Live Tasting: Set Heads and Tails Cut Temperatures

Tasting is subjective. Recording is not. Use a simple pairing: you taste to make the decision, then you write down the temperatures so you can repeat the decision.

In this walkthrough, you’ll see how heads and tails show up in the mouth and nose, and how the same fraction line can support different end cuts depending on whether you want an unaged or barrel-aged brandy.

Quick summary

Context: temperature labels as repeatable anchors

In this setup, each beaker has a temperature label. You taste the beakers, decide what belongs, then translate that into a start and end temperature you can program.

So the assumption is that since this is the start of the run there will be more hats at this part. I'm not going to go to the most right beaker for the viewer left because that is going to be very very hatsy. So what I want to do instead, I want to go maybe to this one, 4, 1, 2, 3, beaker number 4.

Find the heads cut

Start by testing early fractions that should be headsy, then step forward until the harsh solvent character is gone.

If you zoom in you can actually see that it says a certain temperature. Now 84 degrees in my experience given the fact that lower boiling point alcohols usually boil over at temperatures well below 80, 82 degrees. You put a finger in there, put a sip in your mouth and that's perfectly fine fruit brandy.

What “too headsy” smells and feels like

An example early fraction at 77.2°C is acetone-like and clearly discarded. A later early fraction at 79.7°C is forward and biting (lips bite), but still desirable for fruit brandy once blended.

In the example, 79.7°C becomes the heads cut: everything before it is tossed; everything from it onward is considered usable for the blend.

Quite strong, didn't dilute yet, we'll do that later. Nice flavor intensity at the front of the mouth. So the cut actually needs to be somewhere here.

This is closer to the beginning so it should have more hard smearing and the temperature says 79.7. 79.7 which is way lower, way lower than the 84 of the beaker before that. Hits you in the beginning, first second, got a little bit of a bite to it.

Find the tails boundary

Late fractions are evaluated by both timing and aroma. The later the flavor appears after swallowing, the more tails-associated it tends to be.

It's a bit hatsy, there's some hat smearing there. But then again it's a fruit brandy right? So that probably means that the hat's cut is going to be either over here and this is what we toss out or maybe this one needs to go into the mix.

Where tails hit you

Tails often show up as a back-of-mouth and throat sensation (a bite in the throat), plus earthy “wet” aromas compared to wet carbon or a wet dog.

In the example line, the last collected fraction is labeled 95.2°C and is clearly in tails territory.

In itself it's plain hats but I wouldn't drink it as it is. But in the combination with the rest, let's see. And this one, this little one is the first run.

So below the boiling point of ethanol which makes perfect sense because that's where the low boiling points are. By definition, I didn't even smell it, but by definition this is going to be very hatsy and for sure the part we're going to toss. Basically create a bit of evaporation area and use your eye.

Choose an endpoint by product intent

The example end decision is intent-driven. If you want the spirit drinkable right away as a white brandy, you stop earlier. If you plan to barrel age and want more back end, you include one more beaker.

So now you remember how the app looks right? We'll dive in later, we'll look at it again. Basically what we're going to write down is 79.7.

So everything before 79.7, you toss out. This is hats, you toss this away and everything onwards is actually in and is something that will add to the flavor, to the total flavor sensation, the taste of the brandy we're making. So we're pretty sure now that if this is the hat's cut and everything we want out, then hearts will stop somewhere here.

Program the example cut points

The example cut points to program are 79.7°C as the start of the kept blend. The endpoint is 92.8°C for a white brandy, or 93.7°C if you want a bigger back end for barrel aging.

I advise you if for nothing else, for training purposes and to have some fun to, maybe with the two of you, test every beaker and work your way down. I'll go to the end of the line directly. I'm first going to look a little bit at the temperatures.

Key Takeaways