My First Run

[grumpthehermit]

Hello All

I thought I'd log a brief :laughing-rolling: account of my first wash / run.

Figured I can hopefully get some tips from others about ways to improve and maybe others might find the info useful ( maybe ?!?!? ) :roll:

My wash was 7250 grams of white sugar using a SS Turbo Classic yeast making up a total of 25L. It bubbled fast and hard and smelt like bad eggs but smelled better as it slowed down. It took a full 7 days to finish and even sitting on my cold floor tiles downstairs it peaked up in the low 27 deg C mark a few times, I even tried to cool it with a fan and had a wet t-towel wrapped around it to keep it stable, I stirred it up and used the Turbo Clear 2 part clearing mix and let it all sit for 24 hours before siphoning into my boiler.

( I am going to do a TPW next and see how it goes ).

My Pure Distiling rig ran well I think, I did a short run with 3L of water and some vinegar and then rinsed eveything all out and started my run.

12.30pm - Siphoned the wash into the boiler and added 1 capful of SS Antifoam, put the lid on turned on the power, start temp - 29.2 in the column.

1.10pm - getting warm, 40C, started the cooling water early, instructions said 50C but I could smell the wash at the top of the column.

1.20pm- 50C reached

1.22pm - 60C reached

1.27pm hit the 79C mark, fluctuated a little before slowly settling on 78.8

Left it refluxing for 10 minutes, tap fully closed.

1.37pm - 78.8C - Took the "Foreshots", my instruction book said take 150ml, I took 200ml as throw away/window cleaner.

1.45pm - 78.9C - Finished "Foreshots", closed the tap, refluxed again for 10 mins.

1.55pm - 78.8 - Started ( slowly, tap barely open, just barely breaking between a drip and a trickle ) collecting heads in 200ml batches then poured into jars so each jar ( all different sizes ) contained 200ml, took 4 collections of 200ml, each one took approx 13 minutes to complete, the temp remained pretty damn fine at 78.8/ 78.9 finshed collecting the 4th jar at 2.48pm.

2.48pm - Closed the tap, refluxed for 2 mins, gave each jar a smell and decided that the 4th one smelled cleaner than the first one I took at the start of "heads".

2.50pm - Opened the tap, took another 200ml and decided to call this "hearts" based on the smell only.

3.00pm - Took the first 200ml and put it in my "hearts jar" adjusted the tap down a bit, collecting 200ml every 15minutes or so.

3.52pm - 5th lot of 200ml collected and poutred into the jar, jar contents very "clean" smell and no vapor burn up the nose, readjusted the flow up a tought more, next jars collected at 11 mins each ( temp steady at 78.8 )

4.40pm - 10th lot of 200ml collected, same as before, very clean smell. ( the temp slowly came up over time from ( 78.9 - 79.1C )

4.51pm - The smell changed during the 11th one, I was sitting on the floor and noticed it immediately, bad smell, poured into "tails" jar, also at this time the temp started to move, went from 79.1C to 79.3C.

4.54pm - only colled another 50ml, the smell seemed way worse very quickly, temp reached 79.4C/79.5C, so I stopped here, turned off the heat and poured the 50ml into another "tails" jar.

Finished !!!

I let everything cool down and cleaned up, the wash smelled like a cornbeef when you take the lid off the pressure cooker, only a bit worse ... :(

I have decided today that my last "heads" is clean enough smelling so I have added it to "hearts" the last 50ml of tails is so bad I put it in "foreshots" the remiander all went into my "feints" bottle for my next run.

I will test the ABV of the "hearts" later and water down to 40% and have a taste, see if I am happy to use as is or put this down as my first "stripping run" and put the whole lot back through with my next run. I must say I am really impressed with what I have captured as "hearts", it smells so clean.

I think I maybe could have taken the hearts faster? But didn't want to be greedy and spoil it.

Will post back on ABV and taste test later. :-D

Cheers
GTH

[hoppy]

Hi Grump, Looks like you did a good job :dance: nice and slow is the way to go with our still on heads and hearts, :handgestures-thumbupleft: only open mine fully when taking tails, and turn heat up full lick :roll: Happy tasting :teasing-tease:

Cheers Hoppy :mrgreen:

[grumpthehermit]

Thanks Hoppy, :-D

I think it went very well for my first attempt.

A few weeks ago I din't have a clue what "foreshots, heads, tails, hearts and tails" meant.

I've picked up on allot from this site already. ;)

I tested the ABV this arvo, I read 95.5% @ 29.1C I found a calc online that tells me that's about 93.6% converted back to 20C ( is there a calc on this site for that, I could not find it ?? ).

I'm pretty happy with that !!!

And I watered down 30ml's to 40% and had a taste. It's really nice and smooth and smells great so I won't be putting the hearts back through.

A big thanks to yourself and everyone who's offered me advice so far, I know it's made all the difference.

:-D

Cheers
GTH

[SBB]

First link in the thread then scroll to the bottom of the page
http://aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=413

[hoppy]

Hi Grump


or this
calcs.html

Bum steer thought it was on there
Cheers Hoppy :mrgreen:

[grumpthehermit]

Thanks Guys.

:)