What To Do With Feints & Why I Cant Do It

[@got2kittys]

The heads are great for auto window washer fluids. It prevents freezing, and cleans too. Traditionally in America tails went into the thump box.

[@tomhill4003]

it does make a kick-ass window cleaner and anti-freeze, but it is highly toxic and will kill any wild life that ingests it. Best to use it for the BBQ.

[@nopers369]

@@tomhill4003 It'll evaporate long before wild life drink it mate.

[@johnnybigpotato2404]

I'm not one to watch a movie twice, unless it s a Classic like The Goonies, but I watch your stuff many times based on my level of understanding at that moment in time. Thanks again for everything you do and thanks for the update on your peers, such as George and Bearded, and insight into new guys I have not seen yet and am now a proud subscriber to. :)

[@cliffstrobel1198]

Just did an all feints run of about 4 different products but ran through reflux. I was surprised how much and how nice it came out. Top job Jesse.

[@aggassixiaomi935]

I made cologne from feints. Add 10ml pure oil extract of plant of your choice in my case lemon into 1 litre 76-80 ABV alcohol. To give it a nice colour grate one lemon skin in it and after 3 days filter it with coffee filter or whatever you have. Age it for a month. Put it into a spray bottle and ready to go.

[@aio6699]

I did a bunch of double pot stilled rum runs, ended up with about 30L barrel strength which is currently ageing, then did a feints run through my VM still, even through 1.2m of scurbbers with a fair amount of reflux it had tons of flavour, more flavour than the origional rum. Got maybe 5 extra bottles, called it re-rum and drank fresh with lime and sugar, caipirinha style.

[@spikelove9533]

I do the same thing and call it a specal blend. So far each time its been really good. I look forward to the specal blend runs.

[@deborahstclair4126]

Saving tails helps me be more selective about the tails cut without throwing away so much flavor or alcohol. I collect them down to about 50 proof and add to the next batch. Heads on the other hand, in my experience, distill best in a high resolution set up and make decent NGS for cordials and gin making. Now I see why you don't redistill feints and it makes sense for what you do. Good video.

[@lilymcalister1825]

Thank you Jesse!! Yes indeed, this video helped me to understand feints MUCH more clearly!! I found you thru Bearded & Bored. I saw you first when you, Bearded and George were tasting his cherry brew. I am learning lits and about to make my first cherry/applejack distillation and then a nice peach bourbon (hopefully). I know I will be making lots if liquors with peaches, pear and apricots and now I know how to use the tails from those runs specifically. Thank you for sharing your crafting experiences!! Its very much so appreciated. Happy distilling!!🍻

[@owenlangdon6461]

Cool video, ive tried adding feints to next distillation. I did it slightly different where i was trying to peer a whiskey (malt rye feints) with a different whiskey (malt corn and bloody butcher), worked out well. I just finished making my whiskey library of different grains distilled so had an epic whiskey feints run made of 15 different types and styles of grain. Got the idea to do that from you. Thank you for your videos got me from wishing i could distill, to building my still and eventually creating a library of whiskey for recipe ideas. Now to wait till Christmas for my 'feint of heart 2020' whiskey to be ready.

[@TheJdm2203]

HAHAHA!! Love the intro!! "This what you can do with them, and why I don't" Another GREAT video, Jess!!

[@philiptruitt]

Jesse, brandy makers Hubert German-Robin and Ansley Cole recommend only using TWO feints runs in succession. They believe that using more than this negatively impacts flavor. HGR is an 11th generation brandy maker, so I think he has a good point. BUT, I believe your suggestion of saving the feints for a separate run is the best way to deal with them. Thank you for all your hard work!

[@greyarea3804]

Unknowingly I've been doing the correct thing. Thank you for confirming it. I hate to waste.

[@bryanparsons7207]

It would be great to see you do a whiskey timeline like that and how it worked out

[@mojaavantura]

Great video, I do the very same thing, collecting everything I get from different rakia's, bourbon, rum, single malt and vodka. It takes me 3 month to collect 30 litters of it. I get from it great spirit that combines all the specific tastes.

[@darthnihilus3447]

You can add the tails to your mash just before you set the fire to your still, you can add it to your thump keg to add a little more flavor or you can use the tails to temper down your product while adding flavor.

[@colinrout4139]

Thanks Jesse! I have my first two sugar mash stripped and run together for my first ever spirit output. I have taken notes of the cuts (400ml jars) and have found the different aromas and flavours through individual jar testing and from 24 jars (number 1 being 4’s) have separated my hearts (about 3.2l). I was literally wondering how to reuse my head and tails as this video popped up! Albeit a junior in the game, I consistently find your videos to be absolutely prophetic when helping me to “chase the craft”, many, many thanks and from Bendigo, Victoria, Cheers 👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@colinrout4139]

Sorry, hearts and tails

[@robertbolen5424]

I save all the feints and run them together, apple brown sugar mash. I run a pot still without a thumper the flavor that comes out of what weve always just called a rerun is amazing.

[@ironmck9826]

I havn't been in this game long, but what I have done so far is: Collect the foreshots/heads and discards from the hearts in one bottle and all my tails in a second big jug. When I gathered enough of the tails to run, (once so far) I did similar to what you're calling a, "chimera spirit" only just with the tails. Wouldn't call it, "great" but definitely an interesting product. The high test bottle, is outstanding firestarter. So I use it start my charcoal bbq. Saves me lighter fluid and smells much better when you light it, just keep the face and arm hair out of the way when you do. Love to see all the other options to.

[@colahandyman67]

Iron McK I reckon you have nailed it. You don't need KZbin to tell you what to do with leftovers.

[@SteveRix78]

Jesse, love your videos.....learning a lot from them. One question though, you mention whacking all of your feints into a keg and when it gets to the point you run it. Are you proofing it down to 40% first?

[@denisdendrinos4538]

I'm in a position where I have 4 10l fermenters, and a little pressure cooker pot. So each 10l I split and do a run. But each time, I add back in the feints, cos sometimes I tap more in on the first split then the second, so make up some volume but also for the flavour. I'm currently sitting with 1 of a gen 2 and 3 of them on the gen 3 UJSSM sorghum run. First time I'm doing so much volumne, but I can certainly vouch for the flavour as I did this with 10 l pineapple and orange wash and a 10 l strawberry too.

[@jaygodfrey788]

Awesome idea

[@RiggerBrew]

It's great for making Bourbon and carrying through flavor to help with consistency. 5 Gal barrels are getting stupid expensive though. Starting to think about switching over to oak spirals. hope it's roughly the same flavor although the aging will be different.

[@Toxxyc]

Hey man, just a quick mention here on something you mentioned around @2:20 in your video. I know it's an older video so sorry for only mentioning it now, but you say you use your foreshots for "anything you'd use isopropyl alcohol for", and I think you should just be a tad careful there. Isopropyl is fine for use as something like a hand sanitizer, whereas foreshots, containing methanol, is not. Methanol is absorbed through the skin and people with a sensitivity might pick up on the poisoning effects of that. I've seen people get really sick (nausea, migraines, body aches, etc.) after using foreshots as hand sanitizer (in this pandemic times), so I think it's just safer to exclude it from that. Personally, my foreshots are collected and distilled to a very high proof and I use that to pretty much play with. Clean stuff, light fires, etc, and that's about it. EDIT: Oh, sorry, after that you mention not to mention methanol. Sorry. Whack me over the head with a teflon pan and call me an ass. :P

[@jesseblackburn8437]

Great ideas, gives me ideas! Would work great after you perfect each style of distillate! Thanks

[@frankromig]

Great ideas, I use mine in my air still. I add a bunch of berries or fruit to make something with a lot of flavor.

[@gmrbison7316]

Great video! I’ve heard guys not recycling their heads just the tails as after a while you get very concentrated heads. I guess at that time you could discard them. Always meet to see what you end up with when you just do a feints run from all different types of spirit.

[@tissuepaper9962]

You don't really end up concentrating the poisonous/yucky stuff unless you keep the foreshot in with the rest of your heads.

[@bobnewkirk7003]

I toured a micro-distillery nearby that was only doing a pre-prohibition style bourbon. He would run a bunch of his bourbon then after awhile do an all-feints run and sell it off as Carmel Corn Vodka. He cant keep the stuff on the shelf, and I have been told that it is pretty incredible. Makes me wonder what other all-feint runs would end up like, sadly I'm in the US so I'll probably never be able to find out...

[@pedromejia4343]

I make heads run and tails run separated, to have better control of flavor and yield

[@exafjerf]

it gets very smooth

[@cabji]

When he says he throws all his Feints into a drum and "when it gets full enough, distill it as it is" I'm pretty sure he meant to also say "after I water it down to below 30%" - just for the newbies. I did the same thing with UJSSM and rum Feints a couple of months back. I used the hearts from that Feints run to make liquers. I gotta say, the liquers made from the Feints hearts smells cleaner and nicer than liquers I made longer back from a sugar wash with turbo yeast. Time will tell. Time will tell.

[@oasismike2]

Or twenty percent, and with good clean water.

[@spikelove9533]

30% is a little high. 20% is whats recommended when distilling spirits. I have charged thumpers with 190 and normally do that with 160 so technically on breaking the rule of 20%. I've never had any issues my thorey is they are being heated by vapor so there is no chance of any kind of combustion

[@riccunningham9739]

My feints are usually around 30%. I hold to run neutral then make gin

[@mindofmadness5593]

Here is mt issue. Recently started. Trying different things from fruits to corn-working on finding Barley and Hopps and such [[when I have money]] So my Runs end up with a variety of Tails flavors. Do not have enough to run thru a secone run but am concerned about changing the flavor if I use them in say corn when they came from fruit or using the fruit when I am doing Rum.

[@vlagavulvin3847]

If we talk about the simple pot still for our spirit run... Suddenly (but mostly for the noobs), the normally picked up feints have less fusels than the hearts themselves. So re-running feints grants a cleaner product.

[@greybeard27]

Ah great vid, I was wondering what your take on this would be. I have started keeping all my feints from whisky, rum, gin and some random spirits from a couple of beers I made I didn't like so much. I have been tempted to just run them through my reflux, but you've convinced me, I'll chuck them in the pot and see what comes out :)

[@exafjerf]

in sweden it is very popular with active carbon filter.. it is kinda custom..

[@ParadigmUnkn0wn]

Russians filter almost all their vodka over carbon, and ion exchange resins as a second step aren't uncommon in higher end products. Americans filter Tennessee whiskey over charcoal. I'm sure other countries do as well. It's not "kinda custom." It's something that's likely been independently invented many times in many places.

[@dmorgan5010]

You are correct once you are up and running regularly every week you do develop multiple blends from the original. As you realize that your first second third fourth and 5 th run each week changes in flavor. After realizing this each I wish 100 gallon could be saved for special purposes spirit's of each run but I wish I had just a gallon but. It all seems to disappear from the storage when you are at a certain point you need to cross over and build 1,000 gallon cooker so you can actually have a storage area for the type you created it seems that everyone is gradually going to learn how to create a good drink but it begins with the cleaning of each peace you are using I have ran with out cleaning only if I am running the same thing the next day after 3 days you will be pulling green from the copper and leads that are natural in the copper..never run your equipment if it does not look new from the hardware store vinegar is good but not alone after Vinegar baking soda and bear until it is clean as a gun barrel if it is a item of the still that is not easy enough to clean get rid of it think about the storage time you are counting on if it is poison ☠ what is it worth

[@skeebefox]

Thanks man! You are the reason I stay inspired to keep chasing the craft!

[@almageist]

I find it fascinating that with mezcal for example, some of the feints are blended back into the final product to bring it to proof and adds a lot of nuance of flavor that you wouldn't get with just water, even the heads. The fear over methanol and furfural is greatly overstated in the world of distillation and its just basic logic; the distillation process by definition is not adding anything that wasn't already present in the wash. If you were to drink the wash on its own all the chemicals are already present just diluted. Of course I'm not saying go and drink all the heads and tails your heart desires, alcohol in general is a poison at the end of the day and we do have to moderate our intake. What I am saying though is that we shouldn't be so fearful of using the feints in this way in moderation. As has been said there's flavor and nuance there that we could be missing out on and it doesn't have to be solely utilized by re-destilation

[@gregorynorth1081]

Hi can you keep all the hart’s from 2or 3 different run in a bottle until you have a enough to bottle it 😅

[@CodeDoctorJet]

I use them for cleaner, degreaser, and for spraying on the truck window in winter to deal with ice.

[@crabmansteve6844]

All Feints runs sound crazy cool. You should brand the final stuff as "Fuck-it Bucket Special Reserve"

[@redwhiteandbluebonnets8180]

Now that's a top shelf bottle right there

[@benmckay5322]

I did my first mixed bag feints run a while back and didn't like what I got out of it. It all still seems like feints to me. It was a blend of tails from rectified sugar wash and gin runs. The tails averaged 90% abv and I watered them down to +/- 30%. I have tried adding gin tails into my gin runs and it seemed that the hearts suffered for it. In my experience so far it seems that tails in = tails out. So far the only successful use of tails I have found is making surface and hand sanitizers Eventually i'll try running the feints back through again but watered down to around 20% abv and see if that helps.

[@jediknight129]

that sounds like there's something not happy tbh. if it persists and you can try a reflux run going for neutral spirit and see if it persists, if not then it's something in your still setup.

[@markmurphy9862]

Bocacob (many years ago) said to add baking soda. I recall he said that this will break the foul esters into pure ethyl alcohol and citric acid - which have widely different bp's and is easy to still out good neutral spirits. Have you tried that?

[@colahandyman67]

Sitting here sipping on a tails run of UJSSM aged on oak for 2 months and it don't taste too bad.

[@johnekare8376]

A thought that popped into my head: If you add the faints back in to the next run, even if it got stuff in it that you DO want... wouldn't it over time also refine the stuff in there that you DON''T want? At least I would expect the heads and tails to grow over time?

[@mushmouth2029]

ive thought the same thing. makes more sense to cut it with water before distilling. that way its not compressed enough to smear into the hearts again.

[@johnfox2709]

Some of the light components that are in the feints will ultimately wind up in the foreshots, and the some of the heavy components will end up in the boiler, so after a time, yes you will build up a little ethyl acetate, acetone, isoamyl alcohol, etc in the feints, but they do not build up to the point where they are poisonous or unpleasant. If you were to recycle the foreshots and the boiler contents, then you would end up with the problem you mention. PS: In chemical engineering, the boiler bottoms and the foreshots are referred to as a "purge stream". Happy distilling

[@0BRAINS0]

Alot less methanol when you run an open head still before capping and distillation.

[@Dustinielson]

Hey mate, is there some way I can buy you a pine roofing baton to finish off your bench? I keep staring at it, lol.

[@jackmclane1826]

When you have enough run it through your reflux still 2 times and run your lawn mower with it. Or use it as a solvent for whatever. I still have some bottles of (mostly) methanol for cleaning purposes from my granddad. He was boozing a lot of fruits on our land... very good stuff. There is still some left.

[@hellbilly007]

I'd like to see a video of a all feints run and your tasting notes

[@petermackintosh9826]

@hellbilly007 he has already done a video on this. It was very interesting. It’s called “ this run of spirits will never be made again” or similar to that

[@johnstone1199]

Would it be practical to use the tails in a thumper??

[@Tyresio12]

And what would you want to achieve with that?

[@johnstone1199]

@@Tyresio12 I have been thinking of using a thumper and have been reading that putting alcohol in the thumper is the best way to go. I am just curious if it would be worth keeping the tails to use in the thumper and use the flavor of the tails in my distillate.

[@kevind7617]

I've heard of people putting faints in the thumper to raise the alchol content.. the higher alchol content saves time and redistils them just like putting them in the boiler

[@DanTinsman]

The thumper is a temperature control method used back in the day when using wood or coal to heat your still. The heads was put into the thumper; after the run you would empty the thumper on the ground. Why would you wast the tails in a thumper? Collect them from every run and once you have enough for a full run run them. You will be surprised on how well it turns out. If you are thinking about using a thumper and you have a good way to control your temperature, "i.e. electric pot" then you dont need a thumper. There is no value added unless you are infusing flavors then your not using the thumper as a thumper...

[@adamw2785]

Yes, you can use tails in the thumper. Lots of people do it that way. Traditional jamaican rum distilleries would do a stripping run with no thumper, and collect the tails in 2 different vessels, throwing out the first vessel because it usually smelled like wet dog/cardboard, but keeping the second vessel tails for the spirit run thumper. Then for the spirit run, they would use 2 thumpers, and have rum tails and water (75tails:25water) in the second thumper. The first thumper would be 50:50 low wines and water.

[@superdupermax]

most of my runs are sugar (ie... almost no methanol). i take off 4oz from 5 USG (i know too much) and put it in a re-run bottle for later. when ever that gets done... im thinking to take off a pretty big chunk for 'foreshots'. bad idea? might run it in reflux mode to get the pure stuff out.

