No distillate?

Reflux still design and discussion

No distillate?

Postby Carol » Thu Feb 06, 2020 10:22 am

Hello wise ones

I am running my 2"" boka but after 45 minutes of reflux when I open the valve - no drips at all.
Happened yesterday and again today.
Copper mesh has been taken out and put back.
Outlet valve and copper tube has been checked for obstructions etc. Water poured in flows out again through the copper tube so that bit is not the problem.
Still has been taken apart and reassembled.
Running 40% TPW low wines.
Water supply is submersible pump in swimming pool - working fine, exit water is the same as previous runs in terms of volume and temperature.
The only difference between this and my previous ( successful) runs is that the boiler was a bit fuller. To about 2 cm below max line (25 litre boiler).
This morning I added a stainless steel steamer with some broken crockery and that has quietened the boil down so it is not as noisy - but has not made a difference to the output..

So I am assuming that this must have something to do with how full the boiler is. When it cools down enough I will remove some of the low wines and try again. Any other ideas as to what is going on?

Thanks for your help.

Carol.
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Re: No distillate?

Postby The Stig » Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:36 am

Hi Carol,
I was just thinking :-B
Are you running the boiler through the power controller ?
If you are try running without it to see if the controller is lowering the power too much.
Without it the still will probably run too fast but it will give us an idea of what may be happening.
Last edited by The Stig on Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: No distillate?

Postby Carol » Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:42 am

I was running it through the power controller but on 100% (so I guess no difference from not using it). Temp maintains at 78-ish even when I turn it down to 90% but I can try without it this afternoon to see if that helps.
Thanks
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Re: No distillate?

Postby Carol » Thu Feb 06, 2020 1:50 pm

All sorted now.
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Re: No distillate?

Postby Doubleuj » Thu Feb 06, 2020 9:03 pm

What was the problem/ how’d you sort it out?
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Re: No distillate?

Postby Carol » Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:21 am

Hi doubleuj
It was a combination of factors that were specific to Boris and a lack of due diligence on my part. Boris is a prototype and some adjustments were made before I got him. Unusually he has two places that the outlet could be screwed in to - but one is the thermoport. After some friends had been mucking around with the boka section I did not check that they had put it back together properly and essentially ran it in reverse (Doh!). It is impossible to do that with the production models.

Andrew had also forgotten that Boris was "different" so we were barking up the wrong tree for a while, but eventually I worked out what I had done.

I am going to take steps to make sure that it cannot happen again. If I were to be run over by a truck tomorrow and someone else in my family took over the still they might set it up to look like the image on the FSD website - but Boris is actually the reverse of that. The outlet attaches to the section that looks like the thermoport and the thermometer goes in the other section which looks like it is where you attach the outlet.

So this was actually a very helpful blunder!

Cheers
Carol
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