Still Output Calculator

A still's job is to concentrate the alcohol already present in a fermented wash, and this calculator works through that concentration step by step. It starts by finding the total pure alcohol in your wash (wash volume times wash ABV), then accounts for the reality that no still captures every drop — foreshots are discarded for safety, tails are cut to avoid off-flavors, and some alcohol inevitably stays behind in the pot, all captured in the collection efficiency figure. What remains is multiplied against a typical output ABV for your chosen still design: a simple pot still concentrates to roughly 60-65% ABV in a single pass because it has no reflux to repeatedly re-condense and re-vaporize the vapor, a reflux still's internal packing does exactly that and pushes output into the mid-to-high 80s, and a column still's continuous multi-plate design gets closest to the practical ceiling for alcohol distillation, in the low-to-mid 90s ABV.

Dividing the collected pure alcohol by that output ABV converts it into an actual liters figure for the finished distillate — a higher-proof still design concentrates the same amount of alcohol into a smaller final volume, since less water rides along with it. These are typical, published ABV ranges for each still design, not a guarantee for any specific still or run; the actual figure your equipment achieves depends on packing, reflux ratio, run speed, and cut points, so use this as a planning estimate before your run rather than a precise prediction of what you'll collect.