Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi, I have just changed over to a TPW from HBS products and would like some advice please. This is what I did on my first attempt:
1. Made up a 25 litre TPW
2. Used my pot head to strip, once fermented out (25 litre boiler with electronic controller on 1500 watt element - home made pot head with 1000mm liebig)
3. Got around 12 litres at approx 45% ABV from the strip run
4. Made this up to 20 litres with cold water and put back in the boiler with some bi-carb added
5. Fitted my 2" boka head to the boiler (insulated 1100mm copper to take-off point with 250mm copper condenser portion above this - coiled copper condenser)
6. Brought reflux still up to temp and ran at 100% reflux for 90 minutes where it stabilised at 78.5 deg C (high quality electronic thermometer +/- 0.01 degree)
7. Backed boiler off to 750 watts and stabilised temperature for 10 minutes, opened needle valve and took off 150 mils at 2 drops/second
8. Closed valve for 10 mins with temp steady at 78.6 deg C
9. Took off 250 mils heads at 2 drops/second - temp moved to 78.7 deg C
10. Started taking off hearts at 2 drops/second at 78.7 deg C with parrot reading 96% ABV @ 30 degrees C (approx 94 % true) Temp stayed constant.
This is where I appeared to run into issues. I got 2 litres at 95-96% ABV @ 32 degrees C before what I took to be a light "tails" smell appearing. I would have expected (rightly or wrongly) to get nearer to 3 litres of hearts by running this way. (recommended by Compleat Distiller)
Can someone comment on whether:
a) I was expecting too much
b) This is not unusual with TPW

Cheers, StillWaters

If your wash was 10% ABV to begin with you've got 2.5L of pure alcohol. Not sure how you were expecting to pull 3L of hearts out of it?

Your run sounds pretty spot on to me.

The most I have ever got out of a TPW done as per the recipe here is 2.5lt then make your cuts . I usually end up with about 1.6 to 1.8lt of what I call hearts at about %90 from a 25 lt ferment.

Ah ... I seem to oversimplify my things and work off percentages... I expect around 10% of the boiler charge to be collected.

I am missing something here
TPW wash 25 l at (say) 10%

Means perfection 2.5l of ETOH

After stripping would mean perfection 5l at 50%

and you got 12l @ 45% ??


Something does not add up

good pick up teddy...impossible

Thanks Guys for your input. I guess I am being a bit greedy expecting 3 litres. It's certainly good stuff :oops: