Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Ran two Coles citric acid tins to 20L but still wasn’t happy with the cleanliness.

Fully stripped and scrubbed with ss and vinegar, re ran with 50/50 vinegar mix and cleaned up way better.
Still left a bit of browny residue on the underside of the plates.

Ran a 10% 25L sac run and away she went.
Pulled 92-94% the whole run until I stripped tails.
Finding the equilibrium was tricky but I think the best bet was around 2400w or less

Some things that happened that I wasn’t expecting, such as bubble difference between plates (large bubbles up top plate, small tight action bubbles on the third plate.
Sometimes reducing the voltage would increase the third plate bubble height.

Flow is not what I was expecting.. May have something to do with the seals encroaching 5mm a side on the sieve plate (reducing surface area and bubble action) (plates started drying up)

Had some bubbles coming out of downcomer caps, is this pushing it too hard? Downcomer cap is around 19mm depth and so is the downcomer to sieve plate distance. Deliberating whether I should twim the downcomer.

I’ll let the photos talk.

How many l/hr you reakon?

Mate, not sure, didn’t accurately measure.

Toothpick size.

I would see how she behaves with a full load of40-45lt 10% wash or 40%abv spirit run,befor changing anything ,as that's the important time for everything ta run well,cleaning and small runs are not the average and will make ya still behave differently,so do not stress out until you have a few more runs under the belt,these things need a patient approach without changing too much at once,until you have got to know your still.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

hillzabilly wrote:I would see how she behaves with a full load of40-45lt 10% wash or 40%abv spirit run,befor changing anything ,as that's the important time for everything ta run well,cleaning and small runs are not the average and will make ya still behave differently,so do not stress out until you have a few more runs under the belt,these things need a patient approach without changing too much at once,until you have got to know your still.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I like your style. Practically first.

hillzabilly wrote:I would see how she behaves with a full load of40-45lt 10% wash or 40%abv spirit run,befor changing anything ,as that's the important time for everything ta run well,cleaning and small runs are not the average and will make ya still behave differently,so do not stress out until you have a few more runs under the belt,these things need a patient approach without changing too much at once,until you have got to know your still.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-imwithstupid: :O) awesome advice as usual :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Doubleuj wrote:

hillzabilly wrote:I would see how she behaves with a full load of40-45lt 10% wash or 40%abv spirit run,befor changing anything ,as that's the important time for everything ta run well,cleaning and small runs are not the average and will make ya still behave differently,so do not stress out until you have a few more runs under the belt,these things need a patient approach without changing too much at once,until you have got to know your still.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-imwithstupid: :O) awesome advice as usual :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1:

The other thing is cleaning those plate holes,or de-burring the underside with a larger drill bit by hand only(electric drills with copper is a bad idea and will damage all ya hard work unless you are very precise ) and maybe even on top ifn they are rough then go thru all holes again with the original drill bit,and polish off with a SS scrubby .It is small details wich make all the difference down the line with every run,this job may require a six pack and a comfy chair to make bearable .With down comers an odd bubble or two is not a problem I see it a little at the start and end of each run,yours looked full and overflowing well, ifn ya had blow by you would see empty downcomer cups with no flow and the plate will start to fill up as the excess liquid(reflux) coming from the plate above cannot go down the downcomer because all your vapour is running up thru it . cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Did a 23L run of ffv yesterday, chucked a bottle of 30% feints in.
Still performed pretty well, did bypass the bottom downcomer for a bit but got it to lock later on (no biggy)

At 2 LPH I got nine 200mL jars of 93% + tails
The jars smell sweet all the way through, the jars have improved overnight but I still detect sweet odour wondering if it’s unfermentable sugar and suspended yeast particles, there was a tiny bit of trub in boiler afterwards

Bubblers were eminating from the 56t solder as well :think:

Fully countersunk the holes to roughly 3mm OD, top and bottom.
Be interesting to see if it changes much in the next run


Previously it has Run rock steady and predictable @ 93% glasses fog one by one.
Hearts made a good “g dropper”

Did a 40L ffv wash and decided to increase my hearts cut from 500mL to 900mL
The hearts still have a sweet smell at 93% but less so then heads/tails

Kept 500mL of pure stuff but the jars either side have a heady smell/ taste and a tailsy afterbite, will keep them anyway and see if age improves them well enough.
I guess I was expecting a bigger/better smelling/tasting neutral cut off the still @ one run.

I have had the first plate (from the boiler) fail to load on the odd run,with vapour running up the downcomer ,switching off the power for a few mins and restarting allways seems to fix it tho.Are you running the packed section or just 4plates and power used for the run.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Exact same, the odd run, the bottom plate doesn’t load.
I am currently running 4 plates and a packed section.
Yes, turning off the power momentarily, loads the downcomer cap.

Usually run at 2400w, if I go any more, the third plate bubbles hit the roof.
Roughly 5mm liquid bath level, maybe I’m driving it too hard and the vapour speed is too high.

I could increase the perforated hole size to lower the vapour speed I guess, but want to see what these counter sunk holes do. The 1.58 (1/16th) hole size is pretty standard.

I remember bt1 suggested the same thing (countersinking) in another thread.

The RC has absolutely loads of knockdown power and hysteresis is pretty good at around 5 mins.

Is your bottom plate a J cup? Bender could never really hold the bottom plate until I changed the bottom downcomers to have a J cup.

No problemo since

They are all cap type, it only happens once in a blue moon and is easy to fix. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

There is a bit of difference in plate loading, but I think that’s normal.

900ml from a 40lt wash sounds low ta me,2lt/hr @2400wt may be a bit fast as well for neutral,I would be collecting at no more than 1.5/hr ,the other thing is playing with the packing density as this could gain you % abv and overall quality as well.cheers hillzabilly ;-)

hillzabilly wrote:900ml from a 40lt wash sounds low ta me,2lt/hr @2400wt may be a bit fast as well for neutral,I would be collecting at no more than 1.5/hr ,the other thing is playing with the packing density as this could gain you % abv and overall quality as well.cheers hillzabilly ;-)

Cheers hb

Going to try these new countersunk holes out and might pack a few more screubbers in. Aim the the magic 95%

Time to start fine tuning the old gal. :laughing-rolling:

Mostly we recommend 5plates and a packed section of 500mm for an outcome of 95%abv ,I like to double distill sometimes for gin and other infusions wich require the good stuff,a run starting with 30-40%abv has a better chance of reaching 95%,but above all go with taste .cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft: