Did my first spirit run!

Many like to post about a first successful ferment (or first all grain mash), or first still built/bought or first good run of the still. Tell us about all of these great times here.
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Thatcanadianguy
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Did my first spirit run!

Post by Thatcanadianguy »

Dumped all my feints, tails and distilled alcohol I've made so far back into the still. Let it distill out and by the time my heads were thrown and tails saved for next big run, I ended up with 9l of 75% likker. Stripped down to 40% then stopped. Have about 6l of tails for next time. They go from 68% down to about 40% not sure what the abv of the liquid in my pot was. Probably over the recomemded 40% but I heated it up real slow and carefully.

It's fairly smooth, good flavor, and got it sitting away to age for a while. I set one full jar of just the hearts and it's going off in my aging closet, where I've been taking the best jars of each run and gonna let them age for 3+ years.

Ps; not sure if this is a true spirit run, but either way I'm super happy with how it turned out.
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subbrew
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Re: Did my first spirit run!

Post by subbrew »

If this was the first spirit run how did you get feints and distilled alcohol? Where you doing cuts on the stripping runs? Why did you redistill things? Anyhow, sounds like you are enjoying it and having fun.
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sadie33
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Re: Did my first spirit run!

Post by sadie33 »

congrats!! It's always exciting to do something new and then to have it come out good is even better!!
Thatcanadianguy
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Re: Did my first spirit run!

Post by Thatcanadianguy »

subbrew wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 1:43 pm If this was the first spirit run how did you get feints and distilled alcohol? Where you doing cuts on the stripping runs? Why did you redistill things? Anyhow, sounds like you are enjoying it and having fun.

So I'm probably messing up terms lol. I've ran quite a few single distillation runs, and had a good amount of 60-40% bottles kicking around, threw them all back into the pot and distilled. I wasn't doing any cuts besides heads and tails on my stripping runs, but I was adding my tails to my next runs to bump the abv a little for each run. I redistilled because I had only ever single distilled my stuff and wanted to redistill to bump abv and do a "spirit" run (again sorry if I'm messing up the terms)

sadie33 wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 3:13 pm congrats!! It's always exciting to do something new and then to have it come out good is even better!!
Thank you! Yeah I had only ever done a single distillation so wanted to give the second a try. Gotta say, I finally tried the ujssm, and have a second gen working now. Gonna so the same thing with this and save up enough to charge the still and run it a second time. The sweet run was pretty good. Can't wait to see how it gets once it's soured.
Avalir
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Re: Did my first spirit run!

Post by Avalir »

Not sure what kind of spirit you're making or what kind of still you're running, but read something that I thought I'd give my two cents on as some friendly advice.
On a stripping run, I wouldn't bother with making any heads or tails cuts, leave that for the spirit run; just take a foreshot cut when stripping. At least with a pot still, the stripping runs will give you a very muddled distillate and by trying to make cuts here you're probably tossing just as much good stuff as bad stuff. It'll seporate out better in the spirit run.
If you're making a spirit with flavor (whiskey, rum, brandy, etc.) I'd also recommend stripping a lot deeper. I personally primarily make whiskey/bourbon, and I'll strip until I'm the still head temp reaches 100C and go for a bit longer. My low wine abv will be 25% after stripping is finished. You'll find you lose a lot of flavor (speaking in regards to whiskey) if you're not stripping down to where your low wine abv is 30% or less - I like 25% because with my still, I'll consistently get my desired abv after the spirit run for aging (62.5%) without the need to dillute which also dilutes the flavor.
Hope some of that can help your future batches improve some.
Glad you were able to get a product you were happy with; it'll only get better from there. Welcome aboard and keep it up!
"I am a man. And I can change. If I want to. I guess." ~Red Green
Thatcanadianguy
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Re: Did my first spirit run!

Post by Thatcanadianguy »

Avalir wrote: Tue Mar 12, 2024 10:43 pm Not sure what kind of spirit you're making or what kind of still you're running, but read something that I thought I'd give my two cents on as some friendly advice.
On a stripping run, I wouldn't bother with making any heads or tails cuts, leave that for the spirit run; just take a foreshot cut when stripping. At least with a pot still, the stripping runs will give you a very muddled distillate and by trying to make cuts here you're probably tossing just as much good stuff as bad stuff. It'll seporate out better in the spirit run.
If you're making a spirit with flavor (whiskey, rum, brandy, etc.) I'd also recommend stripping a lot deeper. I personally primarily make whiskey/bourbon, and I'll strip until I'm the still head temp reaches 100C and go for a bit longer. My low wine abv will be 25% after stripping is finished. You'll find you lose a lot of flavor (speaking in regards to whiskey) if you're not stripping down to where your low wine abv is 30% or less - I like 25% because with my still, I'll consistently get my desired abv after the spirit run for aging (62.5%) without the need to dillute which also dilutes the flavor.
Hope some of that can help your future batches improve some.
Glad you were able to get a product you were happy with; it'll only get better from there. Welcome aboard and keep it up!
Well when doing my stripping run I ran it like a spirit run because when I first started I was being lazy and was only gonna do the one run. So I had treated it as such and tried to pull out as much of my heads and tails as I could there was a few runs I went into 100⁰ for a bit, but could see all the fusels and it tasted to fucking bad so I tried to cut it off before I see them, figured i don't want that flavor in my likker lol
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shadylane
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Re: Did my first spirit run!

Post by shadylane »

+1 on what Thatcanadianguy said.
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