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Offline RCRed  
#21 Posted : Friday, June 07, 2013 1:42:42 PM(UTC)
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Heya Grav..

I was figurin' I had it wrong.. I know that the early volitiles go first, my fore's were hinky (in smell) right up to about 175 ml before the heads showed and the stench was less. All along the way from the hearts on, I was doing spoon tastes (of course, spitting it out), and a meter check along the way. I know for sure I was in the hearts of the run, as it was soo smooth and even more so a few days later. The biggest issue I see in my approach was going too slowly, I was getting about 3 drips a second and worked to hold it there.

This run really struck home for me and how temperature shifts demark things going on in there, every time my temp shifted it did so w/o me making any adjustments, but I'd take that as a point to do tests...take a few drops, and then adjust my heat down to stabilize again. I think for the rest of the this "stunted" one, I am going to rise it up slowly to temp and then get it up a tad higher than I was running and let it finsh out. I've a new SF wash underway, so I can always add the second part to that batch.

I gotta say, the spoon tasting was extremely valuable for learning subtle changes as they happen. Just remember to spit that sample out and rinse w/water, both yer mouf and the spoon. I hadn't done the spoon taste thiing before, and I was missing part of it.. nothing accounts for taste... BigGrin

Thanks for replying. It was appreciated.
Offline googe  
#22 Posted : Saturday, June 08, 2013 8:57:33 PM(UTC)
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What sort of ABV were you getting at that rate?. A toothpick size stream is good for pot stilling. Don't try to make many ajustments, smearing.if you have a good toothpick stream at the start it will continue through to hearts, might decrease a bit when you hit hearts, if you have to, make very slight heat adjustments. It should stay stable through hearts, then it will go a bit crazy, output will be all over the place, ABV will drop, that's the sure sign of tails, turn the heat up to what your condenser can handle.and strip to 40~30% ABV.
Offline heeler  
#23 Posted : Sunday, June 09, 2013 8:44:22 AM(UTC)
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IMHO...if you collect in smaller containers it will help with seperation of all the cuts no matter the stream or output size. Just something to contemplate.
Offline RCRed  
#24 Posted : Monday, June 10, 2013 4:06:03 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: googe Go to Quoted Post
What sort of ABV were you getting at that rate?. A toothpick size stream is good for pot stilling. Don't try to make many ajustments, smearing.if you have a good toothpick stream at the start it will continue through to hearts, might decrease a bit when you hit hearts, if you have to, make very slight heat adjustments. It should stay stable through hearts, then it will go a bit crazy, output will be all over the place, ABV will drop, that's the sure sign of tails, turn the heat up to what your condenser can handle.and strip to 40~30% ABV.


Hi fella's.. Been away on business a few days...

Ok, googe, here tis - Frame of references - pint jars, fill point was 3/4 way (or so), so about 12 ounces per jar (?)

Ended up with about a 3.8 gal wash - that durn SF and barley really absorbed a lot and I did not siphon into my grain bed-any disturbance was causing a cloud - so I left about 3/4" of liquid over the bed.. I extracted what I could before the finish run, but it was a filtering challenge, and I tossed it because I didnt want to bung up the kettle by burning any sediments...

First Run - For that day, etoh boiling point in my locale was 166.124415, which I rounded up to 167f. I use a blichmann, so I brought the heat up slow (prob slower than I needed to). At 160f, I engaged the cooling water to the condenser (20 gal garbage can filled with twp 2.5 gal jugs of frozen water and 8 gals of loose cooling water - condenser was ICE cold, with almost a frost on it.

Unless otherwise noted, all my heat adjustments were downward on the burner, I really tried to avoid seesawing back and forth.
( I heeded the advice of making a small adjustment and wating till I saw a result before making any more.)


  • Temp 167f - Foreshots - collected about 200 ml, and introduced it to a fire ant mound
  • Temp 168f - Jar 1 - abv 88-90% - Def heards - strong smell, heavy (hot) tastes
  • Temp 172f - Jar 2 - abv 85 - Less heady an not so hot tasting
  • Temp 175f - Jar 3 - abv 85 - Nice - seemed like hearts - taste was
  • Temp 175f - Jar 4 - abv 83 - dropped a bit, still good aroma and taste
  • Temp 182f - Jar 5 - abv 75 - still pretty smooth
  • Temp 185f - Jar 6 - abv 70 - and here run 1 ended due to lack of heat source (In retrospect, I could have used the hot plate, but I wasn't keen on lifting the whole shebang onto it with it being hot and under pressure.


When I finished it out this past weekend, I got two more jars;


  • Temp 187f - Jar 7 - abv 55 - starting to taste like a tail and hard smell too
  • Temp 192f - Jar 8 - abv 39-40 - and I called it quits because temprature was all over on it's own, and I was having to make too many adjustments-next time I will fire it hard and strip the rest as suggested.
  • Let the rest cool, and poured off in old water bottles for backset later on...


Originally Posted by: heeler Go to Quoted Post
IMHO...if you collect in smaller containers it will help with seperation of all the cuts no matter the stream or output size. Just something to contemplate.
Yes sir, pints was about the smallest thing wally world had, I know mason jars make an 8 ounce size, and I'll get some ordered for subsequent runs.

I left all 7 jars covered with a coffee filter over each and just the band to hold it on while I travelled, and my goodness, sakes alive, Jars 3-6 are really nice. Haven't decided yet if I'm gonna consume it dump it all back into a slow spirit run. Seems a shame to reflux it and lose that SF flavor and aroma (When the missues says it smells wonderful-ya gotta stop and wonder-what's she want me to buy for her now?)

All in all, I really like the SF recepie - addition of the malted barley made a world of difference over the first time I tried it.

