by huggy_b » Thu Nov 06, 2014 8:29 am
When we ran a pot still, we basically rigged up a free-standing parrot to monitor the alcohol levels - this was way easier than trying to keep temperatures at specified points like they instruct you to do.
On a stripping run, don't sweat too much about, just run it hard and fast and keep everything down to ~20% alcohol - it should even out in total to about 40% alcohol in your low wines.
When you have enough low wines to fill your boiler (may need watering down to keep it around 30 - 40% alcohol in the boiler), then do a spirits run - generally it will spit out at 70 - 80% alcohol and remain fairly steady for a while, but then will get a bit erratic and start dropping off a bit - basically you are into your tails at this point - keep running it and collect down to 20% alcohol again (feints). Do your cuts, keep your hearts and store all the rest as feints. You can then look at doing an all feints spirit run (once you collect enough), or combine that with more low wines you have. The biggest issue I found was storage.....so many vessels full of low wines and feints - that's why we went up to a plated bubbler.