Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Have you measured your take off rate? I have the same boiler and same plates so we should be fairly comparable.
I can easily get 3.5L hr holding the abv at 90 but it's terribly smeared. I definitely can't run on 2.4kW with any reasonable take off rate. The abv would crash and the plates would be close to drying up ie virtually no reflux coming down.
There should be a good amount of liquid coming out of the downcomer.
If you run one element straight from the wall and put the controller on the other and have it at about 1/4 then adjust the rc so the take off rate so it's 2.5L/hr I think you'll find it runs as intended. with measuring take off rate wait 5mins after last power or condenser adjustment then a 500ml jar in just under 15mins will have you close.

Here is a photo of my 45 litre lemon vodka with the needle valve installed. I always throw the entire first jar. It’s better to be safe than sorry in my opinion, plus I never collect all the tails.
Hopefully you see a vast improvement.
The abv was 94% the entire run

You all need to come to Darwin and teach me how to use my bubbler!

Im going to pour it all back in the boiler and rerun it tomorrow night.

Love your work guys, thanks so much for the support.

Bloody Legends

Interesting discussion... i reckon i might be having the same problems as matt.
My Abv has been very slightly dropping through the run too lately. :think:
I just checked it for leaks (did a while back and all good) but i found a slow drip from one of my sightglass seals.
I actually thought it my of been a power issue as it has been fairly cold here when I've been running it at night... having chased up any insulation yet either.
Is it just the alc vapour escaping that causes the abv to drop or does the leak cause it to not run properly in another way?

Pressure test the product condenser, not sure coolant leaking into the product would cause a steady drop like that, but worth doing nonetheless

RC Al wrote:Pressure test the product condenser, not sure coolant leaking into the product would cause a steady drop like that, but worth doing nonetheless

Thanks RC AL... good thought. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I did have a leak with it a while back, but im fairly sure that its sorted. I usually keep an eye out for any drips of coolant before the RC tap is backed off and the alc flows.

I don't think a leak could cause a progressive drop in abv. Safety issues and loss of product aside, if the leak is on your plate bath (and involves leaking liquid instead of leaking vapour), the evaporating liquid would have a cooling effect (evaporating liquids take with them the heat of evaporation energy from their surroundings) at the point of leak, and thereby causing a disruption to the temperature gradient of the column. If the leak is of vapour, it will cool as it expands and could cool the column in this way too, also affecting the gradient. I think these things happening are more likely to cause the abv to not be as high to start with, but once the temperature gradient stabilises (and it still should stabilise) then abv will stabilise.

Safety is the biggest concern with leaks though.

Run as hard as you can with power before you start to overpower your RC. That's your max.
Back your power off a little bit the adjust your reflux water to get the takeoff rate you want.
Mine runs anywhere from 16 to 18 amps.

Edit: Max is with high flow of water through your RC.

Thanks db... hopefully the leak is sorted now, just had to tweak a couple bolts that clamp my sight glasses together.
My plates aren't the issue as they have held water overnight, so no massive leaks there.

Warra i did crank up my 2nd element last time, but i wasnt game to go too hard. Ill try your suggestion next time and see how i go. It was only about 5 degs, the problem with not getting time on w/e while its nice and sunny to run it.

I still think dropping abv is from not having enough reflux. Thats why pots do it. So to get more reflux you need more vapor hitting your rc and coming back down as liquid to get mixed on the plates. If you can't put more heat in the boiler because you have no more power or the bubbles are out of control and looks messy for lack of a better word, you need to slow down your take off by putting more water through your rc (turn the tap on) until you get a steady abv. Try running at 2lph alcohol output for a start and if that works you can adjust until you find the sweet spot. Mine is 2.5 lph. Make sure you have a nice stream of liquid out of your downcomers. If they are ony dripping and dribbling you need more reflux coming back down.

I really should do a bubbler run video shouldn't I?

Excellent reason to get Glassduck out of mothballs :handgestures-thumbupleft:

woodduck wrote:I really should do a bubbler run video shouldn't I?

Yes please! That would be awesome :-B

woodduck wrote:I really should do a bubbler run video shouldn't I?

:text-+1:
Might just be whats needed!
Thanks woodduck...
I'll just try more heat i think, the downcommers we're definitely more than a drip or broken stream. They were flowin pretty well.
Anyway.. thanks for your thoughts. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

dans.brew wrote:

woodduck wrote:I really should do a bubbler run video shouldn't I?

:text-+1:
Might just be whats needed!
Thanks woodduck...
I'll just try more heat i think, the downcommers we're definitely more than a drip or broken stream. They were flowin pretty well.
Anyway.. thanks for your thoughts. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

What lpm is your takeoff? Maybe slow that down a bit?

My plan is to drop the lpm output of my still.

My biggest issue is I obviously no no idea how to run the bubbler for whiskey and rum. I assumed you aim for 70-80% abv as you then get more flavour in your distillate.

I expect my neutral to be high 90’s ABV because I’m not wanting flavour carry over. I assumed with rum and whiskey that 94% wouldn’t be an ideal constant output. ??

I’m setting up again this weekend. Needle valve installed woot woot

No the best part about bubblers is they carry flavors at high abv.

Last run I did with my Mac 4 it acted as yours did Matt.
Turns out I had a leak between the reducer and first plate.
Before that it would hold ABV till I shut the RC off to end the run

woodduck wrote:

dans.brew wrote:

woodduck wrote:I really should do a bubbler run video shouldn't I?

:text-+1:
Might just be whats needed!
Thanks woodduck...
I'll just try more heat i think, the downcommers we're definitely more than a drip or broken stream. They were flowin pretty well.
Anyway.. thanks for your thoughts. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

What lpm is your takeoff? Maybe slow that down a bit?

I actually ran it quite slow to blead of fores and then stack the heads before running it around 2 lpm... definitely nowhere near 2.5 lpm
I was hoping this may of been some of my problem.

Thanks Woodduck !!

StigI've sent you a pm, price enquiry mate.

How you getting on matt? Have you got it sorted? :-B