Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys.
Recently I ran a 50 liter UJ strip through 3 plates (with the strip run makes 4 roughly) and had fairly good results. Up until now all I've managed to make was neutral which even oaked was very average at best.
Thought I'd share the method which I picked up elsewhere as it may help other people who are like me are pulling their hair out when they cant get any flavor from their washes.
This is not the be all, end all method but if running a plated column the easy way doesn't seen to work for you try this one.

Set your gear up and run the water flat out through the RC.
Run your boiler until its boiling and gradually increase power until you start to overpower the RC and start to get fores from the PC.
Take note of the power and the reduce the power to just below this point by 5 or 10% and run as normal from there.
I overpowered my RC at around 15 amps so dropped it back to 14 amps.
By run as normal I mean equalise column, then reduce RC water to draw off fores at a slow drip. Then however fast you want to do your heads and hearts and so on. Do your cuts as normal later.
I ran mine at a flat rate of 2 l/h after fores collecting 30ish x 300-400ml jars before the tails became too strong.
The flavour was there for me this time and I'll try again next time too but it might be a while as I'm moving back to the big smoke again.
I hope this method helps those people that have built their own stills or have a different size/model that just refuses to perform at a flat 2400 watts like mine did.
Hopefully I didn't summarise that too much and miss out too much detail.
Cheers guys.
Warra

This method is known as power managed stilling.
And is the reason some stills go for a small RC (less than 101mm), it why i made mine so short at least.

Removing a plate or 2 is a good way to increase flavour in a spirit and a few people doing this spring to mind (Doc and Mac plus other members).

You might also increase flavour in the end spirit by only doing a single run through your bubbler (it is their strong point after all) for flavoured spirits and strip and spirit runs for neutral.
Remember that each plate represents a distillation, increases %ABV and removes flavour ( to attain neutrals).

warramungas wrote: (with the strip run

I agree that this is why you've got less flavour. I'm not sure why people do a strip run with bubblers? Maybe for a neutral but even then I don't bother. I definitely wouldn't and haven't bothered with strips on brown spirits. That's the best thing about a bubbler if you ask me, single runs and fast output :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I do run my still like this also but have been playing around with slightly lower power and rc adjustments as I think really high power does smear so just keep that in mind :handgestures-thumbupleft:

woodduck wrote:

warramungas wrote: (with the strip run

I agree that this is why you've got less flavour. I'm not sure why people do a strip run with bubblers? Maybe for a neutral but even then I don't bother. I definitely wouldn't and haven't bothered with strips on brown spirits. That's the best thing about a bubbler if you ask me, single runs and fast output :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I do run my still like this also but have been playing around with slightly lower power and rc adjustments as I think really high power does smear so just keep that in mind :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I did a strip run because I had 100 liters of UJ I had to do something with as its location was 'compromised' (read had guests coming for a bbq and needed the outdoor setting it was sitting on). I needed it in a form I could store for a longer period in a 50 liter glass demijohn. Others I had tried weren't stripped first. I tried many methods and plate number from 2 with thumper to 5. Either neutral or tailsy results. This one was good. Not fantastic but a good start.

Ahh fair enough. It's odd that you can't get better flavour carry over when your doing single runs. Is your take off faster with this method? If not it sort of contradicts what I've heard as more power = more reflux or faster out put. More reflux usually strips more flavour :think: :think:

woodduck wrote:Ahh fair enough. It's odd that you can't get better flavour carry over when your doing single runs. Is your take off faster with this method? If not it sort of contradicts what I've heard as more power = more reflux or faster out put. More reflux usually strips more flavour :think: :think:

I thought that odd too. I thought when I picked up the bubbler all my problems would disappear but there's a bit more to it.
I only stuck with the recommended 2 l/h which allowed me not to take all day to run it.
Good flavour and it smells really good with macs medium toast American oak dominoes after a couple of weeks. I'm on nightshift at the moment but I'll have a crack in the morning to see what it tastes like.

Sorry for being daft, but to understand this process, you :
1) push the power until the RC can't knock the steam down anymore to collect the FORESHOTS only!?!
2) once the foreshots are collected, you then reduce the power back to a point where the RC knocks down the steam and it goes back into Reflux.
3) then you reduce the water to the RC to collect the product as before ...

that about right?

