all cuts smell horrible

[tillius]

We just finished our 7.5 gallon pot still, we did a cleaning run, then we ran off the first batch of corn wash.

The corn wash
1) 10# cracked corn
4# cracked malted corn
0.0# Barley Malt
0.5 cup honey
0.5 cup molasses
3.5 gallons water to bring to 5 gallons total

We put this to ferment on Feb 4.

We ended up with about 1 1/2 gallons of wash from it, after straining.

We made a 8 cuts, started collecting the first at 150 degrees read just before the condensor and stopped when temp reached 168.
Next cuts all ran between 168 and 178, and we collected about a cup of each.

The 1st cut, I'm sure the fores, smells like acetone strongly

All of the rest have a slight acetone smell, some have a paint thinner smell, NONE of them smell like I'd want to drink it.

What might we have done wrong?

TilliUS

[Brendan]

By the sounds of it, it's a brand new still...is it possible you didn't clean it properly?

As you would know the usual is a vinegar run which cleans and checks for leaks, and then a sacrificial alcohol run which really gets those fluxes outta there...what was your cleaning run?

To get heads and tails too far into the hearts can just be from running too hard...to get acetone all the way through could mean you're still cleaning chemicals out of your equipment, or you fermented a really poor wash somehow (even then I don't know how you'd get an extensive acetone smell) :think:

[BackInBlack]

Pretty sure if it's a pot still you need to do stripping runs until you have enough to do a second run.
The second run should be a lot cleaner.

[tillius]

ahhh, that's exactly it. We ran a water cleaning run, based on what another local distiller told us, said we didn't need to do a vinegar run.

Do you think the alc run we did last night would have cleaned it sufficiently?

[TheMechwarrior]

Normal is vinegar run to clean (acid clean)
Then sacrificial run (solvent clean)
Rinse with water and you're right to go.

You can't skip the acid clean. Start at the beginning and work your way up.

Your run is history now so call me out and do an acid clean and see what you get, I bet it's worth your while ;-)

[tillius]

Okay, so we will do a vinegar run tonight, and put on 5 gallons of TPW with that 24 hour turbo yeast so we have sacrificial alcohol to run tomorrow.. then I can run my banana and the rest of the corn wash through, hopefully with better results this time.

[bt1]

Wouldn't suggest running a spirit after a vinegar run would taste off....
The normal I've always used

vinegar run
steam run(shorter)
test wash run - throw out, normally gen 1 whisky that's got no backset so no great loss
wash still out and dry ~ish then it's set to use for a normal run.

bt1

[Brendan]

The TPW spirit run is a sacrificial alcohol run after the vinegar clean...it will get thrown out and not drunk.

You were all good with what you said you are going to do Tillius :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Smbjk]

May I sugest keeping all the run you did the other day and rerun as you sacrificial run after your vinegar run. Just cut down to 40% or lower so you have enough in your boiler :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Sam.]

May I sugest keeping all the run you did the other day and rerun as you sacrificial run after your vinegar run. Just cut down to 40% or lower so you have enough in your boiler :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I wouldn't, who knows what shit is in that spirit if it has already taken a heap of whatever out of the still. Who knows what it's going to leave in there :shifty:

[Smbjk]

May I sugest keeping all the run you did the other day and rerun as you sacrificial run after your vinegar run. Just cut down to 40% or lower so you have enough in your boiler :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I wouldn't, who knows what shit is in that spirit if it has already taken a heap of whatever out of the still. Who knows what it's going to leave in there :shifty:

Ha fair point didn't think of that 8-} thanks for the correction s&l

[Yummyrum]

Tillius..I might be way off track here but the theme here from the start has been one of a not cleaned still but may I put forth the theory that you may be experiencing what I suffer from.

If this is your first attempt at distilling an you have never tasted homemade shine and only ever drunk shop bought stuff that is aged for many years on Oak., when you taste the stuff for the first time ,it tastes nothing like you imagined from all the forum hype that it would taste like .

Off the still , ....The heads cuts are tasty but burn , the hearts are bland , the tails are progresively more putrid.....and there is no nice Oak that is charactoristic of most spirits we are familiar with.

Blending the the cuts will help even it oit a bit but it will still taste very different to anything you are probably familiar with ....Oak and time does wonders
:hand:

........Still....proceed with cleaning run as directed and hope second time is better

[tillius]

yeah, I told him to toss the run from the other day, smells like paint thinner. He asked if he could drink it and I said 'smell it again.. does that smell like something you really want to drink?", we dumped it.

I did put down a TPW using turbo 24 yeast that should be ready tomorrow for a sacrificial alcohol run. We're doing the vinegar water run tonight. I only grabbed the turbo 24 to make a quick sacrificial batch, not planning on using it to make anything I want to drink. My nephew, on the other hand, will undoubtedly get impatient and use it.

Too bad he had to scrap his first attempt at fermenting, fortunately, he should have about 20 gallons of corn wash ready soon, as when we took the wash off the grain to run it, the fermenting bucket was 3/4 full of corn.
We split it into 3 buckets and added warm water to each,gave them a good stir. Started bubbling really good about 2 hours later.

I told him it was way too much grain, now I think he will believe me.

[tillius]

vinegar run done. rinsed out all parts with lots of water.

Turbo TPW still fermenting like mad, hope it's ready for sacrificial alcohol run tomorrow.

Salvaged grain from first corn run now in 3 buckets, bubbling like mad.

Put another TPW on, using regular distillers yeast, not turbo, that will be for a double or triple run to get as neutral as I can.

Banana still sitting there nicely, waiting it's turn to run, have 10 gallons of banana wine now to run through. Hopefully I can get that through the still this weekend.

Thanks again for all the help and advice.

[tillius]

We finally did the solvent cleaning run using 2 1/2 gallons of TPW, then we ran 5 gallons of the all grain corn. We ended up with 3 pints of drinkable, clean smelling 80%, and about a quart of heads and tails we threw into the feints jar for a later run.

Ready to run through:

5 Gallons of TPW
10 Gallons of Corn all Grain
10 Gallons of banana wine

Working for future runs:
10 Gallons of Ovaltine wash
30 Gallons of Corn all Grain

Waiting on my contacts from the Grocer's produce department to let me know they have a nice batch of overripe fruits they are about to discard then I'll put down additional fruit wines. The 10 gallons of banana took 40 lbs of banana's, but the wine itself tastes good enough to drink even without distilling.