Low vapour temperature?

[Tip Tip]

So I went out and bought a black maximus reflux still from my local home brewer store and ran it for the first time on Sunday. With it boiling away the temperature would only peak at 64 degrees but was steady. Not quite sure what to do I ran it anyway and rang the guy in the shop on Monday. He made a phonecall and he came back to me and said as long as it stabilized it should be fine. Not quite sure if I am happy with this answer as it should have sat at around 78 degrees.
What should I do?

[Sam.]

Moved this to the welcome section as this is where first posts are supposed to go....

So welcome :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Also had to google the black maximus, looks like a rip off of the pure distilling rig. Guessing it is a Liquid Management still :-B

First thing I would do is check your thermometer in a kettle of boiling water and see if it reads 100.

Second I would forget what your brew shop bloke has told you up until this point and have a real good read of this section.

Third I am going to assume that you have done a "turbo" for your first wash? Try this wash next it is a quarter of the price and 1000% times better quality :D

[maddogpearse]

Yeah, it's just a little boka Sam. Welcome buddy. Sam has given you some really sound advice. Have a good read up mate and you'll be drinking some nice booze shortly enough :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Tip Tip]

Thanks Sam
I have had a bit of a look around the forum but still wasn't quite sure how it all worked.

The thermometer was checked in boiling water and came back at 100 degrees.

It was a tpw wash and I have done quite a few of these as I was air stilling when I lived in a unit.

Just have concerns that the vapour temperature would only get to 64 degrees.

[WTDist]

Hi. where is the thermometer situated. Havent seen tjis still but could the thermometer be near the reflux coil?

[warramungas]

No chance the refluxed liquid is flowing down over the thermometer is there?
Not sure of the lm setup.

[WTDist]

Having looked at the pic i would say thats a high possibility that the re-fluxed liquid is giving off a false reading. Otherwise I dont see a problem.


Damn these commercial boka guys are really making the columns shorter and shorter these days hey, Quantity over Quality :O)
bet it cost all of $50 for them to make with those brass compression fittings 8-}

Have you got a pic of your setup, maybe you should attach a pic of yours

[Tip Tip]

Thanks for the reply WTDist
That picture is pretty much the setup

I was just concerned that the temp would not go above 64 degrees.
As I said the thermometer reaches 100 in boiling water and apart from the temperature it ran pretty much as it said it would.
It was producing 95% until it rose up 2 degrees then the purity dropped away into the tails.