Fores percentage with single malt

[jocko]

Curious your collective thoughts.  Single malt spirit run.  Collected 100% of low wines of a very clean fermentation to 12%.  What percentage of the spirit run will be fores?

[Silk City Distillers]

As much fores as a fores cutter cuts if a fores cutter could cut fores.

[PeteB]

6 hours ago, jocko said:

Curious your collective thoughts.  Single malt spirit run.  Collected 100% of low wines of a very clean fermentation to 12%.  What percentage of the spirit run will be fores?

Depends quite a bit on how long you are going to age it. If you want a quick turnaround I suggest taking a big fores cut, if your conditions allow and you can age for say 10 years then you can get away with a much smaller cut, the angels will assist with removing some of the fores. 

As long as you re-cycle the fores and don't throw out every time, a big cut is not a waste of your hard won spirit.

[JonDistiller]

On 9/26/2020 at 7:34 PM, PeteB said:

Depends quite a bit on how long you are going to age it. If you want a quick turnaround I suggest taking a big fores cut, if your conditions allow and you can age for say 10 years then you can get away with a much smaller cut, the angels will assist with removing some of the fores. 

As long as you re-cycle the fores and don't throw out every time, a big cut is not a waste of your hard won spirit.

This!   the cut points will differ based on how long you age it.   I'd also note that they differ with different equipment.   You will have a bigger cut on a pot still for example than on a column still.

Are we all using the terms the same way though?   The way I use these terms, fores are the part that is not recycled.  (as opposed to the "heads" that didn't make the blending cut)

Rather than a fixed percentage, some will use the vapor temperature to help determine cuts, as you can infer some information about the contents of the vapors from the temps for fores.       Thinking volumetrically, you may lose some of the potentially recyclable ethanol that way, but it's also easy and can give nice margins at the cost of efficiency.   I believe the thinking on that was 1 tablespoon per gallon of original mash with a Pot Still.   Less for a column still as they are better at concentrating heads.     

 

 

[PeteB]

6 hours ago, JonDistiller said:

Are we all using the terms the same way though?   The way I use these terms, fores are the part that is not recycled.  (as opposed to the "heads" that didn't make the blending cut)

Most of the Australian and Scottish distillers I know end up with 3 products at the end of the spirit run. 

Most common terms I hear are Fores, heart, feints.  

It appears as if many US distillers end up with 4 products.

Is this the order  Fores - Heads - Hearts - Feints?   

Also often hear  ........ - Middle cut - Tails,

but in general is it Fores or Heads that come off first?

[adamOVD]

I use the terms similarly to Jon, first couple of ounces of Fores come off first, which I don't recycle into the next batch, just so I'm not building up methanol. Heads come next, they don't make it into the final blend, but do get recycled into the next batch. Hearts are everything that gets bottled. Tails come last, and feints are the mix of heads and tails that all go into the next distillation. 

[JonDistiller]

On 10/28/2020 at 4:36 PM, PeteB said:

Most of the Australian and Scottish distillers I know end up with 3 products at the end of the spirit run. 

Most common terms I hear are Fores, heart, feints.  

It appears as if many US distillers end up with 4 products.

Is this the order  Fores - Heads - Hearts - Feints?   

Also often hear  ........ - Middle cut - Tails,

but in general is it Fores or Heads that come off first?

Exactly as you had it, and as Adam said.    Fores first, then heads, then hearts, then tails are the 4 stages I was taught.   These are largely divisions by flavor changes over time, except for fores.  Heads being a mix of undesirable and desirable flavors, giving way to a stabilized flavor in hearts, followed by a new mix of desirable and undesirable flavors in the tails.   Everything from these 3 areas that doesn't make the blend has loads of recoverable ethanol, so it gets recycled, and that product is called feints.      One of the reasons for separating out the fores, is to avoid a buildup of higher alcohols over time in the recycled product, by providing an avenue to remove the highest concentration of undesirables that has minimal recoverable ethanol.

When thinking in terms of 3 stages to the run, is it just that fores/heads become one thing, or are there any other differences?

 

[PeteB]

Most distillers I know follow a more Scottish method where Fores and Heads are not separated. What some of them do is dispose of all that first cut about every 10th run, instead of disposing a small amount of Fores every run. I guess it is because I have been on this forum for about 10 years that I do the same as most of you and dispose of a small amount of Fores after each run. (I don't throw them out, I have a direct fired still and use as fuel)

I have read that many Scottish distilleries just keep recycling the Fores+Heads. I did read an article by a journalist where he explained mathematically why the Fores did not build up. The math was a load of rubbish. I think the reason they can get away without disposing of the toxic methanol is because there is very little formed when fermenting malted barley. It and other undesirables will build up in the Fores for a time, but as concentrations increase there will be more left in the Heart. The system stabilises over time but the methanol concentration is still less than health standards. Also those more volatile compounds found in Fores probably evaporate from the barrels quite quickly as Angel's share. 

If anyone would like to comment on my reasoning above please do so.

Cheers, Pete