What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

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What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby AJH1 » Mon Jan 13, 2025 6:18 pm

Hi all
Been reading lots on here and lots mentioning stripping run and then a spirit run. Am I correct in thinking the striping run is the first run of my wash in reflux mode. What I get out I water down to 30% and then do another run with that on reflux mode to make a spirit run?
Then I can use that run watered down again to 40% and do another infusion run in pot still mode to make a flavoured gin etc?
Thanks
Adrian
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Re: What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby RobMichelle » Mon Jan 13, 2025 6:47 pm

Ok so I don’t have an air still pro only air still, so stripping run will take the wash abv from around the 7 to 12% abv and then I run my airstill till the product I’m collecting is about 28-30% abv which can be as low as 5% off the spout of the still.
Once I run all my wash 4 ltrs at a time from my fermenter which is normally 23-25 ltrs and I collect all the lowines which is normally around 800ml to 1100ml per run, then I run a spirit run when I have 4 ltrs or more. Then the spirit run is collected in small 100ml collections, I discard the first 300 ml of every spirit then start the collection in 100ml lots till the abv is down to 30% and it stinks like shit. Trust me you will know the tails smell.
There is a guide to running an airstill on here some wher but I don’t get close to those figures as I think it may be based on turbo washes, and I don’t do them. Not sure if this helps in using the pro or not.
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Re: What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby RobMichelle » Mon Jan 13, 2025 6:51 pm

Strip in pot still mode then run in reflux mode for best neutral spirit.
The easy answer from the owner of a store in portland when I was looking at upgrading the head of my air still to a pro
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Re: What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby AJH1 » Mon Jan 13, 2025 7:27 pm

Ok, I have been stripping in reflux mode and taking first 150ml off plus 30ml in for shots and been getting 89% . I have then diluted that to 30% and ran it again taking similar cuts.
I will give the next lot a go in potstill mode first.
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Re: What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby The Stig » Mon Jan 13, 2025 7:51 pm

Either way will work .
What youve been doing is double distilling .
With bigger pot stills a stripping run is done at full power to just strip out all the alcohol from the mash, once stripped you water down to below 40% and then do your spirit run .
This double run strategy is usually used when running a pot still.
Reflux stills will benefit but not as greatly as a pot still.
Cheers
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Re: What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby howard » Tue Jan 14, 2025 10:53 am

it's a time thing as well.
eg if i do 4 x 25L FFV washes, i would have 100L of 10% wash to process.
i can strip 100L in about 4 hours with my 2" on full power.
this is stripped down to 25L of low wines through some copper to remove sulphurs and raised to 40% ABV
refluxing 25L on my rig takes about 6 hours.
so total time is 10 hours (not including set up and cleaning obv)
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Re: What’s the difference? Stripping &spirit run

Postby AJH1 » Tue Jan 14, 2025 2:47 pm

Thanks, making more sense
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