Tomato Wash

[SBB]

Ok folks a couple of questions, just to put my mind at ease.
Last night I ran a tomato wash. This wash was made up with 5.5 kg sugar and had a total volume of 27 liters.
I ended up with 3 liters of product out of this...... I think I squeezed the last few drops outta this wash :lol:
Question 1
Does this amount of ALC sound about right for a wash of that size????
Through the run I took 14 jars/cuts most were 200ml with two being 300ml when I was pretty sure i was getting hearts.
Question 2
Can a couple of you more experienced blokes tell me roughly how many ml's of heads I should have and how many mls of tails, or roughly what percentage of each i should have.
I'm trying hard to nail this cuts thing but need something to compare to or a bench mark to see if what Im already doing is correct. After doing 4 Tomato washes now and airing, sniffing ,tasting and feeling them I think Im getting there.
SBB

[maheel]

based on the HD.org calculators (which i just noticed the site has changed :shock: )

you SG should have been 1078
and you had a 12% wash
if it finished at 990 ish
then

if your still gets 92% then you would collect 3.2L (in a perfect world @ 95% efficiency)
or @ 95% thats about 3L (in a perfect world)

you need to help us out with more info, i dont know what still your running or what % you get etc etc

i pull around 92.5% and out of a TPWash i would aim for a good 2.5L but not worry to much about pushing hard into tails. time wise i cannot be bothered and prefer to take my hearts and run :)

i keep the 1st 100ml and just dump it
then start collecting in 200's for the 1st few
then migh slip up to 250 and go from there till the end.

normally the 1st 300ml i call heads, but it just depends on the wash and can vary based on ferement temps and your still
if you dont run full reflux at the start for a while it is harder to compress the heads and get most of them out right at the start
this smears the heads a bit more across the 1st say 500mls or more depending on your take off speed and other things.

hope that helps a little

[SBB]

Thanks for that Maheel
The still is a T500 reflux
Start SG was around 1070 from memory, I didnt write it down. finished at 990.
Spirit from the still reads 94-95% not taking into account temp....92-93% is probably a more realistic figure.
I have been trying to keep the still in full reflux for a short while and then taking the first 100ml and the next few jars very slowly.
Your figure of 300 ml of heads helps me a lot as its close to what I was thinking after smelling and tasting the cuts from my last TW . Before I started on this learning curve I thought the amount of heads would be much greater than that.

[maheel]

fully refluxing for a while helps IMO to compress them a bit .

i sort of do two compressions, a short early one and bleed of some crap then a 2nd one about 30mins

you are still getting heads after +-300 they just seem to decrease for me after that
those numbers are not set in stone and others will have other ideas

the more you run any still the more you get used to it and sort of just know when things will happen

[Johnboy1234]

I have only done 1 wash and distilling so far, I am just waiting for my next wash to stop bubbling. Though from doing the whole process and doing lots of reading I noticed that the taste of the spirit coming out of the still changed when I changed the water pressure (BTW I have a euro30-2 reflux still). I can't remember which way it was now, but if I turned the water pressure one way, the spirits would get sweeter, and then when I turned the tap the other way the spirits started to taste like meths.

I was just using a crappy glass thermometer on the top of the still, which I suspect doesnt work properly as I couldnt get it to read past 77 degrees no matter even if I turned the water right off and steam started coming out the top. The instructions said to run the water at 1 litre per minute, so I just did that, and it turned out really yummy BUT I am wondering about the change of taste with the different water pressure. Do I want it to taste sweet or like meths, or maybe in between, and why does the water pressure change the taste?

I would like to get this worked out before I do my next lot, as I would like to try separating the heads from the hearts, but I can't tell as the taste varies with water pressure.

[SBB]

Johnboy I'm not really familiar with the still you have But did note that it is a reflux still. If it works anything like mine which is a Still Spirit T500, then when you open up the tap and allow more water through you increase the amount of reflux, turn the tap the other way and you decrease the reflux. In short that means that you are increasing or decreasing the alcohol quality and purity / ABV that is leaving your still. Hence the difference in taste.
Like you Im pretty new at this so hopefully someone else will chime in and give their opinion.
SBB

[reknaw]

Hey John,

I am thinking SBB is on the money, as you increase the water flow = more reflux then your takeoff rate will slow and your temp in the column will drop depending on a few things. If you want to do a bit of an experiment, collect a bottle when there isn't a lot of reflux happening and another bottle with the recommended reflux rate and measure the ABV. Put the first bottle back in your next run, it's good to know what your still will do and the results it'll produce.

[Johnboy1234]

Thanks guys I will try that out.