Just finished my first run. What to keep?

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Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby Bodgy » Sat Aug 01, 2020 10:58 am

I started about 5:30 am this morning. Wash was 25L of birdwatchers in a 25L still spirits boiler using a 5 Star 2" Boka.

My results were:

Jar 1 Fores 150ml

Jar 2 Heads? 110ml

Jar 3 Heads? 215ml - 90%

Jar 3 235ml - 90%

Jar 4 275ml - 90%

Jar 5 270ml - 90%

Jar 6 270ml - 93%

Jar 7 245ml - 92%

Jar 8 240ml - 90%

Jar 9 245ml - 87% Temp at about 82 degress no after sitting at 80 for the rest of the run.

Jar 10 205ml - 65% Temp rising 1 degree every few minutes.

Jar 11 40ml - cloudy, temp rising rapidly. Shut down.


So I am having a hard time discerning any real taste or smell differences. I think my pallet is a bit shit, I recently started trying to get into single malt scotch and had a hard time picking out anything that the reviewers I was watching on youtube were describing about whatever I was drinking.

So I am thinking. Fores can go on the weeds out the front, along with jar 11. Jar 2 and 10 can go in a faints jar and I will mix the rest down to 37% with water and sit it on the shelf for a bit in a big glass jar - airing it occasionally.

Sound about right?
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby RC Al » Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:29 pm

Sounds pretty close mate, its very different still to still though. If you are going to rerun the feints later, there is no reason not to err on the side of caution and cut a jar harder at both ends just to be sure

You are looking for a nailpolish/apple smell for heads, try to do that today by smell, the aroma dissipates fairly quickly but the nasties remain
The tails is done by taste for me, water a teaspooon full or so down to 40% or even lower of each jar and look for the wet cardboard/wet dog flavour
(edit: silly as it sounds brushing your teeth/tongue before you start can help too!)

You can reset your senses between jars by a good whiff of your own BO and/or tasting your own skin, sounds pretty gross but it works

Neutrals are produced more pure when you run from stripped wash diluted to 40%. With the beauty of modular systems, you can transform the boka into a pot by removing the packing, taking the liquid take off section out, adding 2x 90 bends and attaching your current condenser to that
Last edited by RC Al on Sat Aug 01, 2020 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby Sam. » Sun Aug 02, 2020 8:37 am

How fast did you run the still? If you smeared everything though the run the whole lot will smell and taste bad....
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby Bodgy » Sun Aug 02, 2020 10:03 am

Ran for about 5 and a half hours I think.

Well I can smell a clear difference in the fores, I mean that shit smells like poison.

I can also kind of smell/taste the wet dog in the last jars. The neighbours think I'm a fucken wierdo now though after they caught me licking their dog to compare it.

It's more that I can't taste a difference in the other jars. Anyway I threw jars 3 - 9 in together and watered it down. Drank some with coke last night and its pretty good! Can't really taste a thing so I guess that's a good neutral spirit.

I am thinking about making some Thai Terror and some coffee vodka today.
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby Sam. » Sun Aug 02, 2020 2:05 pm

Sounds like you ran it fine, next time try watering the cut samples down to 20% and see if you can pick the taste difference
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby tipsy » Sun Aug 02, 2020 7:53 pm

RC Al wrote:You can reset your senses between jars by a good whiff of your own BO and/or tasting your own skin, sounds pretty gross but it works


I find a sip or 2 of beer does a good job of resetting the senses as well :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby MartinCash » Fri Aug 07, 2020 11:54 am

When doing neutral at 95%, I dilute it 1:2 with water to taste for cuts. One teaspoon of spirit to two of water. Have a water glass handy to rinse with, don't swallow, and take your time to sniff each well before you taste them. I can smell heads better than taste them, but I can taste tails better than smell them, if that makes sense.

Also let some evaporate on your fingers and smell it. I find this helps when you're getting close to the tails.

To me heads and tails from my reflux column are so skanky that there's no way you wouldn't know you can't drink them, but then I started off with a pot still.
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby Bodgy » Sun Aug 16, 2020 7:57 pm

Got a half dozen runs under my belt now. All using TPW and the 5 star 2" boka.

I can pick tails and heads pretty easy now. I may even be too picky. Just ran a 13 hour spirit run of two stripped runs.

Question #1. Is it bad that I actually like early tails? Are they hangover inducing or is that just the nasty shit in the early take off of fores and heads? I put the last three jars on some oak chips to age as an experiment to see how that goes. These were before any temp rise just the ones where I could taste a change from pure neutral. I find the flavour warm and smooth. As a Bundy rum fan that might just be what I'm used to though judging on the general opinion of bundy round here.

Question #2. I throw the first 150ml as a rule. I did that in my stripping runs (x2). I then threw the first 150ml of my spirit run too. The problem is the next 400ml of the spirit run also taste kind of acetony to me and the missus. I'm not gonna include them in my cuts but should I keep them as fients or should they just be set aside as hand sanitiser? Can I get any good drink from them on a reflux still or are they always gonna be tainted?

Big day today anyway. Cheers for the help every one.
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby RC Al » Mon Aug 17, 2020 11:30 am

Keep them as feints

How much product did you end up with from the 2x strips and on the spirit run? I suspect you should be cutting a bit more heads than that from the double batch

Adding a bit of your first tails isn't going to make a dramatic difference as far as additional nasties go, common practice with pot stilling.

You should try something like the wheatbix/allbran wash if you looking for a better aftertaste for a straight drinking vodka, I doubt you will regret it :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Just finished my first run. What to keep?

Postby Bodgy » Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:53 pm

I got 3735ml in my cuts jars and maybe about 200ml more in the fients jar when I gave up on cuts and cranked the power and the valve up. I shut it down all together pretty quickly after that because I was over it and the temp had started to climb. The wash was about 35% and about 14l but I didn't measure the volume exactly.

All jars were around 200ml

Discarded 150ml.

1 and 2 I have kept seperate. Will no move to fients

9 - 10 - 11, I kept as vodka hearts for comparing to other washes I'm gonna try.

17 - 18 - 19 I'm bottling seperately on oak just to see what happens after a few months.\

Everything that came off after 19 I just ran straight to faints.

Everything else I combined into a storage jar for essences (I know... I know) and recipes.

Funny thing I got my missus to pick up all bran and weetbix this morning!
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