[@PoppaLongroach]

i toss first half pint off my 3 gallon pot still for foreshots n heads just becouse thats when the flavor profile mellows alot

[@stickybudsgardens6942]

Ok, so question from a new guy. I run a sugar wash with turbo yeast in an air still. Highest proof is always 150 which I understand is because that's max from a pot still? I pull off every 200ml and separate it down until 90-100 proof and trash the rest. Are you saying I should keep going and put aside anything below 100pr to run again another day? How far down should I collect? 50pr? 40pr? The Air Still capacity is only 1 gallon so is it worth it? I use the 150pr to make THC/CBD OIL. Even better, it all begins with my sugar wash as my C02 generator for my indoor grow! Two great hobbies working synergistically! 🍻🍻🤩

[@stickybudsgardens6942]

@Elric Storm that does make sense. It seemed I was dumping quite a bit but somewhere I had read that below 100 the quality was poor and a waste of time. But not as you say with collecting and saving for re run. Thank you for answering!

[@PetraKann]

Painting the wooden fence with used engine oil? Need to thin the oil for better application by brush or spray gun? Feints

[@smudgepost]

For non-New Zealanders, Biffa is a waste management company and we commonly say we'll 'Biff it' not bin it.

[@Ith4qua]

Ah, thank god. I thought he said boof at first. That's when you... ingest alcohol without drinking it.

[@isaacwolfe5986]

^ Yeaaahhh - As long as you don't boof it.

[@LeClaw]

we have Biffa bins in the UK as well 😁 knew exactly what he meant

[@frogmanpipes9561]

I'm glad someone explained that. I thought he said "biff it" as in "Boof it" in the states that mean sticking drugs or alcohol up your keister. I thought to myself thank goodness he's not.

[@ghostswereppl2]

That explains things a bit😁

[@karlallspach5309]

I always enjoy your videos. Keep them coming!

[@richardwhitebrook5695]

I make the same spirit each run and have been collecting feints in a barrel called "queens" with exactly that intention, but does that make any difference to just rolling feints into the next spirit run as you suggested? Seems like a "six of one, half a dozen of the other" proposition

[@StillIt]

I have not done it. Like I said I never get to make the same thing over and over. I have seen people talk about it that I respect. They seem to think so. I guess you have a much higher concentration of congeners in the pot.

[@mikebettis1804]

Do you have to temper down the feints to 40 proof or just dump them all in your new run? Thanks

[@JavierMedinaImagery]

First 4K video! Looks great mate.

[@roylocke2947]

Hi great idea never thought of that big thanks

[@eltondavids1952]

I usually make corn whiskey. The tails I collect from 50%to 30%. When I have 10L I make gin or flavoured vodka.

[@PaulSmith-jr1qe]

What's your opinion on doing an all feints run if you only ever run reflux , Don't you think everything worth having within reasonable parameters has already been extracted ?.

[@cabji]

This is a good question I've been thinking about too. If we constantly collect Feints and redistill them, use the best bits, at what point is there going to be all the stuff we don't want as the majority of the feints?

[@PaulSmith-jr1qe]

@@cabji My thoughts were if all you do is run reflux @95% plus how much good stuff can there be left in the feints.

[@cabji]

@@PaulSmith-jr1qe well, I've done 0ne feints run and took the hearts from it. Put liquer flavour essences into it all. So far they are smelling more appealing than the liquer flavours I did with refluxed sugar wash. So I'd say there's still plenty of good stuff in the feints, at least the first time. Just have to keep going on experimenting and see what happens I guess.

[@nickthomson8512]

Mate, I am wondering if you have heard about using sodium carbonate (not sodium bicarbonate) to remove all bad flavours from feints? Apparently it works nicely. Would be nice if you made a video about that.

[@tectonicbrewing4168]

I read that after having enough quantities of faint, one can make a low gravity mash/wash, pitch a healthy large pitch of yeast. Once fermentation is strong and going, add your faints to it. This will allow the yeast to convert some of the acitoaldehydes and other sharp alcohols into ethanol. The theory is that due to the lake of sugar, yeast may take aldehydes and generate energy from converting them to ethanol. Then distill them for better products. Do you have any opinion on that, have you read such a thing?

[@elixwhitetail]

I don't distill (illegal where I live) but I make mead and if you dump >20% abv alcohol into a yeast fermentation the alcohol will stop fermentation and potentially kill the batch entirely because the yeasties can't survive in such an intense alcohol environment. Even champagne yeast typically only goes to 18% max and simply can't survive and reproduce at much higher. If you were to water the feints down to say 10% the abv shock might not be too hard for the yeast and they'll MAYBE start eating some of the non-ethanol compounds and turning them into ethanol.

[@Thalanox]

@@elixwhitetail If you add the high % alcohol into the currently fermenting batch of alcohol, wouldn't that do the same thing as watering it down?

[@elixwhitetail]

@@Thalanox Yes, but only once the blend of liquids homogenized. If you poured it in slowly while stirring it up, it'd probably be alright, but my concern is dumping in high-proof alcohol shocking the yeast before it has time to settle out and dilute evenly through the volume. It also depends on the volumes you're dealing with; one cup of 20% alcohol into 18 gallons of fermenting mash or must probably won't hurt, but one cup of 20% into one gallon is proportionally much more severe. So, there's no one single right answer, like most things in fermenting and distilling.

[@davidelourenco2537]

The "OMG the methanol! " Just craked me open! LooOoOol

[@davidelourenco2537]

Actually in whisky there's a lot of reuse of heads and tails and in different percentages and there's why they end up with 2,3678299.. times destilled, or what ever. Great topic as always!

[@davidelourenco2537]

And if you're working with a small still and can make a much bigger ferment - a queens run its actually a very likely scenario..

[@cabji]

There should always just be one short clip of Jesse saying "OMG THE METHANOL!" and we never need to discuss it again.

[@jimnz17]

Two questions. if im making a neutral, can I put the Feints into the stripping run?. Q2. if recycling the Feints, wouldn't the bad tastes just accumulate so that successive runs produce larger and larger Feints and smaller and smaller hearts?

[@RyanAbrey]

Would be a cool AirStill test. A generational 4l run. I.e. make a rum or a whisky of only 4l and build it up over time instead of one 20l run and stripping.

[@KB-uv7xo]

Thanks for sharing!

[@whip8]

Jesse, can you do a single pot still distillation vs stripping run and spirit run method. If you want flavour, that single distillation is a great experiment

[@pedromejia4343]

I do that sometimes, when I have little of something, but if I am making lots of that same thing it will take a lot of time

[@whip8]

@@pedromejia4343 Good point about size. At hobby scale I find that pulling a full flavoured hearts bottle out of the first run and keeping feints from multiple single runs for an all feints run later I end up with more overall full flavoured whiskey

[@troymcdonald9086]

Seams to me that if you use a reflux tower to make some High proof you should loose most of the flavor! Then infuse it w/ some thing?

[@Deathbows2me]

Strsight up im not educated on this as much as you are. I noticed the hatred for the methanol bs. Ive heard that there is a "risk" of methanol build up in doing feints runs? I trust you and your wisdom on distilling. I also am not worried about the methanol but interested in your opinion on this topic. Strictly because you have the expierence. I mean huge distilleries do it and guess what no one dies from That haha.

[@jacobharnoy6396]

A question: when you collect the feints. As time passes, it matures. When you redistill it, does it "rewind" the maturation process?

[@Chevychevy014]

Hi Jess! Thank you so much for this video! Do you think recycle Fores (the first 10/30ml for 10L low wine@30%ABV) with the rest of the Heads-Tails-feints could improuve the taste of the final stuff (in the whisky production for example. I saw scotch distilleries do this)

[@tissuepaper9962]

AFAIK the foreshot is where most of the methanol is, so just out of prudence I probably wouldn't throw it back in. It's probably not actually that bad for you if you get a little bit of methanol that carries over into your spirit (the treatment for methanol poisoning is ethanol), but I still probably wouldn't do it.

[@iantaylor1341]

6:45 Forrest Gump quote - Shrimp Gumbo, Shrimp pasta, Shrimp salad .....

[@alockworkorange7296]

Holy shit ur beard grows fast mine takes 3 or 4 years to get as long and full as yours dose in a year very nice my man

[@StillIt]

HAHA, dude I never know how long it takes to grow. Im always just randomly hacking bits off it. And then letting it go wild for . . . . . I dont know how long.

