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Waste

Rocky_Creek
edited December 2013 in General

Anyone know how much alcohol by Percentage would be left in the still after a vapor management run? Assume cutoff when temps rise and flow falls.

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Comments

  • RedDoorDistilleryRedDoorDistillery

    All depends on how you run it and what you are after. For Vodka I run the Strip run down to about 1% ABV left in the boiler from a 10% wash. When my boiler hits 99C that is when I start to pickup the tails. I do not collect my Tails right now as I am just making vodka. Proof has fallen way off and so has the output by this time. The rest goes down the drain. My charge is 250 gallons so out of the 25 gallons of alcohol about 2.5 gallons I lose.

    I make solid cuts on my strip run for both heads and tails. So there is not much of either in my Spirits run.

    For a Spirits run I don't really have any waste. When the output has dropped off and I can no longer maintain 190+ I stop. Let the whole thing cool down and put it all back into my holding tank and add more Strip Runs to it.

    Whiskey would be different as you want to collect some of the tails for the flavor it adds. And you are not trying to push to the 190+ mark.

    Hope this helps some....

  • punkinpunkin

    Not a lot. I can't say exactly, but i have collected tails before on a 40l run of 45% low wines.

    From change out at .2 deg temp rise the collection will drop in abv and rise in temp very sharply, you can see the alcometer rising visibly. I'd say there is between .5 and .75 litres of VERY smelly tails in there.

    I stopped collecting it for recycling because of the smell it pushed through my mesh. You can smell it in the stillage as you pour the hot waste away too, it's just not a product i want.

    Easiest way to calculate it exactly is to measure your collection and minus that from the charge. I don't have my notebook handy, but i can look it up if it's important to you later.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Duck0fDeath

    You can tell the remaining ABV in the boiler by the temp.

  • Rocky_Creek

    Thanks to all. RedDoorDistillery if I understand correctly you are using the stillage to cut the proof for the next run, makes sense.

  • RedDoorDistilleryRedDoorDistillery

    Correct. I run several strip runs and add that back to the stillage. Then the whole thing goes back into the still for a Spirits run.

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