All Tails?

Did my first UJSSM style wash in about 10 years. My only recent distillations have been a couple of lovely TPW's on a fractionating still (nothing but a tall packed column). I used 50% wheat 20% peated barley malt 30% malted barley. I went through the hot water business on the first generation out of curiosity having never done an all grain and still have not. I used a little less sugar than I normally would since I didn't know if the half ass conversion would work, end result in a pot still is that the run started coming off at 120 and quickly descended to 100 and on down. I collected way on down to about 5-10 proof. I didn't notice any particular bad taste or smell while distilling.

I closed lids on the jars and this morning when I went to put them in a container for further processing I was very surprised at the smell. I have never run into this before. I'm thinking that by coming off at such a low proof, tails started immediately. I only used corn in UJSSM years ago and never ran into this. I'm hoping the fractionating or my vapor management still will clean it up.

Comments please.

Comments

  • edited April 2018

    Tails only gonna come up early if you throw too much heat at the kettle or your yeast was totally stressed out.

    If you made cuts I'd consider it a strip with cuts

    Run it again and think like a potstiller.

    EDIT: oh wait,,,you did a single ,pot still run?

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  • Yes. I gathering several runs before rerunning them.

  • Heat and over worked yeast should not be the problem. There seems to be a progression in the smell I never used peated barley before and usually get higher abv's on the other stills. 1500 watts never been a problem. I really thinking its tails smell to the extreme because of low abv.

  • edited April 2018

    @Rocky_Creek said: end result in a pot still is that the run started coming off at 120 and quickly descended to 100 and on down.

    Seems pretty low numbers for a pot run, heads starting at 120 than quickly dropping to 100? Sounds like there wasn't much alcohol in the wash. I've heard people describe this as being very tailsy before.

  • if you suspect low alcohol, measure the gravity of the cooled backset for sugar..

  • Great idea. I suspect low sugar due to holding back some because of not knowing how conversion was going to go. SG was at 1 before distilling. I'll check the backset also. Thanks everyone.

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