Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys,

I have a 4" 5 plate glass bubbler with a 500m FSD packed section filled with 500g copper, bag of stainless scrubbers from bunnings and another 500g of copper all sitting on my keg boiler with 2 x 2400w elements insulated with thr good stuff from Clark rubber.

Today's run was 40l of 40% tffv.

My procedure was:

- Bring to temp with 2 elements
- knock out one element when I noticed 2nd plate from top filling
- let all plates load and reflux for 30mins
- slowly collect foreshots
- adjust take off to about 2.5lph (for me this was about 500ml cuts at 11-12mins a jar)
- collected about 9.75L of ~92-93% (before temp correction, was consistentlt at about 16.6C)
- killed it coz it's 10pm and I'd like to sleep at some point

The plates were all pretty nicely loaded, however when the temp moved to 80C I noticed the reflux changed and it went from being a "sheet" of water on the glass to beading, is this just an onset of another stage of the run?

When I killed the power, the entire column literally flooded with what I assume to be product trapped in the packed section, is that expected? First time running the packed section and I thought my RC shit itself!

I've got more to run but wanted to get an idea on if this is all expected behaviour or what I can do better.

Ive learnt a lot from you all and read so much and I can honestly say this is one of the best forums I've come across.

Thanks!

Onset of tails causes the beading because there is more water coming over :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bluc wrote:Onset of tails causes the beading because there is more water coming over :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers bluc!

Everything else look ok? Any advice on the packed section?

Yep onset of tails.

The flooding after you turn it off is normal to a degree. If it filled all your glasses it was probably too much and you may have the packed section a little bit to tight? I find when I turn off the power it will do this and then draw 99% of the liquid from the plates so it effectively drains itself. Not sure if that's normal but it happens with mine.

woodduck wrote:Yep onset of tails.

The flooding after you turn it off is normal to a degree. If it filled all your glasses it was probably too much and you may have the packed section a little bit to tight? I find when I turn off the power it will do this and then draw 99% of the liquid from the plates so it effectively drains itself. Not sure if that's normal but it happens with mine.

So my set up is the 5 plates then the packed section on top, so the packed section flooded back down onto the places, completely filled them all, then drained back into the boiler.

In terms of packing too tight, I could blow through the packed section without there “feeling” like there was any restriction, but I can always try adjusting the packing amount.

At this point (onset of tails) should I just let that rip in pot still mode and collect down to 20%?

And this is a really dumb one, 40L of 40% with my setup, the math turns out to be about 16L of alcohol collection when chuck it all in the calculator. Is that 16L of heads/hearts/tails?

Cheers all really appreciate it.

I stop at start of tails stops to much funk getting into the packing(Scotia stone) with copper mesh/stainless scrubbers not such a big deal as the packing can be cleaned..

bluc wrote:I stop at start of tails stops to much funk getting into the packing(Scotia stone) with copper mesh/stainless scrubbers not such a big deal as the packing can be cleaned..

So is it worth stopping, pulling out the packed section, then running the rest in pot still mode?

Only if you want to get every last drop out of each batch, Most wont/dont bother with neutral (flavoured vodka is another story) - there's too many flavours coming through and the batches are cheap to produce, whiskey n rum n stuff you do - but you wouldn't generally use the packed section to distil those

I must be a loner.
I keep the hearts of hearts then let rip and keep everything down to 20% and put everything I don’t keep into the next boiler charge .
I do clean the copper mesh after each run, I only use copper in my packed section
And I don’t run that much neutral to be honest

The Stig wrote:I must be a loner.
I keep the hearts of hearts then let rip and keep everything down to 20% and put everything I don’t keep into the next boiler charge .
I do clean the copper mesh after each run, I only use copper in my packed section
And I don’t run that much neutral to be honest

I was planning to do this exactly!

What do you clean the copper mesh with if I can ask?

Just some citric acid, the powdered stuff from Woolies , a couple of table spoons in a few liters of water in a bucket for no more than a day or max 2, I agitate it every time I walk past.
Leave it too long and it’ll go green and never come back

The Stig wrote:Just some citric acid, the powdered stuff from Woolies , a couple of table spoons in a few liters of water in a bucket for no more than a day or max 2, I agitate it every time I walk past.
Leave it too long and it’ll go green and never come back

Cheers stig!

Can I soak my bubble plates the same way?

Yep

You sure can.
I don’t cos I’m busy running CFW/Rye :teasing-neener:

Cheers all!

Figure I should have posted at least a pic of what she looks like!

Ignore the tags on the hoses, they are long gone!

Also is that collection ABV about right? Is there any tips for hitting azeo or is that about it? I tried to collect as close to 2.5lph as I could so not sure if slowing it down further would help with this?

Full reflux at start definately bumps up abv. I hold it in full reflux for an hour when doing neutral.

bluc wrote:Full reflux at start definately bumps up abv. I hold it in full reflux for an hour when doing neutral.

Yes sir! I've been going 30mins as per macs guide but will do this next time.

I hold 30 - 40 mins

If you use the same heat but slow down the take off you'll raise your abv as you're increasing the reflux ratio.
You should easily hit 95 on wash and azeo on low wines.
I used to use 5 plates for a fast stripping run taking a small fores cut and small tails cut, then rerun it @40% abv doing very tight cuts.