wood,
The new pending build 3 will have a 500 - 600mm filtering section. The 300mm one currently in use is a little underdone imho. It's clean a high abv spirit no probs.
There's a bit more too it ...see comments below or don't and avoid the theory shite. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
You can make the glassers modular. You simply decide which plate is the last fixed ie normally 4 for rums etc and use rod joiners for the additional one or two plates.... these suckers
451954199554588.jpg
All you need do then is on output tube from shotty make tube length adjustable by using a slider (say 3/4" over 1/2" copper) locked by a finger clamp lock screw to take up the differing heights of your setup 4 vs. 5/6 plates.... saves adjusting your work space setup all the time.
Plates numbers
There's a lot of small percenters that can be considered in a build. I'm not by any means recommending which way you go.
Most folk would use bath levels around 2.5cm. The theory in simple terms is the deeper the bath levels the more "washing" the spirit gets before it's released to the next plate up the column and the "cleaner" it should be at higher abv's. 4 platers with 2.5cm baths makes a damn fine spirit.
I use bath depths of 1cm and hence use an extra plate mostly. It gets less "washing" and therefore pulls more flavours at higher abv's. There's several reason for going down this path, reduced pressure drops in the column, getting wash characteristics over to spirit, speed of output, desired finished spirit. There's some good reading in the library around impacts of bath depths.
So in answer to your question a 4 plater with std bath depths and a filtering section as many folk can claim makes a good neutral. In this config a 5th or 6th plate would be ideal.
bt1
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.