. There's no point boosting the alcohol with the thumper charge if the majority of that extra alcohol is early heads. It just makes more work separating them out again. As I reflect on it, the batches I have distilled that contained recycled heads and tales were more alcoholic, but much less smooth then the batches that were just fresh wash. If I'm viewing the rerunning of the heads and tails completely wrong please correct me.