Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi,

I've posted this in beginners because the topic concerns the difference of making brown spirit between bubblecap Stills and Pot Stills. So, I've been making some fantastic rum on a 25L Pot Still for quite a while now. I'm comfortable with the whole process and I've making plans for upscaling. I use the Still to strip 4 x washes, then do 1 x spirit run at the end. I make my cuts, put it on oak and hey presto.

I'm UK based, so have few options around suppliers of Stills as I imagine shipping is likely to be prohibitive (the UK is lagging woefully compared to Oz!) I can see that most suppliers are going down the bubblecap route - but as my success has been with Pot Still - I'm naturally cautious of moving to a new technology for fear that the rum won't be the same. For example, my understanding is that a bubblecap effectively strips and produces drinkable spirit in 1 run. This wouldn't work for me because I want to club all the low wines together for one big spirit run. If I buy a 4-plate bubblecap (typically stated for brown spirits), then won't this Still strip out a good bit of flavour if I use the Still for a separate stripping run? Then when I do the Spirit run, the bubblecaps will strip out more flavour again i.e. ending up with less rum flavour than I get with a Pot Still? I really appreciate views on this please.

Secondly, I'm looking to buy my next Still. If I go Pot Still, I'd confidently go for 200L kettle and 4 inch head, but with bubblecap and the learning process of switching, I imagine I'd need to "practice a bit", so I might have a fair bit of wastage initially? So I'd probably have to do 100L and 4 inch. My preference is larger but I'm just aware of my current knowledge limitation on bubblecap. Again I'd really appreciate any views.

Cheers all :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I can't really comment on the taste difference, I built a bubbler pretty early on in my hobby so all my pot stilled stuff was probably crap anyway :laughing-rolling:

All I'll say is that people use them for a reason. Distilleries have won awards for spirit produced through bubblers. They are designed to carry flavor at high abv.

I wouldn't worry about strip runs (sort of defeats the purpose of having one :laughing-rolling: )but if you feel you need to then just turn the rc off and use it as a pot still. You can mix all the generations together once you've done them if you like? If you want more flavor use less plates, you'll just get lower abv, no big deal.

200 ltrs is a bit big for hobby size mate. We would encourage you to rethink that size as it looks slightly more commercial than hobby. With a 100ltr boiler and 4" bubbler you'll produce more alcohol than you and your family could drink.

Good luck :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I've done a fair bit of both and for rum 3bubble plates produces a strong flavoured rum especially if the wash is 100% molasses.
The rum is cleaner and doesn't require aging for as long.

If you plan to do scotch types whiskies with peat then the plates would not be good. So all I've been doing when I'm running whisky is leave the reflux condenser turned off and run as a pot still.
One of the advantages of plates is you really don't need to reprocess the feints as it condenses the bad fractions and they really are terrible!
Pot stills definitely produce different spirits and some people prefer them and for me with whisky I definitely prefer pot stilled.

Thanks for the comments Woodduck & Coffe addict. I like the sound of cleaner brown spirit with less ageing. Perfect! :D My interest is rum and in a few months I'm going to try bourbon too - so no plans to use peat.

When you both refer to "turning off the RC and running as a pot still", I just want to check what you mean please. i.e. I've seen that the column sections ("tees"?) can contain bubble caps or perforated plates. I'm not too clear on the difference of having one or the other, but I will have a dig around to see if this has been discussed elsewhere on the forum.

Are you saying that I would keep the bubble caps in the tee sections and just switch off the RC? I'm only wondering because otherwise it would mean taking the Still head apart to remove the bubble caps - and that would defeat the purpose?

Yep leave the plates in turn rc off. The rc condenses alcohol and sends it back down the column through the plates, it's called reflux. If the rc is off the plates won't load so it's just like a pot with a bit more passive reflux.

So plates, there both very similar and fine tuning the design of each can make them better for neutral or brown spirits. So for perforated the hole size and total number plus height of the downcomer and for bubble caps the number of caps size and number of slots and the downcomer height all impact the end product.

With the rc off and plates in place it'll run like a pot still. A further change to the run plan is to use plates for fores and heads then turn off the rc and run like a pot still for hearts... There's so many different ways to run these stills and everything changes the end result.

Not forgetting that a 4 plate still can be reconfigured to be just about anything you want :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Each plate is basically another complete still.
If you really want dirty whiskey and rum just use 2 plates.
There is a book in the library that wxplains what plates do and the possible %ABV acheivable depending on the number of plates used.

IIRC the 5th plate only bumps the %ABV up by about 3%.

Speaking from making quite a bit of rum with a 2" pot. Bubbler is a huge step up in terms of quality. Manky is the way I describe rum straight of a pot(spirit run) off a single bubbler run, 4plates, rum is very drinkable off the still. It ages, to the point were it is delicious heaps faster also 3-6months is were I like it..just my 2 c

Thanks for all the helpful replies guys! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I run a 13-14 plate bubbler. When I started with 5 plates and no packed section I could not separate out the fores. Even after 10 litres of product the acetone was still there. It took 8 plates to separate the fores in 3 litres. Now with 13 or 14 plates it's into the heart of the run after 2.5 litres of fores.
It's quite a learning curve getting to know your still. After I insulated the column it gave much better control of the reflux to get the result I needed.
Controlling the heating gives a different result.
Even with a pot still, if the lyne arm is ascending you have passive reflux, if it's descending you have a lot less passive reflux.
There are so many ways to control a still to get a particular result.