by Frank » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:18 pm
Mate
if you are doing a strip run, its 'ok' to keep the foreshots...it matters not until the spirit run (ie consumption run) IMHO.
Also if you are heating the first wash/run in a pot to speed up things :handgestures-thumbupleft:, put some boiling water in the airstill and put the lid on at the same time; for the same reason.
Re TPW coming through the vapour path, yep, it happens a bit, but moreso if the TPW wasnt allowed to fully settle in the fermenter first and/or was extracted without racking first. Might be bullsh#t, but since I started putting copper pieces in the airstill, I have not had the TPW bits coming through at all (and, besides, the copper DOES assist re smell/taste etc).
OK if this is a 5kg sugar/25l wash, that'll equal 6 Airstill stripruns....
So...collect around 1200ml per run to get enough for 2 final runs.
Then on the sprit runs, exclude 50ml minimum foreshots and the rest is up to you but there WILL be heads in there.
I'm pretty comfortable with collecting about 200ml post foreshots, then (separately) all I can until the ABV settles at around 40%ABV again (just guessing but maybe about 800ml).
If you choose, you can then keep the next distillate separately until it gets to about skankyville (say, 20%abv??). That way, the first collect of 250ml and the last collect of about the same will be useful in adding to your next spirit run if you like.
Else just keep separate the first 200ml and decide, after airing, if its worth mixing with your best bit collected (aka 'hearts').
Please note: there are MANY diff ideas here and a PM request will allow me to crap on further :laughing-rolling: