Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys.

Just ran a molasses wash at about 13%, 50 and a bit litres. The hydrometer calc I have on mu phone gave me 6.3ishL of potential alcohol. I have a keg into a thumper setup. Had about 40L in the keg and 10+L in the thumper. So, all started well. Got to about 4 litres, then it went cloudy. swapped out jars and the next 2 were crystal clear. Tested the jar that went cloudy and it was about 40%. Is there a reason for this? Is it a sign to stop collecting?

Hope the more learned on here can help out.

Cheers
AJS

Sounds like tails what did it taste like? Was it offensive?

Didn't stick my finger in Bluc as it was dinner time and the Mrs was getting tetchy. ATM, its all sitting in cut jars so will have a dabble in the morning. Weird how it only went cloudy for a bit. Cheers for the advise.
AJS

I have never run a setup like yours so not sure about the abv but my money is on tails :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Sounds like tails but may have been a puke? Unlikely I know with a thumper but maybe the thumper got over full?

If its in the middle of a run its got to be a puke.
If towards end of run its onset of tails

The 6.3 L of potential alcohol will include foreshots, heads, hearts and tails. So if you've got 4 L then you'd at least be very close to tails if not already into tails.

Thanks guys. I'll check it all a bit later today and hope I can tell the difference. :obscene-drinkingdrunk:

So, I may have discovered the problem. Although there was 10-12L wash in the thumper (a 19L keg), it boiled dry!!!! How this happened I have no idea. The temp never rose above 80, so theoretically the water in the wash couldn't evaporate. The boiler keg is still full and that never rose above 82. Anyone have advise about this?
Cheers

Not sure on your setup, but it may be possible that upon cooling the spent wash in your thumper has been sucked back into your boiler because of the contraction of gases when they cool. How close to the bottom of the thumper does your vapour feed-in tube go?

This is my setup

The feeder tube from the boiler goes 9/10ths of the way into the thumper. The vapour escape port on the thumper is directly out of the reducer which is triclamped onto the keg ferule.

The boiler keg did look more full than before I ran the wash through.

I'm with db you need to break the seal at the boiler to prevent it forming a vacuum and sucking the thumper dry :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I have seen videos of big copper setups and the thumper gets crushed like a tin can from not breaking the seal..

And I always thought breaking the seal referred to a bodily function :laughing-rolling:

Cheers for the info. I'll do that next time.. :handgestures-thumbupleft: