Bubble Plate Cuts How do you do it?

[NoGoodOutlaw1]

What are the best methods for making cuts on bubble plates? Anyone have suggestions or experience? 

 

[adamOVD]

Here's a video that helped me.

there's no one right answer though. I think this is a pretty good example of how most people run, but I believe some people will run more like a pot still, running at a lower heat, and just using the plates for passive reflux, or running the dephlemator just at the beginning and/or end of the run to isolate heads/tails.

[Galapadoc]

Newbie question here. What's the reason for continuing to distill once you get to the tails cut? Wouldn't it save costs to simply shut down at that point and leave the tails in the mash?

[Patio29Dadio]

1 hour ago, Galapadoc said:

Newbie question here. What's the reason for continuing to distill once you get to the tails cut? Wouldn't it save costs to simply shut down at that point and leave the tails in the mash?

It is a value calculation.

Some like to take several numbered measures of cut increments around the tails to blend the next day or two after some of the volatiles have settled.  There is flavor and aromas you want from the early tails.  Depending on the size of your distillation batch and the consistency of your process and outcomes, it can be difficult to nail the cuts during distillation.  So you would distill deeper into the tails and save them off in smaller number containers from 1 to ??.  Then you start with one and decide to add it to your collected distillate or to do something else.

Something else... if your time and energy costs are low, and you don't like to discard any alcohol your yeasty employees have produced, you might collect deep into the tails after the cut... and then put all of that into the pot for the stripping run along with the next batch.   The problem with this is that you might have raised the ABV charged in the still and it will impact your distillation run.  Note that it is not too big of a problem in a stripping run.  However, if you are doing a single-pass distillation (stripping and finishing run at as one run), you want a consistent wash going into the pot.

Collect all your tails to use for a neutral spirits run.  Maybe this makes a reasonable vodka... but more likely it is high proof spirit to use for cleaning, etc. 

In a production operation, it is generally not worth the cost to keep distilling after the tails cut on a finishing run.    We stop when we get to the line (determined by taste, smell, parrot proof and still temp), and the spent wash goes down the drain after cooling down.

[Galapadoc]

Thanks for that. Certainly a lot to consider.