Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi, I am in the middle of colecting all the parts I need to enable me to run my still as a pot, or as a colume. I stumbled across this forum and it has way more information than the "local" one, and seams to have a general better overall atmosphear.

so far I have this 50L boiler (different company though.


and this 3" pot head


I also bought one 3" sight glass with a bubbler.

now everything I had read up till now shows for single malt and such to run it as a pot still, but I see a lot of people here are running bubble plates also, so that has me a little confused. Is there some good reading resorses on how a bubble plate will effect the product? Or would I just have to exparament with different batches to see how much each plate addition affects the outcome. I want to keep as much of the oils and esters as I can and just use my cuts to shape the flavor, I like big bold scotch.

My other question is how many bubble plates would I need to get a product suitable for a vodka or gin, and do I need a Dephlegmator? If I can, I would like to only have to cool the condenser, but if I need one then I'll get one as I dont want to use packing.

thanks.

Steve

Good Morning Stircrazy.
Let me start by saying I am still counting how long I have had my bubbler in hours not days yet, but I am happy to share the little I know already. The dephlehor, apologies for spelling, let’s call the reflux condenser or RC, you need this to control your plates and build the ABV, without it I guess the effect would be a little smoother output but at your normal ABV.
I was using my pot still for brown spirit and like flavour so will experiment with 3 or 2 plates to see which flavour/smoothness profile I prefer. Generally you will loose a little flavour to gain a little smoothness is my understanding.

As for neutral you will probably need a packed section to remove all flavour from your spirit, I was triple distilling WBAB for a vodka, it still had some flavour, which I prefer, but was a little rough. Running this through my 4 plates definitely smoothed it right out and it still has a slight flavour.

Having 3 or 4 plates also makes it possible to go straight from a wash to a spirit run without having to do the stripping runs to build up volume, plates also help increase abv which helps with storage if nothing else.

I am sure I have left heaps out but others will chime in as they start to surface for the day

Pop into the welcome centre and say hello and what you are trying to achieve. Good luck

I have edited the original post to remove advertising pictures

Wellsy wrote:Good Morning Stircrazy.
Let me start by saying I am still counting how long I have had my bubbler in hours not days yet, but I am happy to share the little I know already. The dephlehor, apologies for spelling, let’s call the reflux condenser or RC, you need this to control your plates and build the ABV, without it I guess the effect would be a little smoother output but at your normal ABV.
I was using my pot still for brown spirit and like flavour so will experiment with 3 or 2 plates to see which flavour/smoothness profile I prefer. Generally you will loose a little flavour to gain a little smoothness is my understanding.

As for neutral you will probably need a packed section to remove all flavour from your spirit, I was triple distilling WBAB for a vodka, it still had some flavour, which I prefer, but was a little rough. Running this through my 4 plates definitely smoothed it right out and it still has a slight flavour.

Having 3 or 4 plates also makes it possible to go straight from a wash to a spirit run without having to do the stripping runs to build up volume, plates also help increase abv which helps with storage if nothing else.

I am sure I have left heaps out but others will chime in as they start to surface for the day

Pop into the welcome centre and say hello and what you are trying to achieve. Good luck

thanks for the info, a packed colume is not in my plans in any form, so I guess I would have to do it with bubble plates and a RC. I was just hoping if you had say 5 to 8 plates you wouldn't need a RC and simplify the cooling situation.

thanks
Steve

The Stig wrote:I have edited the original post to remove advertising pictures

sorry didnt realize they were advertising pictures, just grabed pictures off the internet of what I bought. I try find something different

Steve