Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

ALrighty , I bought a still and hopefully I can post a picture of it.
Any way it works great for a while
I have only ever done 3 runs with only experience from utube
It runs great after it boils it runs at a steady drip for two hours .
Water set , electrical set , no adjustments
It takes an hour 20 to boil or to start discharge. Now for 2 hours everything goes great .
3 litres drip off at 92/
Then after that , things change
I dont adjust or touch a thing yet temps start to change

Now top of the colum reads 80 then will drop to 60 over about 5 mins , hit that and then head back to 80

During this the amount coming out is no longer a drip but almost flows out , the alcohol read of about 60

Surely im not the first but it has happened on all 3 runs
Any ideas [album][album][album][album][album][album][/album][/album][/album][/album][/album][/album]

Sounds normal but need more info.
What's the boiler size? What wash did you use? What still is it?
If its about 25 or so liters it doesn't sound far off the mark.

Info is Reflux Still
50 lt keg boiler with a 3500w heat element on a dial for voltage control
5ft column with stainless steel and copper scrubbers
2 condensers
TPW probably 45ltThis has happened all three times
this time i tried running the water a bit faster and a bit lower on the volts but same thing happened at about the same time
Any more info needed just ask and ill post asap
really apreciate any assistance

What sort of reflux condenser does it have? I can't seem to see where it is? Does it have one?

For whatever reason I was unable to upload the original photo due to it being too large a file and me being crap on computers , anyway
Condensers , it has 2 one on top of the column then a second one after the 180 bend

Turn the camera capture size down to 640 or 320 resolution, no processing required then

Are you running the condensors on separate water lines/control?

Ive taken a photo to show the condensers

I don't run them separately , the hose goes to the bottom of one , it fills then thru a joining hose it fills the other.
Im not recycling water , all tap water , so coldish

I would put your cold water in the bottom of the rc first. If your water is going in the top of the condenser it could be getting air in it and could be causing problems at the end of the run when the vapor gets warmer, not sure?? But definitely put water in the bottom of the condensers sonthey are always full of water.

By the way get rid of the plastic output hose, plastic is no good around spirits mate.

You still haven’t mentioned the wash you used or recipe.
This will have a big bearing on what/how much is produced

He mentioned 45L of tpw. What power level are you using through the run? It sounds like you are flooding the column. Most people find 2000w to 2400w is about the right spot on a 2in column.

TPW 45lt 10kg sugar , 160gm yeast, 400gm tomato paste and half teaspoon of citric acid
Heat level 3500 w element and once boiled I wind it back to about 200v so I guess that makes it about 2700 w element

coffe addict wrote:He mentioned 45L of tpw. .

My bad, Dunno how I missed that :oops:

The Stig wrote:

coffe addict wrote:He mentioned 45L of tpw. .

My bad, Dunno how I missed that :oops:

Did you have a " man " look Stigy.

You mention Flooding the column Yoy might be on to something , Why and how does this happen and how do I check / stop it from happening .
Would this occur if its packed too full

I reckon its got something to do with the column , if the packing was to dense would this do it .

Sorry mate forgot about your question :oops:

Flooding can happen from the packing being too tight. You need it to be firmly packed but not too tight that the condensate can't flow back down freely. Pack it so you can comfortably blow down the column. If it's flooding you can here it gurgling as the vapor and condensate try to pass each other. There are threads around somewhere about packing columns but can't find them at the minute, try searching for "packing a column" or "copper packing material "

Cheers for getting back , reckon were on to something, ill start searching