Offline googe  
#25 Posted : Monday, June 10, 2013 11:22:23 AM(UTC)
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Your ABV is good mate. I think 12 ounces is about 350ml?, yes I'm Aussie lol. I'd drop that down and do smaller amounts if your just learning cuts and stuff?. I do 150~200ml cuts, I just find it's easier for me to distinguish the different fractions, I've got bad taste and smell senses!. Also your coolent water could be contributing to you saying it was hard to keep the still stable, Ice in cooling water doesn't.seem to work.very good, the water will be freezing cold.at the start like you said and being a small cooling reservoir it will.heat quickly, so you'll go from freezing cold.water to warm water quickly, which will in affect cause your still to try and react with the temp differences, erratic. A bigger reservoir with no ice will be more stable.through the run because it's it's good more coolent to heat and will do it slower. Hope that all makes.sense lol.
Offline RCRed  
#26 Posted : Monday, June 10, 2013 2:12:22 PM(UTC)
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Heya googe...

Aussie peeps are cool w/me. Y'all got heart. BigGrin I've a number of mates from Oztrayleeah online ;D Some day, I want to tour your great land and do some walkabout in the outback (I like frontiers).

I will keep track of my cooling water temp next time around. I got a 2nd digital thermometer as a backup, so i can certainly accomodate that.

The column tempratures stayed pretty stable thru the run. As it went tru each segment it would hold pretty stable (+/- 1 degree). it was a late night run after the heat of the day had faded so it was fairly cool in the shop. I make sure I've plenty of fresh air circulating to cut down on CO2 emission from the burner, or stagnant air - being anal about safety, I guess...

I forgot to record time duration between the jars - I'll be more careful on that next time around along with the temps. The cooling didn't seem to cause fluctuations, and by the 4th jar I could almost "tell" by the sound from the boiler a change was coming. Yes, I sat there and watched it closely all the way thru, pretty much.

I've read in a a ton of threads about using frozen water bottles as a cooling augment.. Perhaps I went a tad overboard using big bottles, but that water stayed fairly cool (at least to the touch) all the way thru.. I have frozn bottles of various sizes, from 1 US pint to 2.5 gals.

Cheers and thanks for the reply.
Offline googe  
#27 Posted : Monday, June 10, 2013 7:18:58 PM(UTC)
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Hi mate, nice of you to say that about us :-). You'll love it out west here, nothing for as far as the eye can see lol. Disregard my ramblings about your coolent water, I forgot you were doing a pot run, it would only really affect it if you were using your rc. Nothing wrong with being anal when it comes to safety mate :-). Have you tasted it now its aired a bit?. Never done a grain wash but am keen to :-). No worries for the reply, just hope I didn't confuse matters lol. Good puck, with the taste test :-).

Cheers
Offline RCRed  
#28 Posted : Tuesday, June 11, 2013 12:33:35 AM(UTC)
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Heya googe

I live in a really rural area of northeast Texas and I identify with open space.. Really have no use for the city anymore. Closest house here is about 300 meteres from me on one side and thousands of acres around me that's only farmland.

Did I taste? Oh gosh yes, after 2 days when it aired out..The smoothness of jars 3 and 4 is a beauty to behold. Jar 5 is no slouch either.

This was my 2nd Sweet Feed wash and I have the 3rd bubblin' away now. I really like it a lot.

Confuse matters? No, I's do that all on me's ownsome Wink Thanks for the dialouge!!
Offline heeler  
#29 Posted : Tuesday, June 11, 2013 6:47:30 AM(UTC)
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RCR, just buttin in, I was in Graham Tx in the end of April when y'all had that last little freeze come through, I was trying horses and damned if that cold did'nt get me bucked off. I know this is off topic but it seems like you hit a ending point so I am just rambling. Thx
Offline RCRed  
#30 Posted : Tuesday, June 11, 2013 7:33:15 AM(UTC)
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Thas allright, Heeler.. yea we get them cold bursts like that right at the height of my planting season.. this year, it stunted all all my early plantings... Maters have taken off finally, and so did the early squash.. I'm getting good crookneck and yaller squash.. Peppers are draging arse like my last wash... BigGrin

Completely wiped out my first seeding of green beans - too cold to germinate.. I just now reseeded, but god knows, usually, it's too hot in June/July for beans to work out.

Notice I didn't post a word about bubblin' rates on the latest SF wash - I used fresh yeast and it chased me across the barn when it activated.. lots of bubblin now.. BigGrin
Offline googe  
#31 Posted : Tuesday, June 11, 2013 9:25:20 PM(UTC)
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Sounds like a nice place you got there mate!! :-). I to am a county person, bushy we call them here lol. But I'm stuck in Melbourne because of work atm, moving to nz next year and then ill be living in the country again :-). Sounds like you've got alot of land around you!!, you a farmer?. Theres some big properties out west Queensland, my dads got an opal mine on a cattle station thats 900,000 acres!, and theres lots bigger lol. I'm really going to have to try what you made, sounds very nice!!. Glad I didn't confuse things lol.
Offline RCRed  
#32 Posted : Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:40:27 AM(UTC)
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Heya googe

My pissant little squat of land doesn't even qualify in Texas - Anything less than one thousand acres here is considered a parking lot... No sir, I am not a farmer, but when the dinosaurs roamed the earth I was born a country boy from the eastern mountains of the US, the Blue Ridge range, near Appalachia. Corporate was never able to wean me off my roots.

I like to raise my own food, can it, and be as sufficient as I can within my confines of career and family. I've ran gardens for years...Never hurts knowing how to feed yerself and others. What we don't eat/can get's donated to the homeless shelters. And with squash being a prolific arse crop, that's a bunch.
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