Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

An out of the box thought, anything different with you? Had a cold lately or something that might throw off your senses? :-B

No colds, I don't think its smearing, but if it is then it might be the outside temp here then(cold at night when i run) as my takeoff rate is quite slow and RC is almost off, just a trickle running through. Been running this still for a couple of years now and never had any problem last winter. The whole still has been striped and cleaned. Plates are bright copper again. will see how the next few runs go.

Could a cold temp when fermenting cause a bad ferment? or would it just be slower?

If it got cold enough it would stall. Only way to know would be to take sg readings at the start and compare.

I dont think its stalled ferment either.

When it happened to me i had normall amount of low wines. It has happened to me twice on rum and once on an all grain mash.
Also since its happened on molasses and grain i dont think its ingrediants.
Only things i can think of is a leak(doubt it because volume is right just no hearts) or infection. :-B

I just had a failed rum attempt also. Rather disappointed as it was my first propper run through my new bubler. 23ltr batch. Turfed first 250ml as fores and collected in 250ml lots after that. First jar definate heads, by second abv started dropping, third was strait into wet cardboarx smell... running 4 plates, 3" column, steady to broken stream at 2ltrs/hr.
I kept the run going to record some data to add to this thread.
Ran bubbler as per Mac's bubbler tutorial thread.
250ml jars with recorded abv's
1 - 89-87
2 - 87-80
3 - 80-70
4 - 70-66
5 - 66-64
6 - 64-61
7 - 61-58
8 - 58-54
9 - 54-53
10 - was over it and closed off reflux water and took 500ml down to 30%.
Meh.... might get a cfw going i think.....
Ash

Another with no hearts me and rush have both had similar runs, heads straight into tails and no idea why....

I'm thinking some sort of infection might be the culprit here.

Just got back from holidays, Bad luck Rush with your run!

Was hoping for a better outcome to your washes after our last discussion! Will be getting into it again next week and hopefully will have something good to report...

Hope you find whats causing this soon!

rash wrote:I just had a failed rum attempt also. Rather disappointed as it was my first propper run through my new bubler. 23ltr batch. Turfed first 250ml as fores and collected in 250ml lots after that. First jar definate heads, by second abv started dropping, third was strait into wet cardboarx smell... running 4 plates, 3" column, steady to broken stream at 2ltrs/hr.
I kept the run going to record some data to add to this thread.
Ran bubbler as per Mac's bubbler tutorial thread.
250ml jars with recorded abv's
1 - 89-87
2 - 87-80
3 - 80-70
4 - 70-66
5 - 66-64
6 - 64-61
7 - 61-58
8 - 58-54
9 - 54-53
10 - was over it and closed off reflux water and took 500ml down to 30%.
Meh.... might get a cfw going i think.....
Ash

If tails are present in the 3rd Jar and you still got 6more jars it's smearing terribly. I never get more than 2jars of tails if I don't close off the rc. Usually 1.5jars. More heat and more reflux will clean the above run up.

I've been stripping my rum washes and they usually start off with a highe ABV (~50-60%) but of late it's started @ 30%...

I'm with Sam, the only thing I can think of is some type of infection that is not turning the wash to vinegar. :think:

Ezi that's another issue to what rash has. Your's is low on alcohol and as Sam said could be infection related but for rash to be getting 6plus jars of tails on a bubbler there's not enough reflux to hold tails back.

3in column at 2Lt an hour is too quick in my opinion same heat but slow to 1.5ish and it'll clean it up. I usually take off at 2.2 on a 4in column.

ah, I didn't read 3 inch column, yeah that's probably a bit quick.

coffe addict wrote:Ezi that's another issue to what rash has. Your's is low on alcohol and as Sam said could be infection related but for rash to be getting 6plus jars of tails on a bubbler there's not enough reflux to hold tails back.

Sorry, when we spoke it sounded like the same issue, my apologies... still in a post Cruise daze...

coffe addict wrote:

rash wrote:I just had a failed rum attempt also. Rather disappointed as it was my first propper run through my new bubler. 23ltr batch. Turfed first 250ml as fores and collected in 250ml lots after that. First jar definate heads, by second abv started dropping, third was strait into wet cardboarx smell... running 4 plates, 3" column, steady to broken stream at 2ltrs/hr.
I kept the run going to record some data to add to this thread.
Ran bubbler as per Mac's bubbler tutorial thread.
250ml jars with recorded abv's
1 - 89-87
2 - 87-80
3 - 80-70
4 - 70-66
5 - 66-64
6 - 64-61
7 - 61-58
8 - 58-54
9 - 54-53
10 - was over it and closed off reflux water and took 500ml down to 30%.
Meh.... might get a cfw going i think.....
Ash

If tails are present in the 3rd Jar and you still got 6more jars it's smearing terribly. I never get more than 2jars of tails if I don't close off the rc. Usually 1.5jars. More heat and more reflux will clean the above run up.

Ahh, thanks coffe, havnt quite learnt how to drive the thing yet then.... so up the heat and slow the output with more reflux to hold the high % through the run and stop the smearing? Boiler is still full and about to be cleaned out. Should i just dump all the jars back in and run again?

Worth a shot :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bluc wrote:Worth a shot :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cool, have dumped it all back in and will try again tonight..
Thanks,
Ash

Hows it going?