Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

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hillzabilly wrote:Sure looks like 2nd plate is leaking ,have a look at woodducks build http://aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic ... &start=100 .cheers hillzabilly :D

If tree can come out couple wraps plumbers teflon tape round edge of plate may fix it. Have you tried twisting the tree to a different posistion to see if you get a better seal? :-B

I had similar problems when starting out. I have a perforated plate 4" modular.
Turns out i had 2 plates leaking, mine are soldered so easy fix, and 2 of the 3/4" J down-comers leaking,again more solder.
It helped somewhat but I was still plagued with a random plate or plates drying up, sometimes fogging on any one of the sight glasses but usually one or two of the bottom ones, flooding and less than stellar product take off/ quality / smearing.
I tried different power levels, different take off rates, I even added more holes to the plates and then less holes by soldering them up.
It was on about my tenth run when I realised i had stuffed up and set my down-comers (Bath depth) to 26 mm above the plate, and the J cups could only hold 17 mm static height below the plate, net result was vapour was flowing up the down-comer, plate or plates above would be flooding, plate or plates below dry or partly full and not much real liquid movement down.
Fixed it by reducing bath height to 15 mm by chopping the down-comers off 15 mm above the plate so the vapour has a positive head pressure liquid seal in the down-comer. Everything now works as it should with no effort. Plates fill from the top down, stay full and are very even.
Maybe that story might be useful to someone.
It sounds like as others have said here, its either leaking on that plate or the down-comers aren't working right.

I think I have got a leaky plate on mine because I can see reflux running down one of the sight glasses. It doesn't seem to be a problem at this stage and the weirs help keep the plate loaded. It must be overflowing over the weir. I'm working on the oxidation and sulfides filling/sealing that up over time, not sure it will but it might if I'm lucky. If you pull the tree out you may be able to find the plate that's not quite right and using a hammer on an anvil or the like just lightly tap the edge of the plate so it flattens a bit and it will grow and hopefully fill the gap. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Bloody good info all
My plates are held in place by a stainless threaded rod with nuts and i think the rouge plate is on the piss because 1 of the nuts is loose under neath the plate so when i get to run it again fingers crossed this fixes the problem
Being a noobie i have 2 2400 watt elements should 1 of my elements be shut off when i see movement in the boiler or on the bottom plate
I have read macs post on the easy way to run a still just want to ask some ?'s to clarify :handgestures-thumbupleft:

If the nut is loose its probably leaking down that hole as well remove the glass and tighten nut

2400w should run it fine once the plates start to load mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

tightening of the nuts was all that was needed :D :D

Sweet looks good :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Looks like she's working a treat now :handgestures-thumbupleft: full steam ahead

That's the go :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Just curious I quite often see pics of bubblers like this. Is that how the should be run with cap submerged? When I run mine the top of the cap is exposed and the liquid is level with top of downcommer :think:

It's perf plates. Mine are even more vigorous than that and I'm only running 2000 W. I guess it could be that my sight glasses are lower, mine are level with the top of the downcomers. The bubbles reach a good inch above the top of my downcomers.

Looks like bubble cap to me in last photo on first page...blow up photo
He does say perf plate but looks like bubble cap to me..or is that downcommer I can see..

Down-comer is clearly visible on 3rd plate ( 2nd from top), liquid level on all windows appears roughly the same, so if output quality & quantity is good and plates stay loaded at the same level throughout run then all is good. Power level & type of plate ( no. & size of holes or bubble cap design i would think) will change the height of and the activity of the foam above the liquid, but liquid should remain roughly the same level.

Ahhh so it is the downcommer my bad then..

Definitely perferated plates lads those are the downcommers you caN see. I did a run last night with approx 30ltrs of tpw and collected about 400mls of hearts i determine the hearts between a parrot reading of 94 down to 91. Can you determine cuts from reading the alco meter in the parrot

If you do controlled ferments temp amount of yeast accurate ingrediant amounts. Then you can get a good idea of your cuts with an alcometer. With my rum I have , had a good idea of whats what by the alcometer but still relied on smell taste. But its all out the window now I have a bubbler. Everything has changed.

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bluc wrote:If you do controlled ferments temp amount of yeast accurate ingrediant amounts. Then you can get a good idea of your cuts with an alcometer. With my rum I have , had a good idea of whats what by the alcometer but still relied on smell taste. But its all out the window now I have a bubbler. Everything has changed.

The alcometer should be read from the bottom of the meniscus too, which does give a larger degree of error in a parrot since the curvature of the surface makes it harder to read. If the change between heads and hearts is 3 abv points then this is pretty significant. Like bluc said, it'll be different for different washes etc. I've only noticed a very small change between abv points in the transition between heads and hearts for my standard weetbix wash so I don't put much stock in it... Makes me wonder why I bother with a parrot. Just make sure you are trying to read from the bottom of the meniscus cause the surface tension can change throughout the run and reading from the top of the meniscus will be misleading (as well as inaccurate).