Packing, blockage

Reflux still design and discussion

Packing, blockage

Postby fo3 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 4:42 pm

Hey guys, I recently bought a still spirits super reflux I was looking for in another thread and ran my first wash.
Things did not go so good. First of all, all the flavours of the sugar wash carried into the spirit. Secondly, there was weird things happening with temps.
I re-ran ran the spirit today and noticed a few things and came to my conclusions below.
When running it thermometer doesn't gradually rise. It stays at ambient until the wash is boiling. It seems like no vapour is getting past the ceramic saddles until the boil and steam pressure pushing it past.
I cleaned out and repacked the saddles and tested with just water and the same thing. Thermometer reading ambient even though the water was close to a boil. I removed 3/4 of the ceramics and shoved a screwdriver in their to loosen the remainder and finally got the thermometer to read a linear temp increase as the water simmered.

So can it be possible that ceramic saddles can block vapour flow? Seems like it to me as no temp increase could be registered on the thermo until steam pressure dislodges them.

Should I just get a SS pot scrubber and retry? -Serious answer as I want to know if I'm thinking in the right direction before stuffing around - ie might be something else entirely wrong with my set up and I don't want to be going in circles.
Problem was no temp increase displayed until suddenly boiling, distallate coming off at 88-80% ABV but not neutral tasting, tasted very strongly of the yeasty/cidery wash.

What does everyone else run in the old SS SR?
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby db1979 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:01 pm

It sounds like you were just witnessing passive reflux of the column when it was packed with all the packing. As the vapour comes up from the boiler it will hit the cooler packing and condense, then go back down. It will gradually heat the packing by doing this until the vapour heats it all up but there will be a temperature gradient provided by your condenser at the top of the column.

What wash were you running? Did you take cuts or in one vessel?
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Kenster » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:21 pm

if the wash is sugary and yeasty,well , yeasty... did u let the wash sit and settle for a day or so after u decided it was finished or just run it straight away. Settling and leaving the grungy stuff behind will fix this by decanting and keeping it out of the boil. You will loose bugger all booze by sacrificing a bit in the bottom.. The sugary carry-over may be due to non full fermentation... did you measure, with a hydrometer, The final specific gravity... as a finished run should have NO sugar and a gravity reading of .990. If yours operates, temp wise, like the T500, the temp will sit the same for ages(passive reflux, as mentioned) and then shoot up high to 70ish, (from memory).
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Fishleg » Wed Jun 28, 2017 5:52 pm

I started with the same still and the sudden temp rise is pretty normal, stays at ambient and very quickly rises just as you hit operating temp, although I would start to see heads come out at about 68-70 degrees. Maybe turn your cooling up a bit.
They work well with SS scrubbers, better than ceramic. I would change it and make sure it's not too loose....... or too tight
Just nice and firm with good contact with the inside of the column
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby fo3 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:33 pm

The was was wineos neutral wash, ie 4kg sugar, citric acid, epsom, yeast nutrient.
It came out very eyasty as expected, feremented at 23-27c - pitched at 25c, yeast exothermic output pushed it to 27c for a couple of days, dropped to 25c. then when below that and cold nights dropping it to 22 I used a heater to warm it up during the night, so 25c night, no heater 22c ambient during the days.
I know higher temps mean more yeast smell, and I know an all sugar wash makes things tastes cidery as that's why you don't use much sugar in beer (I homebrew too). I just expected a reflux still to not pass on those flavours. If I'm wrong then i) might use dextrose, might keep yeast cooler, ii)might try a grain, malt or mollasess run if all the flavour goes through this still anyway.

It fermented down to 990 after 10 days, I transferred it out to clear into another clean fermenter as it was still cloudy. I let it sit for another 4 days out in the cold shed to clear out and even more yeast to fall out.
Pretty much I was left with a cidery yellowish wash, and everything seemed normal to me as that much yeast and those temps and using sugar would give me a yeasty ciderish wash and that's what I got.
What happened though was all those flavours went through the still and it was weird how the wash was boiling before anything showed or came out of the still.

On the first run with the wash it ran at 80C before anything came out. Temps quickly rose and I was flowing 4L/min to keep it under 84C. It was super strong in smell and taste coming out all yeasty and cidery.
I re-ran it as it was undrinkable and was running at 76-80C at about 2l/min until I hit the tails where it ran up to 84c no matter how much water flow.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Aussiedownunder01 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:44 pm

I found if I packed my packed section to tight I ran into all sorts of problems
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Plumby » Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:58 pm

My super reflux stays at ambient temp then shoots up a few minutes b4 I start taking 4shots, to be honest I dont watch the thermo anymore, I run my still by output speed, dripping so fast its almost a thin stream works best for me. I use to control this by cooling water speed, very hard with these stills but it can be done, since building my power controller I find it easier to control output speed with it and I get a better product.
I also use ceramic saddles and rasching rings as my packing.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby fo3 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:04 pm

Thanks, then it seems normal for this still. I was just confused with people or the instructions mentioning to turn the water on at 50C. I've never seen 50c, it went straight from 14C to 70C this morning in seconds!
Next time I'll take more time to make the wash more neutral and/or do a strip run and run it through a few times then, or treat it like a pot still and do things with flavour I like.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Plumby » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:09 pm

I run my cooling water from the same time I turn the boiler on because of the rapid temperature increase.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Sam. » Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:13 pm

Plumby wrote:I run my cooling water from the same time I turn the boiler on because of the rapid temperature increase.


And that is definitely the safest way to do it :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Lowie » Wed Jun 28, 2017 8:00 pm

Fishleg wrote:I started with the same still and the sudden temp rise is pretty normal, stays at ambient and very quickly rises just as you hit operating temp, although I would start to see heads come out at about 68-70 degrees. Maybe turn your cooling up a bit.
They work well with SS scrubbers, better than ceramic. I would change it and make sure it's not too loose....... or too tight
Just nice and firm with good contact with the inside of the column


:text-+1: :text-imwithstupid:
As Fishleg said, it stays ambient then, bam it hits the roof really quick. I used this still for over 10 years and it produces consistent product. It should produce a near tasteless wash - you may be expecting too much from this typ of still too. I used to run ceramic saddles by themselves then switched to a mix of ceramic/copper, then copper only (from the HBS). Don't cram the saddles in, just pour them in and let them be. How long since the saddles were given a decent bath in a citric acid mix? Also, there's saddles in the extension too if you didn't already know that. BTW, this still is easily modified to run as a pot too - handy for stripping runs. BTW, you should be getting close to 92% ABV with this still. Cheers, Lowie
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby fo3 » Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:20 pm

I expected the still to remove most flavours, but it isn't, so I'm looking as to why. If the temp rush is normal then that blows any ideas I had out of the water. The spirit tastes like what goes in, no removal of yeast/cider flavour. Though I know you had the extended version.
I guess treat it like a pot still? Stripping runs or making the wash less flavoured? (next time I'll ferment at lower temps, filter and clear better (maybe with finings)- didn;t bother my first attempt because I thought it wouldn't matter with a reflux still)

It's good news and bad news I guess. Doing what it does makes it worthwhile to try mollases or malt and different yeast strains as this is a baby reflux and doesn't remove most flavours. I wish I could have got the extended version.
Or maybe it's short of a few saddles or packing some ss or copper mesh with make it work better. The saddles aren't close to the top but I thought that was normal due to the bung and thermo bulb, but maybe it's lost a few too many. Not going to buy any more but might try a ss pot scrubber loosely packed but to the top.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Sam. » Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:03 pm

I suggest giving it a thorough clean and next time you run, run it as slowly as you can and take small cuts.

If it's still shit then change your packing media. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby fo3 » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:32 am

I forgot I didn't answer the question about cuts.
Yeah, I expected about 3L to come off my wash so I split it into 4x 700ml bottles. 1 head, 2 heart and 1 tails.
The head was 88% and acetone smelling, very sweet tasting and the strongest yeast/cider tasting too.
The hearts were better and were 84-80% (first bottle 84%, second bottle started at 82% and dropped to 80% and not as good tasting as the first hearts bottle)
Then switched to the last bottle for tails at 80% and ran until flow cut off at about 70%.

E: going to give it a good clean out and dry and pack away for a couple of weeks while the next washes ferment. Will try again in 2-3 weeks time.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Zak Griffin » Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:39 am

Using 4x 700ml bottles your cuts will be;

Heartsy heads
Headsy hearts
Tailsy hearts
Heartsy tails.

Smaller jars, man.
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Thiele » Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:51 pm

where exactly is your thermometer located?

(I am in the process of building a still, based on a combination of several designs including the Nixon-Stone still design. I have 3 thermocouples/temp probes located on the still, and one for the cooling water exit. The packing column section is thermally insulated. My still setup is more of an experimental apparatus which will test different packing types and make some measurements of key parameters etc - of course I will need to be the guinea pig for the final product testing with and without hors d'oeuvres) :D

can get a 4 channel temp sensor unit (K type probes) for about $50 (choose the right temp range sensors for better accuracy)

Temp Probes 4 channel.jpg
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Aussiedownunder01 » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:39 am

I like the look of that temp sensor do you have a link to it
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Thiele » Fri Jun 30, 2017 11:04 am

Aussiedownunder01 wrote:I like the look of that temp sensor do you have a link to it


On Ebay for less than $60

Digital 4 Channel Thermometer Temperature K Type Thermocouple Sensor

The K-type thermocouples that come with the unit arent very good and have a range of -200 to 1372 degC. So the accuracy is about +/- 1.0 degC (still ok for most applications)
I use alternative K-type thermocouples that have stainless steel stems and operate at a range up to 400 degC - more accurate for distilling purposes which have temperatures less than 100degC. (can get these probes between $3 and $7 each)

The difficulty in attaching or inserting these probes depends on the type of still you have and on what you wish to measure.

(there are data logging temperature devices which are very good - monitors "time stamped" temperatures that can be downloaded later into a spreadsheet. I use a two temperature USB data logger for my fermentations - about $30 from memory. There are lots of gadgets available online that have dropped in price, and have reasonable levels of accuracy and reliability)
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Re: Packing, blockage

Postby Thiele » Fri Jun 30, 2017 11:21 am

:D
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