Personal pages/Season 2020/Distillations

Distillation, January 2020

2020/01/11 I have started distilling the apple trester from 2018. It is a 100litre vat, will need three batches.
2020/01/15 Distilling batch#2, with the three fans to cool the vapour coming out of the thumper, the idea is to create some more reflux. First yield at about 66%, that's not bad. At some point I measured thruput to about 100ml every 5 minutes, i.e. 20ml/minute.

Distillations, March-June 2020

2020/05/10 I have distilled all of the perry, it wasn't drinkable. Produced about 3 litres at about 45-50%. It has quite a pleasant nose, but it's low yield and low volume. 2020/05/17 The pear mixed with molasses (from Austria) did not reveal anything amazing. It has an appalling smell, almost makes you throw up. 2020/05/24 Doing another 30litre vat with about 20litre content - pear, but different. Bit watery. I really have to make better records. 2020/06/14 Have finished the complete batch of mostbirne (mashed), 5 x 100L vats plus 2 x 150L - total yield 14.5litres at about 50%. 2020/08/15 Have bought 1,4kg Williams, diced and added to a 15litre vat along with about 10litre of Moschtbire. 2020/10/01 Looks quite nice, not much sediment. Have filled 9 x 1.5litre PET bottles. Looks like it is about 38%, did I screw up on the calculation? 2020/10/05 Have tried, somehow it is not very nice. A weird aftertaste. Maybe I'll just leave it for a while, then rack into some green bottles and let it rest/age for a few years.

Summary

800kg of Mostbirne yielding only about 7litre of pure ethanol (100%) is a bit poor - not even 1%. I guess the sorbitol contents are quite high, with a lot less fermentable sugar. Or did the different processing (no freezing) have a negative effect?

I clearly have to improve on this, it is way too much work for that outcome. How can the yield be improved on?