Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I am wondering the science behind wich way to have packing and plates in the tower.
Why do you see plates at the bottom and packing above.
How does this affect the ethanol and esters separation.
As apose to having packing at the bottom of a colum and plates at the top.
Also. Why is there no packing inbatween plates.

From my understanding the plates stack the fractions and they do the seperation of the substances found in the fermented product, then packed section above them strips the flavour.

Also by "feeding" a clean spirit into the packing it stays cleaner for longer and there is a lot more reaction time if you have a puke that could potentially block your column.

Ive always been under the impression that it is the number of distillation cycles that removes flavour.
You can have some azeo that still has plenty of flavour after 5 plates but add a 500mm packed section (whic iirc is equal to 3plates per 100mm), and you still get azeo but all the flavour is gone because of the extra cycles used.

This is my vodka machine, with its two look cool bits, the glass section with a perf plate and the copper coiled section at the top. Upgraded from two inch to three. Its only putting out the same as my 2 inch that was a freak at 1.5 ltrs an hour in hearts, 700ml head and tails per hour. It is a 1200mm copper packed Colum. 2400w element.
Why can’t my 3 inch out do it. mmm.
I put the head section on the 100ltr striping boiler and can achieve 6ltrs / hr at 100% with a 3600w element. I usually just run at 80%. Charge the 50 ltr boiler with 40% and insert the tower onto the head and continually run a 96% product. The % is there but can only achieve 1.5 ltr/hr obviously doing cuts, thought I may get better than that.
KISS not being adhered to.
I think I may be over engineering this one with centring plates acting as perf plates. (trying to get a more neutral) It floods to easily in the glass section, this could be holes to small, to many plates in the wrong area of the tower.
Is it worth making 4 perf plates with of set product returns over say 200 mm. put these at the base tower, stack it then with mesh, glass section with perf plate for show, packed top section with mesh.
OR
Put glass section with the plates at the boiler end an stack to the top with mesh.
OR
Your input here. Cheers.

Interresting idea with the downcomer in the packing, but the plates are probably why it is flooding.

Just try rolling the mesh so its a push in fit to the column without the plates.
That is what all the other members here seem to do and dont have too many dramas.