Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

well done. looks excellent :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Very cool :text-coolphotos:

I recently had a conversation with Mac about how to run the carter head. He suggested that on a 4" column, it would be best to do stripping runs with the usual bubbler setup until you've got enough to fill the boiler at 40% strength, then run the carter head over the reflux condenser in 'pot still' mode. His reason was that in order to put enough heat in to have the carter head run properly, you have to push the 4" plates too hard.

I had to test the theory for myself though :-D Did a rum run yesterday, so once I got close to tails, I shutdown and added the carter head.


Once up and running with the previous settings, I did manage to get some heat up to the carter head, but the bubbling action was not what I would consider adequate, so cranked up to 4800 watts and got a puke at the bottom plate (this may not happen with other washes), settled on about 4000 watts and the whole thing ran fairly happily. Obviously, this is a practice setup on the tails of a rum run, so maybe things would behave differently on a full neutral wash, but the thing is, I would not push 4000 watts through my usual setup without having smearing in the end result :snooty:

So bring on the stripping runs!

wiifm wrote:So bring on the stripping nuns!

There, I fixed that typo for ya...

Cheers,
Prof Green.

Professor Green wrote:

wiifm wrote:So bring on the stripping nuns!

There, I fixed that typo for ya...

Cheers,
Prof Green.

:laughing-rolling: cheers Prof. I am sure it'll be strippin' wiifm first!

So the carter head had it's maiden voyage today.

Dogbreath Vodka arrived just as the boiler full of low wines was coming up to temperature, so pretty good timing. We had a pretty successful morning of distilling making rose vodka, mortician's glue, 3 baskets of gin botanicals and enough neutral for some g dropper and lemoncillo before hitting tails.

Despite advice given to me, I ran the carter head with a packed section below the reflux condenser to give a higher abv and clean up the wash as much as possible. The boiler was pretty full, so sat at 4000watts for the first couple of hours. By the time we got to the third gin basket, it was pretty much full power - video below.




This gin, we were keen to try, as the aroma and flavour off the still seemed a little stronger and longer than the others.

Thanks dbv for your help today!

:-B :scared-eek: :laughing-rolling: :happy-partydance:
My emotions watching this video!lol
Intrigued to see how it would go....
Scared by the flash of pasty nipple!
ROFL due to pasty nip with backing music.
Overall bloody impressed with what I was looking at! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Love it!

wiifm has a history of nipple flashes in his videos :laughing-rolling:

Sweeet looks awesome did you make a botanical basket or just work around the 5 Star one. How do you change botanicals mid run?

nice video :handgestures-thumbupleft:

jacobraven wrote:Sweeet looks awesome did you make a botanical basket or just work around the 5 Star one. How do you change botanicals mid run?

go into full reflux. the RC is before the carter head so when you go full reflux it stops vapor going to carter head which would cut the power to the liquid in the carter head and stop it from boiling. there would be some passive steam going up though the basket area but not too much. This is what i would assume anyway :think:

WTDist wrote:nice video :handgestures-thumbupleft:

jacobraven wrote:Sweeet looks awesome did you make a botanical basket or just work around the 5 Star one. How do you change botanicals mid run?

go into full reflux. the RC is before the carter head so when you go full reflux it stops vapor going to carter head which would cut the power to the liquid in the carter head and stop it from boiling. there would be some passive steam going up though the basket area but not too much. This is what i would assume anyway :think:

Yes I did work around the 5SD basket. I shortened the handle on the basket to make it is compact as possible. It remains to be seen if that was worth the effort. Aussie 4" copper is a snug fit for the 5SD basket. The gaskets in the blockhead join of the carter head provide a pretty good seal.

WTDist is correct re: basket changes (although I didn't really observe 'passive steam'). Increase water flow to the reflux condenser prevents any vapour entering the carter head. I turn the power down a little on the elements also. Take the cap off the block head and remove basket. The gear is still hot so gloves or a rag are necessary to prevent juggling like a hot potato. Empty and refill basket, replace basket and cap, crank heat, reduce reflux.

BennyHiggo wrote::-B :scared-eek: :laughing-rolling: :happy-partydance:
My emotions watching this video!lol
Intrigued to see how it would go....
Scared by the flash of pasty nipple!
ROFL due to pasty nip with backing music.
Overall bloody impressed with what I was looking at! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks Benny! :romance-kisscheek: :text-lol:

Another classic wiifm fid :laughing-rolling: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Zak Griffin wrote:Love it!

wiifm has a history of nipple flashes in his videos :laughing-rolling:

I prefered the 1st one.. :shock:



:laughing-rolling: :teasing-tease:

:text-+1: :D :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Nice 1 mate.. the basket not boob :laughing-rolling: :teasing-tease:

:teasing-neener: :teasing-neener: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: