Pot Still - Run Speed / Cuts / Fractions

[grumpthehermit]

Howdy,

OK be gentle with me ... I had my first runs with my new copper toy ( Thanks McStill !!! ) over this weekend and I have some queries that I can't quite find answers for. ( I've read the Kiwistiller guide a few time's over to try and get my head around it ).

The boiler is a HBS boiler, 30L ( boil a beer 2200W ) the pot still is the same as the one in the "the first one to comment gets it" post that McStill put up a couple of weeks ago. ( pelican / swan - with shotgun condenser ). :D

I have put through two 25L DWWG's that also had dry malt and 6kg's of plain white sugar as stripping runs last night, both ran well ( no feints added ). I got 5L of low wines from each one.

I ran them both down from high 60's to 20% abv and discarded 200ml of fores for each batch.

Today I measured the overall abv and it was 50% overall, I calculated on 11L of low wines to be on the safe side watering back to 40% and ran both washes back through again this morning as a spirit run. I don't have any control over the wattage of my element for a spirit run, I am assuming I am going to have to get a controller sorted to do this properly?

I started up and got it to the boil and collected in 300ml batches, it started at about 83% ( at 22 degrees ) and was flowing really fast, I was filling 300ml in 4 minutes for pretty much the first half of the run, What is a good collection rate for a spirit run for a 2 inch pot still?

By the time 20% came around I was sitting on 24 degrees at the parrot and the flow had slowed down to 8 minutes per 300ml

I'm thinking it ran wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to fast but this is all new to me after playing with my reflux. Can good product be made at this speed or have I just smeared everything from heads to tails right through the run?

It was a good first few runs for me regardless of the outcome, worse comes to worse I will re-run it again at a later date but for now it's airing just incase the speed is acceptable and you guys think it might be worth the taste test? The Kiwistiller guide suggests only keeping from 80% down to 70% for a scotch is this a pretty close measure to what you guys are doing or do you cut based on taste alone?

Cheers
GTH

[R-sole]

Sounds like you have way too much sugar in there with 6kg plus the malt. Total sugar for a 20-25l batch shold be around 3.5 to 4kg. You should be getting around a litre of strip or more per kg of sugar.

4l/hr is about what i run a spirit run at. So you are around the ballpark.

[Sam.]

I did a spirit run today with my 3 inch pot.

With the gas burner the slowest I could possibly run it was just above 3L/hr.

Reckon you will be close enough.

If it all smells like shit in a couple days you might have a problem.

Did you notice any differences in taste and smell through the run?

[grumpthehermit]

5Star - I have been using 6kg's in my TPW's and am happy with the results and thought I would just do the same for my DWWG but forgot about the light malt being a fermentable sugar until after I had already mixed it all up and put the lid on. :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:

I'll definitely go less next time as I want to do more malt.

sam_and_liv - It was quite different for me trying to get past the smell of wash ( YUM ) to decipher the cuts but the foreshots were very clear, the heads / hearts were hard to call as it was running and the tails were there at the end but not as strong and clear as when I run a TPW on my reflux.

Thanks for your comments, I will let it air until tomorrow then try to taste and see what I think of it.

Would you recommend a couple of scrubbers at the point where my pot connects to the boiler? Would this potentially be a benefit to me if the 2200W is smearing the cuts a little?

Fark it was funny, I always record my runs, I was trying to change bottles, record times, temp, abv and line up more bottles, I struggled to keep up with it.

:-D

Cheers
GTH

[grumpthehermit]

I had to make a support for the weight of the condenser because the boiler is piss weak ... Worked out well as a parrot stand too.

:-D



Cheers
GTH

[R-sole]

I like the collectors edition funnel. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[grumpthehermit]

Thanks again for those.

They make life so much easer :-D

Cheers
GTH

[Frank]

@GTH mate, you are really coming ahead leaps and bounds IMHO and well done... :clap: 8-)
Reading your posts here, as you are no doubt aware there's ALL sorts of ideas out there regarding amount of 'sugar/fermentables' and spirit run flowrates/takeoffs.....I cant get my head around Kiwis 70% whisky cutoff either :oops: .
I am very much a newbie re copper potstilling too (albeit with a way diff looking still :laughing-rolling: ) but I am pretty sure, at this stage, that a little less sugar (perhaps even moreso if theres a little more malt) and a slow/steady/practical flowrate is the best place to base your whisky experiments. Afterall, the last thing you'd want (methinks) is a sweet or smeared result :handgestures-thumbdown: .
Regardless, I also very much looking forward to your opinions 'post airing'.

@5Star I like them funnels too :handgestures-thumbupleft: ;-)

[grumpthehermit]

Thanks Frank. :D

I am having allot of fun with all of this.

I should be spending more time out in the garden though ... :laughing-rolling:

My 3rd and final run gave me a total of 6.9L to play with.

I'm happy to say I found very different tastes throughout my run. I took a sample from the 3rd jars at the head and tails end as well as a centre hearts and could easily distinguish heads from hearts, I found tails not as strong but I think being as it contains so much water being so close to 20% that that made sense to me.

I ended up taking the 8th bottle in from the start and finishing with the 7th bottle back from the end of the run.

looking at my data that meant I took my first cut from my first 80% bottle ( @23.9 degrees ) and finished with my 68% bottle ( @24.1 degrees )

So after making cuts I blended all the good stuff together and had 2.9L of 74% which I watered to 63% ( 500ml water ) and 3.9L of feints for next time.

I have put in a single piece of french oak ( ebay bargains thread - I cut 1 stave into 18 equal size pieces ) knowing that a single piece in 1.5L TPW test jar I made has started to colour up lightly after a month and would like this batch to come up nice and slow ...

Now I need to get two more fermenters bubbling !!! :-D

Cheers
GTH