The inside of a gumboot..

[TuMeke]

I ran my weetbix wash on Monday - through a borrowed duplast still with only a handful of marbles in the packing section. (I was aiming for pot-still mode)
Even after airing over night, the middle of the run still tastes like it's been filtered through a builders gumboot sock that's been worn for a week..

I had a pencil lead sized stream for most of the run (balancing a bit of cooling through the "reflux" coil so as not to overwhelm the product condenser) and collected the first 200ml in one bottle, and then 100ml/bottle after that until it hit 91 degrees and I ran out of bottles so just ran through to 93 degrees into a big jar instead.

My first collection was 72% all nasty fores, and the last bottle got down to 32%.

There was definitely too much input power for the product condenser, and tasting my way through the bottles it seems that the heads smeared for ages, and there was no clear 'heart'. My guess is that the mismatch between input power and condenser capacity and the resulting aggressive "reflux" is at fault here? Thinking that the reflux condenser was causing the smearing by knocking vapour back down that should have been allowed to come off in the order nature intended? Might have got away with it if the column had been packed, but a pot still with reflux is just wrong? Any thoughts?

This is a loaner still, and only temporary while I get my glass bubbler sorted, so I'm interested in learning what I can from the exercise rather than trying to 'fix' this piece of kit. Although I would consider building a power controller seeing as I can use that on my bubbler later..

I've put the results in a big bottle and will call it a stripping run for now - hopefully re-running at some stage down the track will get the plasticy sock taste out.

Tu.

[blond.chap]

Hey mate,

What's you're input power? It sounds plausible that this has smeared the tails throughout the run.

Also, my understanding is that the weetbix wash is meant for making neutral, and you're not going to get enough separation of flavour components to get neutral in what sounds like a hybrid pot still.
You'd be better off starting with rum or whisky and possibly reducing the input power (depending on what you have now).

I don't think having the small amount of reflux has caused the problem, it should only have aided separation.

Yep, keep it and rerun another time.

[crow]

No real problems, you got what you aimed for (weather you knew it or not), low wines . Do some more strips like this and then re run the lot the same , welcome to pot world :laughing-rolling:

[blond.chap]

Btw, I like your description of tails smell, I think "inside of a gumboot" is better than "wet cardboard"

[Yummyrum]

If you run down to 32% it sure will smell bad.Like Crow said,you have effectively done a stripping run·Water it all down to 40% and run it again.Sounds like you got ride of the crap at the start of the run,just don't go into the tails so deep.

[TuMeke]

I don't know how powerful the element is - I don't have a meter, and there are no markings. The element looks similar to the 2kW element at the LHBS, but that's not really a good indicator. I do know that if I cut the reflux I get steam hosing (not just wafting) out of the condenser.

The gumboot taste is there right through the lot, so running it deep can't be all to blame. It doesn't smell real bad - not wet dog bad, it is more the plastic undertone that wasn't so good. If it wasn't for that I'd have given it a sip rather than the old taste and spit. 8-}

The 'spout' off the bottom of the product condenser is a plastic tube, so I'll ditch that next time and see if it helps any.

I'll brew up some more and get a bit of a collection of low wines to run as Crow says. Good to hear it's mostly heading the right way though - thanks Crow. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The weetbix recipe claims to retain a bit of a bran/malt taste if it's not stripped too hard, and I was hoping to keep a bit of that in the mix.

How low should I be running it? I was aiming for 92 degrees head temp (wasn't checking the abv) as I recall reading that somewhere - so much reading I'm losing track!

Tu