Good explanation! On the distillation side, it’s good for new Distillers to realize that you are trying to separate the alcohols from the water and leave the water behind. In a simple pot still all your distillate will have some water in it: you can’t get 100% ABV. In a column still or reflux still you can get higher ABV but less flavor. When you finish your run, if you collect in several jars, each jar will have a certain volume of liquid at a certain ABV. Multiply those two numbers and you get a theoretical amount of 100% alcohol in that jar. Add all those together and you will have your yield, but it will never be as much as you started with. And since different alcohols come off besides the ethanol you want (foreshots, heads and tails you don’t want) you will be lucky to get 25% of your total alcohol that went into the still as stuff you want to drink. The art in distilling is deciding what to keep, so be stingy and you will be rewarded with great tasting and smelling spirit. Cheers!
found your channel a couple of weeks ago. i do like the way you explain things. i've been stilling for close to 5 years and there wasn't a lot of good info put into easy terms back then. to me ABV is a distiller's term. i'll tell people the abv and they give me a strange look. then i'll say proof then they get it. i've proofed alcohol using black powder.. lost my eye brows...lol
I believe alcohol is still (pun) taxed by ABV per gallon. Correct me if I am wrong. But the checks and balances are in place so ingredient volumes are recorded along with output of product. It's the way the tax men keep an eye on making sure product is not being walked out the back door. Remember during prohibition the "alcohol tax cash cow" was killed. Hence we had to Start paying Federal and State income taxes. When prohibition ended, they taxed alcohol again. But the Government decided to keep income taxes. When the distilleries halted alcohol "consumption" production, and started "sanitizer" production in early covid. Distilleries had to denature the Azeotrope (95.6% ABV ) alcohol and were taxed at a lower rate. I dunno how many distilleries have commenced "consumption" production again. In the end: ABV = Taxes Cheers Randy! Happy New Year!
BigEdsGuns i don't think Jack Daniels or any body else stopped whisky production to make hand sanitizer. a few "craft whiskey" makers made a sanitizer to stay a float. i made a batch hand sanitizer, doubled down on my pot still, and it was 85% ABV. i don't think any body used it for their hands....lol
@@fourdeadinohio8303 I agree not all distilleries ceased production of consumable product. Hell even Element Distilling right down the road from me (very, very small distillery) was making sanitizer when covid started. They were giving away small bottles of sanitizer with a purchase of a case of beer. A lot of big distilleries have continuous stills and simply sold the 40% ABV to distilleries with multi plate towers for vodka production. Almost every craft distillery that opens usually sells Vodka and Gin when they get started. Any "Aged Whiskey" takes minimum 3 years until it can be sold. So making a cheap ferment and running through a column to get as much azeo as possible was viable. Still'in CANADA opened his distillery and covid hit a month later. He did a live stream and stated he was strictly running 95% for sanitizer sales. (His last video was 8 months ago. I wish him well, great channel he started 2+ years ago. He went pro and opened up Silver Fox Distillery in Canada.) Sanitizer manufacturers were buying/bidding on lots of 10,000 to 100,000 gallons of alcohol. So many distilleries would get rid of "Fores" so why not sell them? If anyone has run across smelly hand sanitizer, it's most likely Fores/Heads mixed in with Aloe. Cheers Fourdeadinohio!
@@BigEdsGuns thanks for the reply. like i said the "craft whisky" IE small distillers made hand sanitizer to stay afloat. i've watched Silver Fox Distillery from his beginnings. he's come a ways. the aged whisky is not set in stone. pabst blue ribbon whiskey, yep the people who make beer, is aged for 5 seconds and can call it whisky. it's different when calling it a tennessee/kentucky whisky/ bourbon that have mash and aging parameters. most of the cheaper vodka/gin makers don't worry about their cuts. that's the reason people get bad hang overs from cheap alcohol. i can tell you this, you could drink a pint of some body's home distillate, if they know what they're doing, and not get a hang over.
Another great vid👌 I myself do abv it’s just easier lol literally got my first drips off a corn n malted barley run whilst watching ur video! happy holidays n new year as well n keep them videos coming 👍
