Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Sounds like it's flooding, you might have your packing too tight. If you take the column off the boiler and close the needle valve so the only opening s are the to and bottom of the column, you should still be able to blow air easily through the column. If you can you should be right. You could also pop the end cap off and try tipping some water down the column. If it doesn't flow down relatively easily you might need to remove the packing and redo it a bit looser.

Have you repacked the column since you last used it by any chance?

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Hawkeye wrote:Got a problem with my Macboka....

It's leaking at the lid attachment. Have pulled apart, cleaned seals, wrapped thread with plumbers tape, also tried a flour paste but it won't seal.

Any suggestions???

G -day ,I was just wondering how much power ya throwing at it ,with elements 2000wt or over I found it a lot more likely that the flooding issues were more possible especialy with low ABV wash ,when I ran a 2inch reflux and 30lt boiler,1500-1850wt seemed ta be the sweet spot.I fitted an extra element,used the original 2000wt ta heat up and then swapped the plug to the smaller one for the run.Some build power controlers wich can allow you ta dial into the sweet spot for ya still.anyhooo cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Right so far so good professor, seems like readjusting packing and checking fitting again I've got it working now.
:handgestures-thumbupleft:

Phew! I have 75 L of TPW to strip still!

Yes the boiler that came with this starter kit from Mac has just one element, run flat out. I forget the size. so I can over power it this is first time it's happened. think I'd need a power controller if I insulated it or had a bigger boiler.

Glad you got it working Hawkeye.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

hillzabilly wrote:

Hawkeye wrote:Got a problem with my Macboka....

It's leaking at the lid attachment. Have pulled apart, cleaned seals, wrapped thread with plumbers tape, also tried a flour paste but it won't seal.

Any suggestions???

G -day ,I was just wondering how much power ya throwing at it ,with elements 2000wt or over I found it a lot more likely that the flooding issues were more possible especialy with low ABV wash ,when I ran a 2inch reflux and 30lt boiler,1500-1850wt seemed ta be the sweet spot.I fitted an extra element,used the original 2000wt ta heat up and then swapped the plug to the smaller one for the run.Some build power controlers wich can allow you ta dial into the sweet spot for ya still.anyhooo cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

That's a very good thought. I had issues with vapour escaping through the vent rather than flooding but I was able to fix that by wrapping the RC coils with some copper mesh. Maybe 2000W is on the upper limit for these.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Not much happening on this thread, probably because the MacBoka just works and that's it, but to stir the pot a little I thought I would give some brief thoughts on my 18th month anniversary.

Yep, I have now been running the MacBoka for 18 months with nary an issue other than I specced it with 2 2.4kWatt elements and have never used the second - oh well - it's a spare.

On the basis of having a bottle of scotch a week I would have spent well over $2000 (in reality, I am ashamed to say, I would have more than that) - given that what I am making is costing me, say, $8 a litre at most (thanks Teddy) I would have to say it wasn't a bad investment at around $900 all up.

My only regret is that I am still tied in to essences, so, again, just to stir the pot, I thought I would ask other MacBoka's what they are doing with it now, and if they had any suggestions on how to wean myself off essences - is there another way to squeeze a decent whisky out of this great still? Cheers all.

You could soak some domino's in 65% abv neutral for 8-12 weeks but it won't be the same as a cfw, ujssm or bwko run through a basic pot still and aged for the same time. A mate of mine oak's neutral spirit with a teaspoon of maple syrup and 1/4 teaspoon of good quality vanilla essence per litre of spirit at 65% for 12 weeks. It tastes pretty good but whiskey it ain't.

If you put a lieberg condenser on to it and pull out the packing, couldn't you run it as a pot still? Then you would need to control the heat for your spirit run :handgestures-thumbupleft:

It's 2"? Why not turn it into a pot still :-B can u weld or know some1 that can? A pot can make u most of what u need..

Why modify something that works just build a simple pot to go on your boiler and use the boka to make neutral from the feints?

Thanks guys, I have actually got all the materials needed to build a pot still, I actually obtained it before I bought the MacBoka, the reason I haven't built one yet is just the lack of time, I also have been assuming that when I do go down that track that I will have to get into all-grain mashing - something I have no skills in as yet.

I am a whisky drinker not a whiskey drinker if you know what I mean, there are a few whisky recipes but they tend to require some HBO products, not that I have much against that but it's a long way away and postage costs seem to have gone through the roof. However I will be trying some one day for fun.

You can make quite a drinkable whiskey out of breakfast cereal mate. Have a crack at the CFW or nutrigrain recipes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Zak Griffin wrote:You can make quite a drinkable whiskey out of breakfast cereal mate. Have a crack at the CFW or nutrigrain recipes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1:

Plumby wrote:

Zak Griffin wrote:You can make quite a drinkable whiskey out of breakfast cereal mate. Have a crack at the CFW or nutrigrain recipes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1:

I'm hoping so just put down gen 3 CFW :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Zak Griffin wrote:You can make quite a drinkable whiskey out of breakfast cereal mate. Have a crack at the CFW or nutrigrain recipes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

As I say, I am not a whiskey with a "e" drinker in general, however I really should try those recipes before giving them the thumbs down, I have actually made a couple of weetbix based washes, and I think you could even put FFV in that category being bran based, but after refluxing obviously the flavours are gone.

Does anyone have any thoughts (i.e. worth a try/don't waste your time) on lightly packing a MacBoka (or any reflux still) to make it run as a pseudo pot still?

Bundaboy wrote:Does anyone have any thoughts (i.e. worth a try/don't waste your time) on lightly packing a MacBoka (or any reflux still) to make it run as a pseudo pot still?

I'm no expert but maybe use the search function on the forum for "pot hybrid". You may need to look at older posts as I don't think it's been talked about for a while, but then, I've been away from here for ages until recently.

Thanks will do.

Yep many have run a reflux still as a pot and tried to run a pot as a reflux and yeah you can half achieve each but it won't be the same, get my drift? ;-)

Sam. wrote:Yep many have run a reflux still as a pot and tried to run a pot as a reflux and yeah you can half achieve each but it won't be the same, get my drift? ;-)

Sure do.

I was just wondering if anyone runs their MacBoka *without* doing a stripping run first? I can't think *why* you would do that other than to get more taste (possibly) into the neutral, still I am always looking for variations on the theme. Cheers.