[@alockworkorange7296]

@@StillIt i clicked on ur feints run video and couldnt beleive the differnce in one year its quite impressive. Thats the only reason i noticed

[@quarlow1215]

If you do only sugar wash would you bother saving the heads and tails as there is not much flavour in them?

[@colahandyman67]

But there is alcohol with still not much flavour.

[@jimmyrankin2858]

When you say tails, does that include everything leftover in the boiler? Like dunder if we're talking a rum?

[@MatrixRage]

Jimmy Rankin no, I believe feints are just classified as the heads and tails, not anything left over after the spirit run (whatever your personal abv cutoff point is)

[@tissuepaper9962]

The contents of the boiler get chucked out with the foreshot. Together they're known as the "purge stream" iirc.

[@projetchalet]

Do you keep the feints of the feints into a new feints bucket ?

[@CC-wq8yz]

Great video! Pretty much what I do too.

[@clivedavies3]

The collection of your heads and tail Is the queens the flavour of the whisky you've distilled for the last say year or so that is the cream of the total of your runs. Doesn't last long in my family neither does the normal whiskey runs I never put the tails and the heads in the next run it sacrilege. Keep up the good work.

[@Futt.Buckerson]

I understand the basics of distillation, but I'm not entirely clear on all the processes. Is it uncommon to use controlled heat sources to do a fractional distillation? It seems more efficient to target specific compounds by using specific temperatures on your first run, vs re-distilling a mix of methanol and ethanol down later on. For instance starting your run at ~65°C should take all the methanol. Then you move up to 78-79°C to start bringing over the ethanol. Or is this sort of thing entirely separate from what's being discussed in the video?

[@DrSpooglemon]

Physics mostly takes care of that for you. The wash will stay at 50 C until most of the stuff that boils at 50 C is boiled off. Controlling the temperature will help mitigate spill over between the fractions but the real separation is done by the reflux column. In the lab we use various different columns for different degrees of reflux. The most basic is just a straight column. There is also a vigreux column that has greater surface area or a reflux condenser which has water running through it just like the condenser the condenses the distillate and so it forces a lot of vapours to condense back down into the reflux flask. It's a matter of finding a system that works for the specific task you are doing. If I wanted to boil a solvent off at 50 C it would make sense to use a hot water bath heated to 50 C rather than messing around with the reflux side of things. The same principles apply to alcohol and it's about finding a set up and MO that works for you. The reflux stills give a greater degree of separation than a simple pot still and that is good for things like vodka that don't have a lot of flavour or for more fine grain separation of different flavours if you want to play around.

[@vtbn53]

Yes, I only do FFV and save the feints until I can spirit them - best results of all spirits runs - and I have no idea why.

[@humanonearth1]

If you're pot distilling, and collecting tails. You might be concentrating the methanol into your feints. As apparently the bulk of it is in the tails when pot distilling, as opposed to in the heads with a column. Tbh I'm leaning that heads have some good stuff in them but tails, I don't think it's worth collecting it unless you're dealing with commercial volumes.

[@samstevens1995]

Yo i love your cookietime milk bottle and i want one! haha so cool

[@ipkandskill]

I don't distill but I brew and I do something similar. Every time I take a hydro reading I pour that liquid into a bottle. Sometimes it turns out amazing, some times not so much. lol

[@robertbogar1501]

try doing an all faints run, but first water down with good clean water to about 20% let it sit for a day, then use reflux still or strip then pot still, should be clean spirit

[@Ansis99]

Yes. I do the same. Heads to fire, but tails I redistill. I try to use heads to add to the next batch but ... NO.

[@h.Freeman]

I got worried there for a second when u said bouf it...🤣

[@grumpy_old_man426]

I throw nothing away. I age using Jack Daniels and Jim Bean wood chips anyway so I am now saving them in a large pot. I figured that there is a lot of alcohol and different flavors deep inside the chips so what if I put them in the pot and do small feints run. Gonna need quite (500g-1kg) a lot but could be interesting

[@tonyroulston1244]

I use feints to make gummies. With decarbox’d weed, 🤗💚🖖🏼

[@PoppaLongroach]

thats a great idea! i make cannabutter but hadnt thought of that. you make homemade pumkin pie crust with that butter and thanksgiving dinner gets fun after desert

[@grumpy_old_man426]

A couple of years ago I re-run some feints to 95%abv then used that to extract resin and pollen. I then re run all of the horrible looking stuff. The result was a marijuana gin which had a very floral scent. That which was left in the still was then boiled of very slowly to collect the oil. No messing around with isopropyl alcohol or butane gas, so no nasty residue in your oil

[@PoppaLongroach]

@@grumpy_old_man426 i do same thing but rerun my high proof heads after foreshots been removed. im doin run prolly tomorrow and will have enuf heads to rerun and get started on the trimmings from this years crop. mother nature smiled on me this year!

[@mynxravenhawk3500]

So are you using the feints to make a tincture with the de carboxyed weed then adding the tincture to gummies. Is that what you do? Cheers.

[@grumpy_old_man426]

@@mynxravenhawk3500 no. I re-distilled the feints to 95% abv which was then used wash the weed to extract the good shit. . It was purely to make gin and oil. Gummies didn't even come into it at the time. I dont particularly like gin myself but It was a one-off test which proved popular with everybody who tried it. Hope that helps.

[@jediknight129]

this is why I run pure alcohol rums but... this idea has potential

[@ursamines7643]

An infinity bottle of feints...nice!

[@stevealexander8010]

You should read what Scot's do for Scotch Whisky. They recoup 95+% of all ethanol, by recycling *ALL* heads and tail into the 'next run'. Heads 'bad flavor' is not due to the chemical composition of the vapor - but instead due to washing-out of (bitter/off) fusels from the still - from the tails of the previous run. Tails indeed have bad-flavor chemical composition, but these are separable by cuts. As an amateur, tossing an extra 10% or 20% of ethanol MIGHT be a practical expedient - but it' definitely not necessary for product flavor quality.

[@TheBaconWizard]

I make a cologne, having steam-distilled essential oils and hydrosol, then add gin and absinthe feints to it.

[@ailkenllib]

@ 2:36, 'OH MY GOD, THE METHANOL' I laughed so hard at that, thanks!

[@BeardedBored]

Me Too:-)

[@ailkenllib]

@@BeardedBored would make a great meme for our craft, LOL

[@BeardedBored]

@@ailkenllib True!

[@Nathouuuutheone]

I don't get it

[@randolphcraig7246]

Maybe a dumb question but why not use feints for proofing the spirit they came from

[@rodneyatleson2861]

I guess from what I understand is that's part of the flavor that you didn't want.

[@alch3myau]

tehe. starting fires. yeah my first 200mls.. tried to make an alcohol burner.. nope! *pop bang!*.. but good thing it all burnt out in an instant... Ill stick to using it for hand warmer/window cleaner

[@Mrboxo]

Hypothetically, I just checked on some heads feints I had left over from a ffv I ran 2 years ago. They have mellowed out so much I could drink it , interesting how the volatile headsy stuff has dissipated. The tails jars still smell like ass

[@porkbroth]

"The tails jars still smell like ass" don't jump to any conclusions. Some people might be into that sort of thing

[@ndrjskrbnk]

“feints” give a “character” to the aging spirit after 15-18 months.

[@svampae]

PLS LINK VIDEOS YOU TALK ABOUT IN THE VIDEO THANKS

[@adamwhite2120]

Yes make another faint run

[@oliverwalton5191]

One thing I don't get, if the feints from the last batch are added to the next for a particular spirit, and you repeat that over and over, do you not eventually end up with ridiculous amounts of feints that you're putting into the next run.

[@Snowynz]

A small clarification, you mentioned heads are "mostly heads" and also hearts etc and the same for tails. Practically speaking it's fine to think about it like that, but in reality the whole run is mostly ethanol and water. I know you know this, but it's worth mentioning. The compounds that we think of as "heads" or "tails" actually make up a really small percentage of the total volume, it's just that (among other things) their flavors are easily overpowering especially in the absence of other flavors just like you only need a couple of drops of lemon juice in a glass of water to make it taste like lemon, but the same amount might go unnoticed in a glass of Coca-Cola.

[@andrewdobbins1488]

Chimera run link?

[@bigsiegee]

'4 Shots' is a bad name. My mate started making whiskey a looong time ago. We went around to celebrate his new found love. A few hours into a very joyous evening a group, including myself, found ourselves on the kitchen. On the shelf were a few jugs with labels and another one labeled '4 shots'. You can safely assume what we did with it......