Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I ran my copperhead CM reflux with a 1m extension column yesterday with a boiler full of stripped 40% wineos plain sugar wash and was getting a constant output of 95-96%. I was really happy with how the still performed however the output watered down to drinking strength had a really sweet smell and flavour to it.

I was trying to make a vodka but sampling this side by side with 42 below, they are completely different, mine is very sweet.

Any thoughts or ideas as what could have casued this? Cheers

Are you sure your wash had finished fermenting? Did you take a FG?
How did you make your cuts? Heads can smell quite sweet.

Dominator wrote:Are you sure your wash had finished fermenting? Did you take a FG?
How did you make your cuts? Heads can smell quite sweet.

This. Heads from neutral have a tendency to smell much sweeter than hearts.

It could be the wash wasn't completely finished fermenting but wouldn't the stripping run remove most of that?

As to cuts it could be heads but i was collecting in 200ml increments and even the bottles towards the end of the run still had this sweetness so i wouldn't have thought heads was the cause unless they were smeared throughout the run.

Hi codieb
I have that too .My nuetral tastes sweet with a sickly sweet smell.I leave mine in demijon with just paper towel on the top and after a week or two the sweetness is gone.

Yummyrum wrote:Hi codieb
I have that too .My nuetral tastes sweet with a sickly sweet smell.I leave mine in demijon with just paper towel on the top and after a week or two the sweetness is gone.

Awesome thanks for the tip will give it a go! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yummyrum wrote:Hi codieb
I have that too .My nuetral tastes sweet with a sickly sweet smell.I leave mine in demijon with just paper towel on the top and after a week or two the sweetness is gone.

I'd go further - air your jars of 200ml cuts before you mix it into the demijohn. Sniff the jars starting at the middle and work outwards only after 48hours airing time.

I think once it's mixed in a demi there's a chance of some heads or tails in there and that will take an awful lot of air and time to get rid of. Spirit will usually end up taking on the character and flavour the worst product in the blending - so say if you put just 200ml of tails in your 4 litres of neutral then the whole 4L is going to be dragged down to the lowest quality. You won't be improving that 200ml of heads or tails up to the quality of the hearts, or at least not in my experience.