How to cut

[Popcorn Jack]

Been looking around for ages but can not find how to do cuts

How much do you cut

What smells do you smell

I have a t500 turbo still. Does this differ my cuts

If you put your tails in your next cook do you end up with more tails.

If I rub tomato paste on my face like braveheart, do I make better hooch. :idea:

Thanks

PJ

[MacStill]

Here's what you're after ;-)

viewtopic.php?f=41&t=874&hilit=guide+cuts

[Frank]

Been looking around for ages but can not find how to do cuts
.......'
What smells do you smell
the smells are a BIG, subjective topic in distilling. IMO its easy to learn foreshots and tails but using olfactory capacity to discern heads/hearts is truly a learned skill. foreshots smell like nail polish remover, tails smell like a wetdog....
If you put your tails in your next cook do you end up with more tails.
you always end up with tails mate, always...esp for a spirit run, the idea is to refine/compress/isolate them
If I rub tomato paste on my face like braveheart, do I make better hooch. :idea:
NFI, but please keep us posted... :handgestures-thumbupleft:
....
PJ

[BackyardBrewer]

Been looking around for ages but can not find how to do cuts

How much do you cut

What smells do you smell

I have a t500 turbo still. Does this differ my cuts

If you put your tails in your next cook do you end up with more tails.

If I rub tomato paste on my face like braveheart, do I make better hooch. :idea:

Thanks

PJ

I have a reflux column, here's my tips:

You need a shitload - let me say that again - A SHITLOAD of small clean jars. I've been saving salsa jars

for a long time and I find they're shallow enough to allow a good sniff of the hooch and to allow nasties to evaporate when you air the hooch for a couple of days.

I cut like this on a 25L TPW:
Still hits ~80º or so and stabilises out
Wait 5 minutes
Take 200 mls of foreshots just to be safe
Take 250mls - don't even sniff it, it's heads, so straight into the feints bottle for re-running next batch
Take 200mls - cover with papertowel & rubber band. Label as HEADS? and I'll sniff it later before using, more often than not that goes straight into the feints bottle
Take 200mls - cover with papertowel & rubber band. Label with text as #1

REPEAT IN 200ML LOTS, COVERING WITH PAPERTOWEL & RUBBERBAND (to air for 48hrs) UNTIL TEMP STARTS TO CLIMB.

By now you should have a good 2-2.6L of 95%+ neutral, with very little heads and no tails yet.

When temp climbs to above 80.7º I am usually into or close to tails. I am not precious, even though my still instructions say to collect until the temp has risen a full degree and then shut off I wouldn't be drinking anything coming out of my still at 80.8º-80.9º but that's me learning to not be greedy and only wanting hearts.

I keep collecting another full degree past that up to 82º and all that goes into the feints for the next run. The hooch coming out right up to 84-85 degrees is still easily 70-80% pure alc, but you are basically just stripping at this stage as it smells and tastes foul. It has to be run again.

So now you wait for your jars to air - some say 24hours, but I always wait 48 and no more (you're evaporating off alc as well as nasties).

So you should be looking at a damn smooth 2-2.5L at least of hearts with no heads or tails, and a super clean neutral. I've done this since the start of the year and the spirit is so smooth I can't imagine why anyone would pay for carbon filtering.

If I ever try some carbon smoothed booze that beats my well aired hearts I'll HATE it because I'll probably buy a carbon filter, but as it stands:

Start with a TPW
Cut hard, in small 200ml lots
Let it air
Water it down/Flavour it up
Get stuck in!

[Popcorn Jack]

Thanks again brew dogs

Just a question though. If you put your tails in your next cook woulnt it increase the heads output in that cook.
Or is the idea that your heads is more concentrated

Let you know the tomato paste worked and got rid of some wrinkles

Cha Chinga
PJ

[Popcorn Jack]

Found this useful..

The spirit run will take longer than the others, so make sure you've got enough time. My spirit runs took about 5 hours from memory.
First thing you need to do is put the packing back in the way you found it, and set the hoses back the way they were (water enters at the bottom of the condenser, then goes from the condenser to the bottom of the reflux jacket, and then to waste). When you start the spirit run, jack the cooling up quite high. you want 100% reflux, i.e. the reflux jacket needs to take enough heat away from the vapour rising up the column that it will all fall back down the column. These columns are too short to equalise properly, but it is still beneficial to let an even boil get going in the boiler. Let it boil under 100% reflux for about 15 mins (temperature will be probably 50-65*C) , then slowly decrease the cooling, and you will start to separate out distinct fractions in the foreshots / heads. It isn't commonly accepted here but CM is actually very good for heads compression. Remember, take it SLOWLY, nothing good ever came fast. 1 drip per second is what I aim for. It will 'auto shutdown' several times, and you'll have to decrease the cooling again to get the next fraction. Don't rush it.

After a while of foreshots removal (maybe 30-45 mins) you'll be starting to get into the good stuff. As a general rule, the absolute minimum to throw away from three stripped 25l washes is 150mls of foreshots (don't recycle), and then I generally take the next 200-ish ml as heads (ok to recycle) as well and recycle them in my next run. The cut to body is best done by taste and smell, but that will be a problem if you are planning on turbos carbon filtering etc etc, and takes experience to recognize. when you're starting out, using nice, conservative cuts is the best substitute. you may loose a ml or two, but who cares, you're probably getting about 20ish liters off this run.

after you've taken off the foreshots to throw away, and heads to recycle, you should be into the body at about 77-78 degrees. you can then open it up a bit more (reduce cooling) to get a faster collection rate, I sit there and increase the collection rate until I'm happy with the balance of collection rate / output abv.

Remember, collection rate is inversely related to the amount you reflux as well as the abv %: 'the faster you go the bigger the mess'

I personally find that the temperature is easier to set on the 'down stroke', as in decreasing the cooling. I can never quite land it in the right spot when I go to far and have to increase the cooling, so if this happens I put it right back to 100% reflux and slowly start it again. This normally happens several times during a run... the explanation for this is that as you progress through the run, the proportion of ethanol in the vapour going up the column decreases, and it takes more cooling to knock it down. This is a intrinsic disadvantage of the design, and cannot be avoided.

At the end of the run, your temp will begin to 'want' to rise up past 79-80. Your collection will slow quite drastically as well, which will show you that this isn't just a need for more cooling like the the above scenario. This is when you need to switch containers for tails, and keep collecting as much as you can (will require cooling tweaking) until the temp goes past 84 and the collection rate slows even more. Throw the tails and heads back in to the next run to recover the booze.

If you use that method with a nice clean neutral wash like birdwatchers, you won't need to carbon filter, given careful cuts and good control over the temperature for the course of the run. You should be able to achieve 92% on your spirit run if you are careful.

[squid]

When it comes to cuts there is a lot more art to distilling than hard numbers. Separate your distillate into 300-400ml lots and air for a day then smell and taste each with a few drops of water. You will pick it up pretty quickly. I love tasting the collections from a sour mash batch, they get progressively tastier as you go along and I tend to collect in smaller and smaller amounts as I approach that point to try get as much flavour as possible without going into the tails. :-D