First TPW through still.

by **SX170** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:19 pm

Hi all,
putting my first TPW was through my T500 tomorrow (2 x 25L).
A question of the cuts?
I will throw away the first 100ml then every 300ml after that will go into empty wild turkey & coke stubbies (clean)
From that I will try and work out heads, hearts & tails.
Obviously it will vary depending on yield but can anyone give me a rough idea on what to keep and what to recycle?
Also I havent put a clearing agent in the wash as I believe this shouldnt be neccessary......Correct?
Anyway I will come back on with some results after the weekend.

Cheers.

by **BackyardBrewer** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 2:25 pm

SX170 wrote:Hi all,
putting my first TPW was through my T500 tomorrow (2 x 25L).
A question of the cuts?
I will throw away the first 100ml then every 300ml after that will go into empty wild turkey & coke stubbies (clean)
From that I will try and work out heads, hearts & tails.
Obviously it will vary depending on yield but can anyone give me a rough idea on what to keep and what to recycle?
Also I havent put a clearing agent in the wash as I believe this shouldnt be neccessary......Correct?
Anyway I will come back on with some results after the weekend.

Cheers.

I'd throw 150-200ml before I even started thinking about cuts.
Label every container. wait 48 hours to let them air.
Work from the middle (the dead centre of the run) out.
Everything that does not smell like the heart of the run is heads or tails.
Say you collect 16 jars - then jar 8 is your premium. How's jar 11 smell? Same? Keep it How's jar 15? I bet that smells manky...
How's jar #1? Bitey and strong? That's heads, How's jar 3? Smell still there? What about jar 4? Starting to smell smoother?

Basically you want quality over quantity. It's easy to be greedy and think that jar 14 is fine and suddenly when you add water it goes cloudy (that's tails) and you realise that it wasn't worth keeping.

Just do more runs, and aim to keep only the centre of the run (the hearts). You can reclaim a good amount of the heads and tails by turfing them into the next run, or saving them all for a feints run of a big batch of saved heads and tails.

Hope that's simple enough to follow.

by **kelbygreen** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 2:37 pm

I like the taste and spit mothod not sure if it will work as well with TPW but you will know when you hit heads as the burn changes and you notice it smells a little sweeter. just take out like 10ml and mix it with about the same water (prob a tad more in a reflux still) so its roughly 40%. The smell and taste will change to and gives you a clearer idea. Tails will taste like carbboard like and smell like it or wet dog as they say.

if your never sure about the bottle dont use it. I also found you can have one with tails but the next after is fine but usually stop at the first tails one. Heads is harder to pick but you will get to know it again be a bit more aggressive on cuts till you get it down. As BB said just thow them in your next run or save them up for all feints run. So they will get used eventually

by **1 2many** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 6:13 pm

Thanks guys I think they both help i will save this . :handgestures-thumbupleft:

by **Sam.** » Fri Apr 26, 2013 10:07 pm

You don't need a clearing agent for TPW, just let it settle out for a few days, the colder it is the quicker it is.

If you really want you cal add a teaspoon of dissolved gelatine to help it settle just dont go wasting your money on turbo clear :handgestures-thumbdown:

Like said above for the cuts and if you haven't already read this

by **Linny** » Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:03 am

Yeah make sure you make cuts ,,, was mixing one of my first attempts of neutral with softdrink.... had one sip and threw it out :laughing-rolling: i was already wasted and i could see it tasted like shit ,,, must have been baaad LOL

by **heenos** » Sun Apr 28, 2013 1:28 pm

I've done a few TPW's now and I have found after a bit of trial and error to get 2 fermenters going, strip run both ( I strip mine at 60deg and usually end up with 2.5-3L not including fore shots from each batch of 25L washes...gives a decent 93%) I then water the 93 down to 40 and put it back through the still this time running it at 50deg and collect foreshots (goes into big glass jar, 100ml each time) then I start collecting heads, heart and tail but only after stripping it first...found it to be alot nicer end product (hearts that is) leave it air for a day or 2 then put it through the ez filter (carbon filter) twice.

I think it does well and have impressed a few mates but I'm only new to this but found 2 runs are the go...hope that helps

by **wedwards** » Sun Apr 28, 2013 1:36 pm

Yeah I also found a strip run through pot still then a spirit run through reflux seems to get me the best results. Haven't tried a third run cos I'm lazy like that :)

by **bt1** » Sun Apr 28, 2013 3:05 pm

wed,

I found three runs tended to make the spirit rather harsh, bitey, in your face like a Tequila smell... I know there are ppl who do and good luck to them but for mine it's over kill.

Strip and a good slow quality spirit run is the choice I prefer.

bt1

by **kingy** » Sun Apr 28, 2013 4:23 pm

I've done 2 stripping runs and 1 stripping run before the spirit run on tpws and I prefer to do the 1 strip then a spirit. It seems to seperate more and easier to make cuts than stripping twice.

by **wedwards** » Sun Apr 28, 2013 7:06 pm

Thanks for the feedback guys - appreciate it. Will continue on with 2 runs for tpw :)

by **SX170** » Mon Apr 29, 2013 7:54 am

Well thank you all very much for the excellent advice.
Ran the first 25l wash through and after throwing out the first 200ml I ended up with 11 x 300ml bottles.
Had a bit of a sniff but couldnt really seperate them much. Admittedly I had a few beers before hand.
The bottles are airing now so I will sniff/taste tonight when I get home from work.
I will post up my results.
Thanks again all :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers.

by **BackyardBrewer** » Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:27 am

That 24-48 hours makes a lot of diference. I'd say that jar#1 will be very different to jar #6. Not sure how long you ran into tails but jar#11 would be going straight into the feints jar for me.

Let us know how you get on.

SX170 wrote:Well thank you all very much for the excellent advice.
Ran the first 25l wash through and after throwing out the first 200ml I ended up with 11 x 300ml bottles.
Had a bit of a sniff but couldnt really seperate them much. Admittedly I had a few beers before hand.
The bottles are airing now so I will sniff/taste tonight when I get home from work.
I will post up my results.
Thanks again all :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers.

by **heenos** » Tue May 07, 2013 7:44 pm

wedwards wrote:Thanks for the feedback guys - appreciate it. Will continue on with 2 runs for tpw :)

all trial and error mate, lol I know i've had my fair share of errors and hence why im here :)) hope all goes well

by **Boomgate** » Tue May 07, 2013 8:29 pm

From experience, my first 200ml goes on some weed in the garden I want to die...

the next 200 goes back into my next run...

I very carefully smell the next 200ml...

after that I make cuts of almost random amounts... usually about the 200ml until the temp starts to rise (my ultra pure distilling rig is different to the T500 so that might vary) When the temp has gone up about .3 degrees I stop collecting for drinking and keep everything until it has gone up 1 degree.. everything from that .3 to 1degree goes into my next run .... I end up with about 1.8L of 92-97% but it tastes great and I have never had a headache from it... it is mana from heaven.

If the TPW hasnt "cleared itself" and I want to run it... I put half a teaspoon of gelatine in a half cup of really hot water and put it through, clears it in about 2 hours.... These days, now that I have two fermenters I just let it clear itself .... it noticably clears...
I have also run it without clearing... To avoid puking I put in a tablespoon of olive oil... I dont think it needed it to be honest..