ester question regarding heads

[Tōtōchtin]

Hola,
I was having my morning coffee watching a show on utube with Alan Bishop. He happened to start talking about something I am planning on doing here soon. He said that when you are slowly bringing your wash up to temps to help increase esters,that its a failed excersise unless you remove all the heads first. If I followed him correctly he feels all the esters I make will stay in the heads cut only.
Does that ring true with the Hive?
Toto

[PLAYMP]

I asked a related question a little while ago, maybe referencing the same video. Though I don't remember that talking point or didn't take it the exact same way. The thread is here:

viewtopic.php?p=7753282#p7753282

I have heard that ester precursors are concentrated in the heads, ethyl acetate being the one that stands out there. But my question is whether that's because you have the highest concentrations of carboxylic acids and alcohol (precursors) in the heads, and while the ABV dwindles in the boiler esterification is more challenging even in spite of plenty of acid precursors in the tails. This would obviously be a point in favor of recycling your tails into the next run. Happy to have anybody tear me apart on my misunderstanding on that one if I'm way off.

[OtisT]

The way Toto summarized it, it sounds like Alan says the esters are being created during warmup but they will come across early in the distillation process with the heads. I’ve got no proof but I could certainly believe this to be true.

I don’t have any scientific proof, but I have noticed more than a few great smells that are lost entirely in a spirit run or great smells that appear only along with the early heads. One example, I got the most incredible smell of a fragrant rose in one of my collection jars. It was a thing of beauty. It only existed in one jar early in the collection that was still loaded with ethyl acetate, so it did not make the cut.

[LWTCS]

Hola,
I was having my morning coffee watching a show on utube with Alan Bishop. He happened to start talking about something I am planning on doing here soon. He said that when you are slowly bringing your wash up to temps to help increase esters,that its a failed excersise unless you remove all the heads first. If I followed him correctly he feels all the esters I make will stay in the heads cut only.
Does that ring true with the Hive?
Toto

Link to that please?

[NZChris]

It sounds like he is theorizing that 'heads' are some kind of specific, nasty, VOC that can be cut out. If that is the case, then he is confused, and you should take any advice from him with a pinch of salt.

'Heads' is the name for the early take that the distiller decides against including in the hearts.

Heads contain all of the same VOCs as the hearts, but the concentrations differ. To get an idea of what happens, search the net for graphs showing the curves of the various VOCs that come over during a distillation.

[PLAYMP]

Link to that please?

Found the video here and the part the original posted is commenting on is around 6:25:



He’s responding to a question on refluxing for a period of time to deliberately facilitate esterification. Ironically it’s not me asking even though I made a post about the same thing.

Bishop seems to say that if you’re going to do that take a heads cut first because once those esters form they’ll come out towards the start of the run and everything you worked for will get cut with the heads.

[NZChris]

You can do that with any still. Take off a foreshot, turn the heat off, shoot the boiler, thumper, a retort with your addition and put the heat back on.

[Tōtōchtin]

Well I'm still confused how and why the large distillery's do slowly heat up their was to produce more esters. Looking at photos of their stills I don't see how they're shooting anything.
Adding a rum wash that you slowly heated up for hours to your boiler after slowly pulling off to the early hearts would seem a better way to increase your esters. You would have a smaller volume of heads to deal with, but it seems to complicated for the distillery's to be doing so.
I don't know who is more evasive goose eye or NZChris when answering questions. I found this thread looking up how people were adding to their boiler during runs.
viewtopic.php?t=52779&start=30
It was a while back and here NZChris you said you haven't figured out "yet" if it was feasible to do so,that was years ago so are you doing that know in your shed?
Another thread NZCHRIS said this

Jamaican rum makers have control over the contents of their double thumpers, so it's not that weird an idea. Having a method of adjusting molasses, low wines, botanicals, etc., during a run and being able to sense the difference almost straight away at the spout sounds good to me.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=47594
I was wondering if NZChris could expand on this as to what controls/methods the distillery's are using.
Tōtō

[NZChris]

Don't overthink it. I doubt that they adjust anything during a run, even though the plumbing is in place so it could be done. In pics I've seen, the collection vessels and retorts were plumbed so that the charges can be made up without workers lugging buckets.

Control is the same as it is for us, deciding when to switch the distillate into the appropriate receivers.