Good day sir, plz check the forum -- Brandy and other spirits. I have a peach mango brandy recipe there and stillin directions that I've used with success. Remember if you want a flavor carryover in your distillate you should run your collections a little hotter to push or pull the flavor over with the hooch. If you think about it I'm sure you can see it.... nice and slow will leave more stuff behind in the kettle but what you want is more of the flavor component to come with the hooch.
I found that the flavor got more noticeable after a few days and as time went by it got pretty darn good. I cut mine to about 90 proof and it seemed to me that lower proof just tasted better.
And you don't want to reflux this either cause that will leave the flavor in the kettle not in the distillate. Anyway hope you get it to work.

Strip run definition... run hard and fast and collect everything that comes out in one jug because you are gonna run it thru your still again. You are essentially just reducing the amount of water in the final distillate so you can put it back in the still and run it nice and slow which is called the spirit run.

My advise was, add your finished ferment to your boiler and then run it a little on the hotter side (like a little stream) to pull more flavor over with the distillate. Remember with this type of run you ARE NOT gonna collect all in one big jug, you are gonna collect in smaller quantities like 8-10 oz jars and then make cuts with your nose. If you do a search you can find the thread where I go thru the whole run and describe with pics the correct way to run that fruit wash. Once this is posted I will see if I can find it and come back.

Go to Distilling Question/Technical and scroll to - This is how I collect my run. IN that thread it has pics and describes exactly how to run and collect your distillate.

Read up on how to make cuts and how to collect your distillate, it really does matter when you start doing something other than just a sugar wash.

Edited by user Thursday, June 11, 2015 6:00:51 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thanks Heeler. I'll check that out. That's exactly how I do my stripping runs. Everything goes into a 5 gallon pail pretty quickly.

To steel someone else's description of "soaked cardboard" is what the collected stripped distillate tastes like. But, as you say, once spirited, it's completely smooth with almost no distinct flavor at 92-95 ABV. SWEET.

Doing the mash tonight. Doing a 5 gallon test run running it next Friday or Saturday. I do feel I know what you mean about running it a little hotter, makes sense. I'll let you know what flavor is passed. I'm anxious myself as I've only done sugar wash. I did buy 1 5L box wine at the liquor store yesterday thinking I'd run that to see what taste would come thru, but the wine, cheap, hardly has any flavor to begin with.

The statement - cooking for 24 hours, I think you mean fermenting hard. That's how a turbo works - fast and furious as you've seen. But there are drawbacks to that in my opinion.

That's odd, 4 days is 96 hours but you said it's a Turbo 48, no worries just leave it alone.

Straining your mash, well put your fermenter UP on something for racking purposes (you'll see why when you start) and just leave it there so it can settle and finish. Any pulp in the wash will settle and sit in the bottom in a hard firm cake. Don't jostle your fermenter cause you want to leave all that turbo yeast carcasses junk and any pulp in the bottom.
Then just syphon the liquid only, you will leave some behind but no worries all the alcohol is on top any way so syphon carefully. Fill the boiler and get after it.

Remember, you wont know what you've got for several days, that's normal. Run your still, make your collections, the next day or two make your cuts and after that time span is when you will add water to cut it to a proper proof. OK then good luck and keep us updated.

That's 13, the number, 1/2 pints, or 6.5 pints. To be clear.