Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Stripping run I always used to go down to 20abv. If that helps. I dont strip brown spirits anymore as I have a plated column..
For hearts i kept collecting in small amounts until I could taste tails. Then blend after airing cut jars 24hrs..

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Big Distilleries with uber consistent mash bills and processes can run on temperatures or abv, at the hobby level, forget it untill you have a lot of experience with your gear and recipie

Just collect everything in small cut jars, learning cuts is a vital part of the hobby and very much not an area to try and guess at based on a thermometer/hydrometer, they dont have taste buds and noses to pick out the stuff that isnt ethanol

Thanks RC Al and bluc your advice is very helpful.
I did the stripping runs in the 3x27L MacWhisky washes in 4 batches as my boiler is only 26L, I discarded the first 200ml every time and i kept stripping till I reached 20% alcohol.
LOL but my problem is that I never did 16L low winws at 50% alcohol before, only small 5L batches and the big quantity now gives me problems because I do not have that many jars for cuts, all I have is 15 x 250ml jars. I thought that by tripple distilling I will get higher proof alcohol and less in volume for the third distillation (spirit run) and I might get away with only few extra jars for the cuts. The question for harts being collected between 80 to 60% alcohol was asked thinking that I could use for those 1 or 2L jars. Another option is to split the spirit run in 2.
Thanks again

Never put above 40% in your boiler use the dilution calculator and water it back :naughty:

Go raid the glass/china cabinet lols
you would end up with 20l@ 40%, aprox 9.5L ish if you average out at 78% (thats what mine dose) You could quite comfortably collect the first 1.5l of heads into a jar or saucepan and the same with tails, i doubt you will miss any hearts doing that

bluc wrote:Never put above 40% in your boiler use the dilution calculator and water it back :naughty:

bluc, your advice makes sense, didn't think of that, probably it is a safety measure.
I did a lot of plum brandy and when doing the second distillation (spirit run) I always added at least 2L of water in the boiler to the low wines reason being that I didn't want to end up with an empty boiler. With plum brandy is easy, discard fores and collect everithing together till you reach 20% alcohol. This is the way it is made in the Eastern Europe for ages. The final product is then aged in mulberry barrels for at least 3 years but a lot of people drink it straight away.
Thank you for advice again, I will water down the low wines to below 40%

RC Al wrote:Go raid the glass/china cabinet lols
you would end up with 20l@ 40%, aprox 9.5L ish if you average out at 78% (thats what mine dose) You could quite comfortably collect the first 1.5l of heads into a jar or saucepan and the same with tails, i doubt you will miss any hearts doing that

Thanks RC Al, your information is very helpful and important. I will do so. I still have to buy more jars.

If you use pasta sauce or any other product that comes in jars, clean and keep them and you'll be surprised at how quickly you get a stock of jars. You might find you've got an assortment of different types at first, if you mark their volume at say 100 mL or whatever volume of cuts you decide to use, then you'll be able to be consistent with volume. Over time you can replace the ones you don't want with your preferred type of jar as you collect more of them. No money wasted.

Or buy a carton of beer in clear bottles like Carlton fraught. 24 bottles after a few days :)

Kmart have 6x300mL preserving jars for $6. I grab a pack or two each visit.

Thanks guys, I already bought 30 x 350ml jars, now busy with the spirit run and using them.
I discarded 600ml foreshots, and put aside 1.5L heads. At the 6th jar right now. Strange that the still started at 85% alcohol and at the first jar at 80% and the 5th was still at 80% alcohol

Pretty standard for your still to find a sweet spot and hold an ABV for a while, especially with a spirit run..

Also don't forget that you'll need to calibrate your alcometer depending on the temperature of the spirit, to get an accurate reading.

Thanks Zack Griffin.
I discarded about 600ml as fores and added other 1.5l heads to the faints keg. I collected about 8l in 22 x 360ml jars, I stopped at 20% alcohol. Now I have to taste the lot to find the hearts. The early tails have a lot of nice flavour but a bit of fade taste, the alcohol percentage is about 40%. Do you keep only the hearts or you blend some tails and heads in them as well?

Blending of cuts is where the art side of distilling comes in... I take a pretty tight hearts cut, personally, but plenty of people will dip into tails to get some chunkier flavours.

When doing rum I will go into tails just a little to carry some of that flavour across

I find that there is a bit between hearts and tails I like on whiskey and rum. Not hearts but not manky tails either. On rum its a fairly strong molasses flavour and whiskey a raw grassy grain flavour. On a 40l run I only get 1/2-1 stubby of this that I keep..

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I agree with what has been said. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
My last rum i made i prob didn't go into the tails far enough as it is slightly lacking that molasses punch... it still taste pretty good and it is getting better with age on oak.
If you plan to age your drop for a while you will find some of the slightly off flavours from added tails will mellow out to leave behind some nice flavours. Airing your spirit if aged in glass or aging in a barrel helps this process.

db1979 wrote:If you use pasta sauce or any other product that comes in jars, clean and keep them and you'll be surprised at how quickly you get a stock of jars. You might find you've got an assortment of different types at first, if you mark their volume at say 100 mL or whatever volume of cuts you decide to use, then you'll be able to be consistent with volume. Over time you can replace the ones you don't want with your preferred type of jar as you collect more of them. No money wasted.

Wot DB said. :handgestures-thumbupleft: I've got that many jars now (all the same) I have some marked at 50ml, 100ml, 150ml and 300ml. makes it a lot easier to make cuts.

RC Al wrote:Go raid the glass/china cabinet lols
you would end up with 20l@ 40%, aprox 9.5L ish if you average out at 78% (thats what mine dose) You could quite comfortably collect the first 1.5l of heads into a jar or saucepan and the same with tails, i doubt you will miss any hearts doing that

Hello RC Al,
Thanks for your help as a newbie in Whisky washes it was much appreciated. I used a detuned T500.
I had 3 x 27L MacWhisky washes, I discarded 600ml fores and I ened up with 16L low wines from the stripping run. While doing the spirit run, I discarded again 600ml fores, collected 1.5L heads and dropped them in the faints canister and collected 22x 360ml =7.9L in 22 jars. I ended up with 6.5L at 70% alcohof of what I think are hearts.
I split it in 2 and without watering them down to 65%, I mean they are at 70% alcohol I put them on oak, one american small pieces toasted and one French spiral dark toasted.
Please let me know if I did something wrong.
Thanks