New from WA

[zing]

Heyas, Just pinched a mates t500 thats been gathering dust in his shed.

My 1st noob batches were turbo and tpw. Collecting everything apart from heads as per t500 web videos.
Needless to say i saw i should be cutting and have done that since then.

only done TPW since (maybe 5 runs)

The reflux column came with ceramic saddles which i soaked / boiled / cleaned / whatever. I tried using stainless steel wool / scrubbing pads (i cut up one to drop down past the copper spiral in the reflux tube, and then managed to poke 3 more whole ones down) but i got quite a shitty taste come through the final spirit?

at the moment i have gone back to the ceramics which is not so bad.

Having a pretty shitty time doing cuts aswell... aired for 24hrs, mixing with water. might have 20 glasses @ 200ml each and really cant distinguish any difference in smell or taste. The extreme end of the tails is noticable, but anything prior all seems the same.

Kinda sux not having a baseline to compare with, dont really know what your looking for :D

[scythe]

Are you watering down samples of the cuts to 40%ABV before smell and taste testing them?

[zing]

yeah probably ~45% just doing maybe 1 tbsp of each

[Lowie]

Welcome mate.
I never bothered with cuts for years (never knew any better and just followed what the hbs guys told me) until I found this forum, and boy does it make a difference! It's going to take you a while to learn to distinguish between the cuts. Try starting with your middle jar and work our way up and down. When in doubt, toss it out (save for a feints run), TPW is so cheap to make you can afford to discard suss jars. BTW! The hbs also sell copper saddles for those rigs around $13 a packet so no the cheap.
Happy stilling :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[prawnz]

I filled my column with copper , no stainless or ceramics . I made my own column that is similar to a t500 in design .

Buying copper saddles to fill an 800mm column was to expensive so I went to a local plumbing supplier and bought a heap of half inch copper off cuts for next to bugger all . Got myself a mini pipe cutter and sat down for an hour or so at a time cutting off 6mm lengths . Took a while , wasnt very exiting , got a couple of blisters :o . bought 2 copper scrubbers , on in the bottom , fill with the saddles and another in the top .
Good as gold , quick rinse with a bit of citric every now and the and we're away .

[zing]

yeh sounds good i know a plumber i'll do the same :D