Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi All,

Well, the Gin Genie is up and running. I have some numbers, and would like them to be critiqued, please.

The pot is a 50 litre, stainless keg, with a FSD stainless 2400W element contained inside. On top is the 2" Boka, stuffed with 4 coils of copper, and 8 stainless scrubbers.

Presently, I have 2x 60L water tubs for the condenser. This is temporary, until I can be arsed moving one of the 44's.

The water pump I use, pushes 12 litres per minute, and a 2 metre rise seems to be of no issue to it. It runs off a 4WD battery, and I had a second battery on standby (but wasn't used).

As per previous cleaning runs (without the still head), it took around an hour for the keg to get enough gusto, to force steam up the pipe.

In the keg was 20 litres of water, and 14 litres of white vinegar.

One litre of output took around 45 minutes.



Temperatures:

Boka, ambient: 24.4 degrees
Boka, at steam: 98.2 degrees

Water Temp, ambient: 19 degrees
Water Temp, after 2 hours: 34 degrees (averaged)

Output after 1 litre: 50.8 degrees avg - I opened the tap fully on this run, in order to keep the solution moving.

Does any of this look odd?

I don't think anyone bothers recording data on their vinegar runs. Just do your cleaning run and then get stuck into a proper run.

It's not that... should the output be that hot?

With the alcohol having a lower BP, will that reflect in the output temps too?

Anyway, the run is done, still is dismantled and clean, and tomorrow I will do the sacrificial. Late father-in-law has some 8yo flat beer kicking around, plus Ms Gin gave me 6 white wine bottles of what she calls "14% alcohol, 86% piss-in-a-bottle..."

On cleanout, I did notice a lot of copper flek in the cleaning tub. No issue, as that is why I assume we do the sacrificial and cleaning runs. I did clean the copper though, hot water with dishy liquid for 12 hours, then 12 hours hot water and sodium percarbonate. I thought the stainless had rusted, but it was copper. Anyway, they all came out and had another wash, so we should be all good after the sac run.

Yeah vinegar has a higher boiling point so the vapour is heaps hotter and bokas don't do a good job of cooling the product. I wouldn't worry about it.

Nice, thanks for that. I'll report back on the sacrificial...

Also, using only 120 L of cooling water (especially in 2 different vessels) the cooling water will heat up quite fast. You'll want to sort out your water vessel before running a proper product run as the reflux ratio gets changed constantly with small vessel volumes and even more so if you suddenly change to a new vessel. I run a radiator to cool my water to avoid this issue. The most common approach is to use a large vessel. Swimming pools are probably the ultimate. Not an issue in your sacrificial run though.

Thanks for that thought. The change from warm to cool, I hadn't allowed for. Have to dig, I guess...

Sacrificial run is complete. The smell from the heads is very distinct, and the blue flame on ignition confirms it very well.

As for condensing water... there is this large green bin, which is never used, and will hold around 200 litres... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Tomorrow, we go for gold!

Think about getting 400L of water storage,
1000L is ideal for a 8-12hr spirit run.