I suppose that would work too but I meant use the fores as an indication you're overpowering the Rc then back it off a bit. Stack your column then run it as you normally would taking fores by reducing your RC water after you're happy your columns equalized.

OK, do you reflux for any length of time before you take off fores?

Running this way is it still collecting @ 93ish? Have you ever tried lowering the amount of reflux to drop abv and carry over more flavour :-B

Yep. Tried running faster takeoff and/or less plates before. Results were the same. Neutral or tailsy.
This worked for me as far as i can tell. As I said, its another method worth investigating if you're struggling like I was.
Have plenty of neutral now for gins and cordials though! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Warra did you have this problem with your 2" bubbler or has it only started with your 4"?

Anybody want a 2" bubbler? :))

I gave up on that one once I got the 4". Way too slow.
Worked ok but took all day to do a couple of small runs of 25ish liters.
And smearing was a hard one with it. Needed really slow and careful running. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeal sloooooooooow. Read around 5 - 6 amps and 1/3 to 1/2 liter/hour by the end of mucking with it. Funny though was it wouldn't flood even at 8 amps (max for the boiler). If you have a lot of patience and time this ones for you.
I'm going to offload most of my old columns for next to nix (a couple of homebrew samplers wouldn't be knocked back :laughing-rolling: ) and what nobody wants the scrappy can have back when I get settled back in Perth. The 4" will be my do all mainstay.
Watch this space. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Oh and just sampled the spirit I bottled with oak on the 14th, so still a bit 'green', and it tastes like bourbon. A bit longer to age on oak and I reckon I'm home and hosed.

I persisted with my 2" while I was building my boat as I didn't have the time to build my 4" (seems counter-intuitive). But other than take-off rate (and my 4" being far less fiddly to run), my 4" and 2" produce the same results.

Yep, the 2" is heaps slower. I think I could push 1 L/h out of it but best results were at 0.5 L/h. I was happy to get a bottle per run.

Is there something that you've changed since you've been using your 4"?

With ya here bud @2400w my results are less than satisfying I'm usually running 3000w to 3600w with take off around 2.5L

Though I don't have enough watt's to over power my rc. Anything more than 3600w and smearing becomes an issue. Ymmv

A little off topic but one thing I am going to do in the future is build an airlock to fit on my fill port. When I stuff up a jar by running too fast (sprinklers come on or someone has a shower) I can easily return it 'on the run' to the boiler.
PITA to stop it and pour it back into a hot still.

I figure you have two options.

1. Add the messed up product above the RC. You'd need another module above the RC that has a side port that can be opened. The product comes off at the top of the column and there's a good argument for why that's where it should go back in. Also, when you need to add it back in, you can chuck the column into full reflux and open up a clamp above the RC and you won't have to worry about flammable vapour coming out.

2. If you wanted to use the fill port you could make something like this:

I recon you could make something similar out of copper and attach it to your fill port. The bottom part of the apparatus is a reaction vessel but just imagine it's your boiler. The top part of the apparatus is what you'd make. It has a tap that allows fluids to be drained into the boiler and a tube that runs from below the tap to the top of the fluid chamber. Above all this is another seal. This design means you can open the top seal and add your messed up product, seal it up then open the tap and drain it in without getting any boiler vapour lost to the outside.

With the 2nd option the product that was just added back in would need to make it all back through the column and if it was added close to the onset of tails then adding it back in at the boiler might mean it won't have enough time to get to the top of the column before the tails start coming off.

If it was added at the top of the column then you'd have time lost from putting the column back into full reflux while you added it back in. You'll be losing time anyway seeing as someone dared to have a shower while you ran your still.

I recon you'd be better off just going for a recirculating system for cooling and running a radiator to keep water temp constant :teasing-tease:

Would have to be off side boiler any shutoff valves in vapour path your asking for trouble, like kaboom :scared-eek:

bluc wrote:Would have to be off side boiler any shutoff valves in vapour path your asking for trouble, like kaboom :scared-eek:

Do you mean from pressure or flammability?

I mean if you have a shutoff valve inline on vapour path than sooner or later someones overactive idiot gland will shut it off preventing vapour flow and leave it off leading to over pressure and kaboom. Not nessacarley aimed at warra but someone random might do just this, and that will reflect very badly on our hobby..