Molasses fermentation yield

[jestemknajtem]

Hi, I've fermented 300l of mollases wash to ~12% abv and I only got around 25l of distillate. I am a home distiller and I am curious why i didn't get more of it. Are there any equations that would help me to know how much distillate should I get? Im a newbie to the forum.

[meerkat]

The fermentation yield depends on a host of different variables, but if you know that there was 12% ABV in the wash then the fact that you produced only 25 liters of distillate is not due to anything being wrong with the fermentation yield. 300 liters of wash at 12% ABV distilled to 94% ABV should give you around 38 liters of total distillate (i.e not just the hearts).

There are 3 areas where you should start looking for the problem. Firstly, how did you measure the 12% in the wash? This is quite a high level of alcohol for a molasses fermentation and maybe the alcohol was never there to be recovered. The second potential problem would be losses in the distillation process. If you are doing a batch distillation then the only way to lose alcohol is if uncondensed vapors are passing through the condenser. Was your condenser running cold enough? Distillation efficiency should be 98%+. Lastly you should check if any alcohol was left in the pot after distillation.