Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi Folks,

Just after a bit of advice in relation to cuts. Stripped a couple of TPW’s through my pot still and late yesterday finished a spirit run through my reflux still. Ended up with 39 small jars of neutral. Left the jars to air over night and made my first attempt at cuts this morning. On double checking some posts here, it looks like a minimum of 24 hours airing is the go before attempting cuts. Do the cuts become more obvious if you leave the neutral for longer periods of time? If that is the case, it may be another error in the learning curve. Used a sample at the obvious middle of the run as my baseline and tried to find a cutoff point for heads. Ended up cutting at jar 13. This resulted in 1.8l of heads. Did the same for tails and ended up with 1.3l. (Perhaps I could have cut more) Hearts ended up at 3.3l @ 92%. This worried me a bit. I some some how think that I haven’t been harsh enough. Any advice or feedback would be most appreciated.

Cheers

Les

3.3L sounds about right.
Remember it will turn into 6.6L once you dilute it to drinking strength.
Don't be afraid to cut harshly.

For a neutral, it's better to cut too harsh than too little.

Thanks for that guys. A lot of work for a small return but the quality seems very good.

Dragging up a very old thread but I did a search and this popped up.

Talking neutrals, who trusts their gear, experience and knowing how their still runs, and throws in a heap of hope that nothing goes wrong, and once they know they are in the hearts, collects into larger jars. ie demijohn?

I think Im starting to trust myself. Having 70-80 corona bottles lined up every run is a PITA!

I start off with my cuts jars then swap to spirit bottles when in hearts before switching back to the smaller jars again to collect late hearts/early tails. I then strip the tails for another day.

LikkerSheWillLoveIt wrote:Dragging up a very old thread but I did a search and this popped up.

Talking neutrals, who trusts their gear, experience and knowing how their still runs, and throws in a heap of hope that nothing goes wrong, and once they know they are in the hearts, collects into larger jars. ie demijohn?

I think Im starting to trust myself. Having 70-80 corona bottles lined up every run is a PITA!

This guy, I've never seen the point in cuts, you collect when it starts, tasting good and stop when it no longer does.

I've never had a run that once I hit the hearts it goes bad for a bit then turns good again and then hit the tails, just take a spoonful as you go and your tastebuds will tell you what you need to know.

If I'm making neutral I do the same but be less picky and run it through a long tube carbon filter. When I want neutral I make rice whiskey and then do that, I go deep in the tails and once it's gone through the filter it has no hint of any taste or anything else for that matter.

Learning to do cuts is a good thing particularly for beginners whilst they are still learning the craft and learning their equipment. A well executed cut regime will also negate the need to do the carbon filtering.

I agree i started out doing 30-40 cuts but now have it down to 8-12 depending on what i am running.

Never tried rice, i will give it a try when the weather warms up.

You have to with rice, you don't put any water in it so heating it can be a problem, you also have to use gluteus or sticky rice.
Just soak it, steam it, rince and break it up in cold water then put in the fermenter and add Chinese yeast balls.

You can do it in water, but if you don't then the mash or rice wine it najes is around the 20% mark. The big downside is it takes about 6 weeks to work off.
But I do like to add it to all grain mash to up the ABV a lot instead of using sugar.

Bob9863 wrote:

LikkerSheWillLoveIt wrote:Dragging up a very old thread but I did a search and this popped up.

Talking neutrals, who trusts their gear, experience and knowing how their still runs, and throws in a heap of hope that nothing goes wrong, and once they know they are in the hearts, collects into larger jars. ie demijohn?

I think Im starting to trust myself. Having 70-80 corona bottles lined up every run is a PITA!

This guy, I've never seen the point in cuts, you collect when it starts, tasting good and stop when it no longer does.

I've never had a run that once I hit the hearts it goes bad for a bit then turns good again and then hit the tails, just take a spoonful as you go and your tastebuds will tell you what you need to know.

If I'm making neutral I do the same but be less picky and run it through a long tube carbon filter. When I want neutral I make rice whiskey and then do that, I go deep in the tails and once it's gone through the filter it has no hint of any taste or anything else for that matter.

This guy??? Really? Carbon filter?

:laughing-rolling:

It works, but you need a lot of carbon, it strips any residual bad taste or harshness from a neutral or fairly neutral run.



It's got over a meter of packed activated carbon in it and you adjust the tap down the bottom so it just drips out.

I haven't used it for a couple of years now, I just bought it to try make up some post mix johnny black flavoured spirits for a mate.

But I don't do cuts with the pot still either I find it pointless, you can easily tell when you go from heads to hearts and just stop the run when the flavour drops or starts leaning towards the funky.

The way I figure it is all cuts tell you is when it goes good, and when it turns bad.
If you can do that as it's, running then what's the point in cuts, it all gets added together in the end anyway.

I used one of them when I had an air still