New Still question

[StillWaters]

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Hi, Santa delivered a new still much to my pleasure. It is a 25ltr electric boiler with a reflux head or a pot head (change by unscrewing). The photo shows it in pot mode and if it is to be used as a reflux still, the pot head is unscrewed from the lid, the reflux column is screwed into the lid and the pot head is then screwed on to the top of the reflux column. My question is: would there be any benefit/drawback in leaving the pot stem mounted on top of the reflux column and just changing the water inlet/outlets to make it a pot or reflux still? The pot column is 160mm tall and the reflux column gives extra height of 360mm and has its own water inlet/outlet points. I'm not sure if the extra height will affect the pot operation, so wanted to check. Thanks, SW

[blond.chap]

Hey mate, congrats on the new still. It's pretty exciting getting your first.

I can't see a problem in using the pot still on when you're making neutral with the reflux. However if you leave the packed section in when you're running as a pot still (for whisky, rum etc.) you'll strip out the desired flavour.

[crow]

Umm bc not if it has no water running through the reflux condenser it won't. My pot still and ultra pure utilize the same column and it says packed all the time but had absolutely no affect on pot stilling ;-)

[blond.chap]

Yep, call that a blonde moment...

[StillWaters]

Thanks Guys. I'll run it with he reflux column in place but with no water through it. When i have time to experiment I'll run the same style wash (single malt whisky) with just the pot head and see if there is any apparent difference. My aim is to produce the best and most consistent malt whisky I can with my limited budget. Cheers, SW

[blond.chap]

Good luck mate, my whisky turned out pretty badly when I tried, so I'll be keen to hear how you go with it. Watch the tails when you're doing your cuts, I think that's where I screwed up.

[StillWaters]

Ok so I stuffed up my first run with the new still. Didn't read the manual properly and got the column cooling connections reversed!! First run was not good.
Did another TPW of 25 ltrs with 6kg of sugar. Went well, although it took longer than I had expected to ferment out. 10 days at 26 deg C. Racked it into another container and let it settle/clear for another 4 days. I connected the still up correctly this time, split the cooling water supply and added a flow valve into the water flow to the reflux column. (I decided to "detune" the column and leave it in place rather than dismantle it and just use the pot head on its own). Stripping run went well with column cooling closed off, and I ended up with 11 ltrs of 35% ABV after watering it down. Put this back into the boiler and got it up to boiling, then reduced the power to give a gentle boil. Opened the reflux cooling tap and output started at 90% ABV through the parrot, and I threw the first 150ml foreshots in to the cleaning fluid jar for the missus to do the shower glass :0)
I then collected 200ml of heads, followed by 2 ltrs of hearts @ 90% before the ABV started to fall. I got another litre of hearts at 80% ABV. Carried on collecting down to 70% ABV, got 500ml, at which point I got a hint of tails creeping in @ 60%. I continued collecting in small jars and got 400ml of tails before the "wet cardboard" smell became quite strong. At that point I shut down the still. Overall this took almost 7 hours.
Airing the heads, hearts and tails overnight improved things and the last 100ml of heads became quite good to taste as did the first 100ml of tails. I'll toss the rest into the next run.
As a newbie I'd appreciate any comments on how good, bad or indifferent my results are? I found the fiddling with the cooling water to the reflux column to be a pain, but overall not too dissatisfied with the results.
I am considering moving to a LM still at a later date as I'm led to believe they are easier to run and will give me purer neutral and, when detuned, will give me a chance to make a half-decent peated grain malt Scotch. Again any comments from anyone on this please? Cheers, SW

[Kimbo]

Well done SW,
it sounds like your on the right track and learning to drive your equipment. :clap:
your product sounds in the ball park too :handgestures-thumbupleft: