Guide to Spirit Cuts for Beginners Home Distiller

Home Distiller
Guide to Spirit Cuts for Beginners
By Aidanmac for Everyone
Spirit Cuts for Beginners
From the Begining
Spirit Cuts can be broadly defined as the
separation of different elements of the
distillate produced during the process of
distillation.
For the home distiller making Cuts in the
distillate from your Still is probably one of
the most difficult skills to learn. This is not
made any easier by the fact that you may
have no reference point to start from.
Spirit Cuts determine the taste and feel of
your Whiskey or the purity of your Vodka
and, as such, they will ultimately define
you as a distiller. However, it's not rocket
science. It's more like a combination of
Taste+Honesty+Experience and Common
Sense. Experience will come over time and
practice, the other things you already have
This is not published as the definitive work
on Spirit Cuts but it may provide a starting,
or reference point, to beginners.
Why Make Cuts at All
In home distilling, we start by fermenting,
what is essentially, either a wine, from
fruit or sugar or a beer from cereal malts.
We then use the process of distillation to
separate ethanol and certain other
components from the product of that
fermentation for the spirits we make.
However, the human palate is all too
capable of adapting to just about anything,
even poorly cut spirits. Many commercial
alcohol products contain elements that
cause nasty after effects from consuming
even moderate amounts of alcohol all in
the name of higher profit margins.
Determining Cuts
Making cuts is where the distiller
determines where the finished spirit
begins and ends, what gets blended in,
what get flushed and what gets recycled.
This is done by a combination of taste and
smell. Importantly, spirit strength plays no
part in determining distillate cuts.
Because Cuts are made to determine the
finished spirit they would serve no
purpose during a stripping run. Therefore
Cuts can only made on the second or Spirit
Run or in some cases the third distillation.
Cuts are broken down into four main
elements: Foreshots, Heads, Hearts &
Tails.
First Things First
Before you can make any meaningful Cuts
to the distillate you must first deal with the
Foreshots which are only useable as a
cleaning fluid.
The Foreshots must never be consumed or
recycled because this Cut contains all the
really nasty chemicals that can be harmful
if consumed. However, Foreshots is a very
small percentage of the total distillate.
Proper Spirit Cuts
determine the
taste and feel
of your Whiskey
Home Distiller
Once product starts to drip from your
condenser you should immediately reduce
the power to the boiler to draw the
Foreshots off slowly and make a wide,
arbitrary cut to completely isolate the
Foreshots for disposal.
I recommend discarding 125ml for every
10lt of Low Wines in your boiler
remembering that you only need to discard
Foreshots on a final Spirit Run.
In my 50lt keg boiler with a 40lt charge @
30% ABV, I arbitrarily dump the first
500ml out of the condenser and I neither
smell or taste this Cut and nor should you
– it has NO value as a drinkable Spirit and
can seriously harm you if consumed.
Once the Foreshots have been discarded
the target should be to identify and isolate
the three desireable elements of the
distillate, the Heads, Hearts and Tails in
that order.
Using Your Heads
As a rule, I collect the first 500ml of the
Heads Cut and, without test or question,
consign this batch to my Heads Jar
because this early part of the Heads needs
further distillation before being suitable
for consumption. Other parts of the Heads
Cut may be used for blending at a later
stage depending on what type of finished
spirit you're making.
The remainder of the Heads Cut should be
collected in small batches. I collect Heads
in 200ml lots to enable quick, accurate,
identification of the transition to Hearts.
Every batch of distillate should be
sampled at this stage to identify that
transition.
Distillate should always
be collected in clean,
clearly numbered jars,
for airing and later
assessment for blending
or recycling.
Spirit Cuts
Sampling & Cuts
Experience has taught me that Cuts need to
be made twice - a Fly Cut and a Final Cut.
The Fly Cut is made on the run as the warm
distillate flows from the condenser, this is
why it's called a 'Fly cut' because it's made
- on the fly.
The second or 'Final' cut is made after the
Angels have had their share and approved
the quality of your work.
The reason I make Fly cuts is that
collecting all the distillate, from a 40Lt
Spirit run, in small 200ml lots is very
unsatisfactory, laborious and requires a
huge number of collection jars.
I found the 'one-size-fits-all' approach to
cuts didn't suit all batches and recipes,
some of which require cuts at different
points. Once the general transition points,
from Heads to Hearts, are identified that
transition can be isolated and the Hearts
can be collected in larger batches.
Fly cuts allow you to identify the transition
from Heads and allows you to collect the
bulk of the Heart of your spirit in larger lots
– once into the Heart of the Spirit I collect
batches of 750ml in 1Lt jars and smell/
taste the distillate just before the end of
each 750ml batch in order to detect the
early onset of the Tails element.
There's a small amount of kit required for
making cuts that will make the job easier.
In the picture you can see it consists simply
of a glass of clean cold water, a teaspoon,
a glass eyedropper and a separate 500ml
(or so) bottle of cold water.
One Rule for All
The one and only absolute rule of distillate
testing is -:
TASTE, SPIT, RINSE & RINSE AGAIN.
When testing distillate you must never
swallow the sample or your tongue and
tastebuds will quickly get drunk, lose their
sensitivity and your cuts will be all wrong.
After tasting each sample it is vitally
important that after you spit out the sample
you rinse & spit twice with clean cold
water from the bottle. Also, when
sampling Cuts you must avoid drinking or
eating anything else until you're finished.
Distillate, running or dripping from your
condenser, should never be tasted without
diluting to a normal spirit strength in the
approximate region of 35-45%ABV.
Testing Distillate Samples
If you're collecting, as suggested, in 200ml
batches you should test a sample at the
100ml and 200ml levels.
Spirit strength plays no
part in determining
distillate cuts.
Home Distiller
To test a sample, stick the teaspoon under
the condenser and collect approximately
half a teaspoonful of distillate.
Next, take the eyedropper and, as in the
picture on the right, add a similar amount
of clean, cold water from the glass using
the eyedropper. This will cool the
distillate and dilute it to approximately
half strength.
The first part of pyhsically testing the
distillate is to smell the sample. At the
beginning of the run you can expect to
detect harsh or sharp chemical smells.
If you detect such a smell in any sample
there's no need to taste it. Simply discard it
and wait until another 100ml has been
collected before testing the new sample by
the same method.
When you get a sample with no harsh or
sharp smell you should taste that sample
by placing it on your tongue and let it flow
around your taste buds but remember not
swallow it.
When you taste a sample you're looking to
assess any Burn sensation and any offflavours in your Spirit. When you've tasted
and felt the effect of the sample in your
mouth for a few seconds, spit & rinse and
do not allow the sample to stay in your
mouth any longer than is absolutely
necessary for you to decide on it's quality.
For me, Heads are identified by the burn on
the tongue and a fruity smell and flavour –
I always feel the taste is like Pears. As the
run progresses these characteristics fade as
you get to the transition point to Hearts.
Reaching Transition
When you test a sample where the burn has
faded to no more than a pleasant warmth at
the back of your mouth and the fruity
flavour is replaced by a dryness on your
tongue you will have reached the break or
transition between the Heads and the Heart
of the Spirit – but because your still is
running and you're making cuts on the fly,
it doesn't quite end there.
When you reach a sample that you feel has
lost the Burn and there is no more fruity
taste you should immediately change the
collection jar.
In order to ensure that no Heads get
unintentionally mixed with the Hearts,
treat the next 200ml in the same way as the
last, sampling after each 100ml.
If both samples satisfy you that there is
definitely no burn or off-flavours it is safe
to decide that you have actually moved
into the Hearts of the spirit and you can
then start collecting the distillate in larger
batches.
Spirit Cuts for Beginners
Doing Your Heads in
All the jars of Heads you've collected
should be covered in a way that allows
them to breathe, like the ones on the right,
but at the same time keeping the bugs and
other debris out.
After airing for 24 hours you may find
some of the last Heads collected are
actually be cleaner than you thought as
some volatiles can evaporate during
overnight airing.
Always re-taste such batches, as described
earlier, before deciding if any can be added
to your finished spirit.
Open Your Hearts
If you have followed the above and have
confirmed transition to the Hearts you can
collect in slightly larger batches.
Once definitely clear of the Heads I collect
the Hearts 750ml at a time in 1Lt jars and
I only test the spirit coming from the
condenser once in each batch as it reaches
the 700ml mark.
The purpose of testing each jar, throughout
the Hearts collection, is to ensure early
detection of the transition to Tails.
A Tale of Tails
In time, and with practice, you will be able
to calculate the approximate volume of
Hearts you can expect from a given charge
of Low Wines in your still. From this you
will be able to estimate the earliest point
where Tails may appear so you won't have
to test every single jar, while you collect
the Hearts, until you get to that point, but,
initially it's good practice.
With the onset of the Tails you will detect
a change in the flavour and mouthfeel of
the spirit that some describe as being like
wet cardboard or a wet dog smell.
Those things do indicate the beginning of
Tails but that's not the end of the run
because not all tails are undesirable or
unuseable.
Having said that, it is best if you decide,
after airing, how much, if any, Tails you
want to blend into your final Spirit based
on taste and smell, so the collection should
be separate and treated in the same way as
the Heads - aired in covered jars.
Once you detect even the slightest change
of this nature you should immediately
switch collection jars and revert to
collecting in 200ml batches and testing
after each 100ml.
The jars of Heads
should be covered in
a way that allows
them to breathe
Home Distiller
It's not uncommon to jump the gun and
make the cut too early but this is not a real
problem as it's just part of the natural
learning curve.
After airing overnight some of the Heads
and/or Tails jars you had set aside may
have flavours or characteristics you want
to include in your finished spirit.
In the event of making the cut too early the
distillate is still there and later testing will
reveal that it is, in fact, Hearts. Making this
mistake is probably the best way to learn
because you'll remember the next time
what it was that made you think you were
at the start of the Tails.
I always re-test the last Heads jar and the
first two Tails jars. I've noticed that, in
general, I end up including at least one
200ml jar of Tails to my Whiskey but
hardly ever more that 100ml from the very
last Heads jar.
The point at which you stop collecting
spirit is very much taste dependant – your
taste, not mine. I collect spirit down to
60% when I'm making Whiskey but I cut
off at 75% when I making Vodka for my
lovely wife.
When you reach the end of your spirit
collection you can just let the Feints run
into DJs or other suitably large collection
vessel until the ABV gets down where you
want to cut it off. Personally, I just let it run
on until it dips just below 20%.
Blending is a matter of personal taste and
should only be done in small amounts. If
you can put all the Hearts from a run in a
single container you can achieve a more
consistent result from blending.
Blended spirits should be left to settle
overnight before being re-tasted to ensure
you are satisfied with the end product then
everything else gets re-cycled.
If you have anything you feel should be
added or clarified in this Guide, please PM
me on www.stillsmart.co.uk
Home Distiller
Published freely for members of stillsmart.co.uk