Triple Pot-Distilled Whiskey - Retaining Flavor

[Avalir]

Hello, everyone!

I've been contemplating and brainstorming this concept for a while and wanted to see if anyone may be able to impart some of their wisdom and experience to help me better map out my game plan so I can try to nullify a little bit of trial and error that I'm sure I'd inevitably encounter.

A couple quick notes: The number of distillations a spirit has undergone is defined as the fewest number of distillations any of the distillate in the final product has undergone, so there's no need to point out that there will technically be four rounds of distilling before the final product is ready for aging.
I'm also aware many will be of the mindset that this plan will take an unnecessary amount of time to achieve successful results, and rest assured that I'm fine doubling down on time if it could correlate to even a 10% increase in quality.

Some background: I age in glass as barrels of a respectable volume aren't the easiest to track down, cost an absorbent amount, and I'd have a heck of a time filling with the quantity I'm capable of producing; so producing a spirit ideal for aging in glass is important to keep in mind.
I will be using a standard pot still for all distillations in this process - I have a 16 gallon boiler with a 2" column/condenser (will hopefully be able to upgrade to a 3" as I'm sure that will be very beneficial to the final spirit run at least); and for reference, after cuts when producing a double distilled whiskey I'll yield a 125-130 proof spirit from a boiler charge of 25% abv low wines.
I will never be diluting with added water - all dilutions will come from running extra deep into the sweet water until I've taken enough to bring my boiler charge abv down to their ideal levels - this is how I hope to retain, and maybe even concentrate, my spirit's flavor and aroma; this is also going to contribute to majority of the additional time that will be required.

So why triple distill? - My thought on this you might consider to be something to do with retaining greed for quantity without sacrificing quality (and hopefully even boosting quality). With aging in glass, I find the most detrimental aspect to be any heads present (as I'm sure most would agree with); in glass, we don't have the benefit of a proper Angel's share being taken and airing it out will only accomplish so much and over airing can bring detrimental impact to the final aroma and flavor.

What's the plan? - For starters, when I strip my wash (it will be an AG ferment on the grain and my yield is typically about 6.5% abv), I'll strip much deeper than I usually would - I'm thinking my target low wine abv will be in the 15-20% range.
From here, it's time for the first spirit run. The key will be running as slow as possible for the best possible separation - we're talking a nice 16-24 hour spirit run. My goal will be to make a hearts cut that has zero detectable heads and tails cut will be made as soon as the true taily tails can be tasted or smelled - I figure having a low low wine abv will reduce the abv of these hearts that I'll set aside (I'd speculate they'd be around 100 proof give or take) and this would mean I'd spend less time later digging into sweet water. From here all early heads will be set aside to be reprocessed into a vodka/neutral later on; the only heads that will be saved for the next run will be what probably could've made the final cut in a double distilled spirit or maybe a little more (will probably equate to somewhere between a pint and a quart) and I'll toss in all tails and sweet water until abv is somewhere around 20% for the next round - I anticipate I'll have to make about 3 batches to have a good volume to work with for the next step.

The second phase will essentially be an all feints run with the non-hearts that were set aside from the first phase - tails will also need to be distilled slowly here. Heads cut will be made pretty much where you would make them in a spirit run, where they are just barely detectable - these can go with the other heads for reprocessing later. In the tails, the goal is to remove all the cloudy, stinky, and foul tasting distilling and this can go with the discarded heads. Sweet water will be run until it can bring the abv of what is kept here combined with the hearts from phase one is brought down to a desired level (I'd assume somewhere between 20-25%, I'm not sure what abv to expect after cuts in the final spirit run since there will be minimal heads to remove and I like to achieve about a 125 product after cuts so I don't have to dilute and diminish flavor before aging).

Phase three will be the final spirit run, which I believe should be self explanatory. Any heads and tails from this will of coarse get placed with the other discarded heads and tails for reprocessing later; I'm debating if I should bother with harvesting/saving any of the sweet water as I probably won't readily have a use for it and I'm not sure how well it might keep - only applications I can think of is to use it similarly to how you'd use backset for a sour mash, though I'm not sure how that may turn out, or set it aside as a time saver for future batches so I can alleviate time spent on harvesting it, but of coarse how well it keeps will be a factor in this route since I'll generally take a week or two break between batches; if it's a backset replacement, maybe spoilage will bring some good and/or interesting flavors with it.

Any thoughts on my process or where my target boiler charge abv should land in any of the three phases for ideal results? And any shared experience with triple distilled whiskey in general is also appreciated.
Thank you all in advance for reading and giving your input!

[NZChris]

Low wines abs vary wildly amongst commercial distillers. Pick one from a distiller that makes something you like and start there. I doubt you'll have any 'tails' from the stripping runs as you'll be over it by the time you reach your target. I use a preheater that saves a lot of the heat and time costs of deep strips.

High wines abvs also vary wildly, so there is probably no correct answer. Pick one, keep good notes.

Most of the commercials recycle from previous spirit runs, not so much from 1st and 2nd distillations. I keep it simple and don't recycle anything unless doing multiple generations like the commercials do. Some of their protocols are very complicated.

If you are going to lose flavor, you will do it while choosing your cuts. I don't taste individual jars as I'm not clever enough to guess what they will do for the hearts, so I have to taste prospective blends to decide what goes into the keeper jar. Often, a jar that I didn't think would make the cut gets included because it rounds out the flavor of the hearts.

[Avalir]

Fair enough. I appreciate the feedback. I feel like my pallet is good at singling out the flavors present and where they came from. I'm sure there will be at least some making educated guesses as to where low/high wine abvs should land - I'm sure this will likely take about 3 attempts to figure out numbers that give me satisfactory results (hoping I can achieve it in 2 or better yet a dumb luck slam dunk of a first try). But in theory, the goal is to have an end product that's high in flavor and has minimal if any heads and hoping by removing less desirable tails in my essentially feints run I'll have a relatively small tails cut that needs to be removed and the distillate should transition from hearts to sweet water with an almost negligible amount between. That being said, I'm also now curious how low the abv will run while still making the final cuts - if it's still good when it's pushing 20%, I could probably get away with a higher abv charge in the spirit run; since there should be a minimal heads cut that needs to be taken, I'd anticipate my hearts cut will begin at a considerably higher abv than they would in a double distillation, and if the hearts/desirable tails cut ends at a significantly lower abv I would think it may even itself out. Who knows, maybe there will be far less manipulating boiler charge abv than I first envisioned. I'm sure detailed notes will be key to refining the process.