by StillBrewing » Sat Feb 09, 2019 9:57 am
Hey Guys
Thought I wouls add my thoughts about the T500 and water flow regulator.
I bought my T500 about two years ago. Its one of the newer version with only one temperature gauge for the water flow output. Don't know why but it took me about eight months to take it out of the box. A bit of me thought I would blow myself up as I had only used an Airstill before. I was a little naive at the time so I started reading up, and reading and reading.
Now I'm very confident with my T500, I love it. Some knock them, but hey, its the only one I'm going to have for a while so I might as well use it to the best of its ability. Nowadays I make sugar washes that contain 10kg of sugar in a 50L fermenter. This is enough to make nearly two boiler full batches at 10%. From the start I just used the SS saddles that came with the column. Later on somebody advised me to ditch the barrels and fill the column with copper. I spent quite a few British nights in front of the tv chopping copper. 15mm pipe chopped into 10mm rings, each of those chopped into three equal pieces. Each of those pieces were bent over to make a half moon type shape, pretty much the same as the ones you can buy from Still Spirits.
My neutral washes were a problem at the start. They were taking ages to ferment, sometimes stopping half way through. I played about with a recipe and now I can guarantee every wash finishes on day 7 at sg994/992. Once racked off, degassed and cleared they are ready for the T500.
The boiler is filled nearly to the maximum mark, veg oil and saddles added, power turned on. At the same time I start to run the cooling water. Once up to temp I adjust the needle valve and take off the fores, they start around 46C. I take these off very slowly, just a drip--drip--drip. Fores now taken off I increase the water flow to stop any distillate coming out. I leave it in full reflux for half an hour and then take off the heads. My heads start coming off around 47.5 - 48C. From then on its plain sailing, I rarely have to touch the T500 all the through the rest of the process. Collecting vessel is changed to collect the hearts and I run it low and slow. On very rare occasion I have to slightly increase the flow, but not often. The whole process from start to finish takes me about 5.5 hours. Some say you don't get tails with the T500 but I dissagree. By the time I have taken off 2.3 litres of hearts it starts to change flavour. This is when I stop and turn off.
Now to the water regulator. My wife bought me one last October for my birthday. I only got around to using it for the first time last week. What a disaster that was. Started filling it with water like the instruction said and it kept filling, all the way to the top, water leaking out everywhere, even from the middle where the top plastic casing joins the bottom. Turned out the float valve wasn't set right. It was at an angle, touching the side of the casing, stopping it moving up with the water flow. I sorted that out by straightening it and plumbed it in. Started running it with my still and it was a nightmare. I spent more time adjusting the valve on it in that one session than I had throughout every other session without it. Without the regulator my T500 might move a maximum of point three of a degree. With the regulator it was moving up to three degrees at a time. This was happening in a couple of seconds, it was doing my head in.
Looking at the regulator it seems to me not enough water is being pushed through. Off the top of my head I can't remember the sizes, but I seem to think the water inlet barb is smaller than the actual tubing attached to the pump inside the regulator. The outlet barb attached to the pipe that then attaches to the T500 isn't much bigger. I had air bubbles running through this pipe and it obviously the reason why the temperature gauge was jumping up and down like it was. The company I bought it from in the UK (Love Brewing) were fantastic. I sent it back, no hassles and they refunded me real quick. Now I run the T500 without one. It runs like a dream.
Would I recommend the T500 to others. Yeah, definitely. If you are not interested in building your own, only want a small setup, this is the one for you. Early last year I was new to making neutral. I thought it was the best and it couldn't be beaten. I now look back and realise the neutral wasn't even good enough for drain cleaner. Now I make fantastic neutral, if I say so myself. I've sent a few samples away to online friends to critique in the last few months. I was really expecting negative reports. I don't know why, its just me. They came back fantastic. From 'this is gonna be dangerous with coke' to 'its as good as mine, totally neutral, no smell, very, very, very smooth'.
This morning I decided to make up a couple of bottles of flavoured drink using essences. I opened up the glass vessel and took a sip. Took another sip and thought ' who has watered doen my 40% neutral'. It was like water. So, so smooth, no burn at all, not even any real warming as it went down. I took two spirit hydrometer readings just to convince myself it was still 40%abv, and it was.
So, if anybody says you can't make decent neutral with a T500, I dissagree. Run it low and slow and the Angels will shine down on you. See what I did there !!!.
Finally, before you all reach for the rope to make a noose due to reading boredom !!, I've also just bought the Alembic dome setup. Know nothing about it yet but I'm an eager learner. I really want to produce some decent Brandy, Single Malts and other flavoured products in the future. Any helps with links to learn from would be appreciated.
Cheers all, T500's ROCK !!!.
Last edited by
StillBrewing on Sat Feb 09, 2019 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.