When is moonshine done distilling

No judgments. While the history of distilling is actually tied to the history of alchemy —yes, we owe liquid confidence to an ancient mystical science—the basic concept of distilling has always been pretty simple: making a harder alcohol from a lower alcohol base. But why do we have to distill hard liquor? As yeast eat up the sugars to make beer or wine, e. But the more alcohol and CO2 they create, the less sugar there is for them to feed on.

To get high ABV alcohol, we have to actually physically separate alcohol from water using evaporation and condensation—aka distilling. Because alcohol has a lower boiling point than water F vs. In all of drinking history, just two methods of distilling have evolved:. There are several ways that one can tell when heads end and tails begin. First, the flavor profile of the distillate will change significantly. The rich flavors present during the hearts will start to fade, as will the sweetness.

Spirits collected during this phase will taste somewhat "thin. The distillate will also be slightly slippery to the touch when rubbed together between a finger and a thumb.

Tails make up the final percent of liquid collected during a spirit run. Experienced commercial distillers generally run their stills until the alcohol from the wash has reduced to somewhere around proof. It is not worth the time and energy to distill further to separate the little remaining alcohol from the water.

An experienced commercial distiller knows when to make a "cut" from the heads to the hearts and also from the hearts to the tails. In distilling a "cut" is when a commercial distiller stops collecting in one jar and starts collecting in a new jar. This is a skill that is learned over time and requires a bit of practice. If the spirits will be aged, often times a small percentage of the heads and tails will be kept, along with all of the hearts, and added to the barrel.

These congeners , along with flavors extracted from the wood, provide the flavor and body of the final product. Cuts can have a dramatic impact on the final product.

Commercial distillers will say that it is best to make the head cut late and collect a bit of the hearts with the heads than to make the cut early and have heads mix with the hearts.

Along the same note, it is better to make tails cut early and have a bit of hearts in the tails than vise versa. The tails that have been saved from a run and kept for future use are called feints. Commercial distillers sometimes add them to the wash of the next distillation run or they'll collect enough to make an all feints run, which is called "the queens share" by some folks.

The information, data and references, set forth above, are provided for informational purposes only are not intended to be relied upon by any person, or entity, as a legal basis for any act or decision whatsoever.

None of the information provided above is intended to give specific scientific or legal advice to any person, or entity. Also do you guys have a system in place to finance? Please note, the design of our website does not allow us to respond directly to blog comments. Please email us directly regarding questions about products. We don't answer questions about recipes, procedures, etc. However, feel free to leave a comment or respond to comments made by others!

Thank you Kirby Fitch. Categories Recipes Interviews Brewing Distilling. Enter your email address below and we'll send you a free eBook on how to get started with brewing or distilling! Distilling E-Book.

Again, this is what we recommend as a minimum to collect and discard. Next up is the heads, which you can save for blending or for re-distilling later. This is the sweet spot. We have more articles with tried-and-true tips here. Take a look if you have time to go down the rabbit hole.