by MartinCash » Fri Jul 31, 2020 1:25 pm
I'll go against the grain and say that you can either toss the foreshots of each strip (I do this nowadays, and toss 250 mL from 25L of wash) or collect everything and do a foreshot cut in your spirit run. Whether you take foreshots at the stripping or spirit runs, these never get recycled or re-distilled, they either get tossed or go into your cleaning solvent jar.
Doing a single foreshot cut in the spirit run is a little less work, but I find that I get less heads overall in my spirit run if I discard fores for each stripping. This makes sense as fores and heads are not really different things. The compounds that make foreshots are just somewhat more dilute (but still undrinkable) in the heads. By removing the most concentrated part in each strip, there will be less of the compounds to bleed through into your run. Hopefully I'm making sense.
I also combine as much as 5 or 6 strips for a spirit run, rather than 2 or 3, if I'm using a wash that pukes badly. For example, my boiler is 50 L but if I put more than 25L of SBB's all-molasses wash (the batch I'm doing at the moment), I have to run too slowly in order not to puke like crazy. I'll often run 3 x 50 L washes, and strip it in 6 x 25 L batches. I collect 6-7 L off each strip and use it to fill the boiler as full as I can. I collect enough in each stripping run that my low wines are between 30% and 40% ABV so I'm not diluting away flavour by adding water. Low wines don't puke (and your spirit run should be slow anyway).
If I'm running something like Mac's BWKO or UJSSM, which doesn't puke, I'll strip as much as 45L in my 50L boiler, so I only do 3 strips to fill the boiler. Each strip is 10-12 L and I keep a bit of wash to add to the strips when I do the spirit run, if the boiler is not full.