The forbidden leaving your still unattended

[TheRealMrMessy]

I’ve had hoses pop off/split, taps split, power controllers fail and dump full power in instead of failsafe. But I can’t watch constantly ALL day, need to wander in and out, entertain the kid now and then etc.

For the moment I’ve got a eufy cam that depending where I’m at in the run points at combinations of the offtake spout, offtake temp, boiler and column temperature gauges, and water pressure/flow as well as the power input. Always got the cam on video with sound when I’m not right there with it. Anything goes wrong I’ll see or hear it and only be 20sec slower to respond.

Much as I enjoy the hands on nature of running the still, one of these days I’m tempted to digitise as an experiment since I’m a big tech nerd and integrate tap and power stepper motor controls, some logic to the temperatures and water pressures etc around some kind of fail safe etc - not to be lazy about it, but to see if I can add an efficiency layer to it (of course, it’ll never be able to taste and make cuts…).

Edit: should add that I have remote power switches at the entry point to the room, and a large AFFF fire extinguisher immediately accessible. Edit: AND smoke detection in the room.

[crow]

Every bad thing I've had happen has happened when distracted. Distilling like many other hobbies has inherent risks that need to be monitored. I remember years ago sitting with my BIL on their porch not properly watching a reflux heat up. So we were cracking cans and talking shit instead of monitoring temps to know when to decrease temperature input. Suddenly the column flooded and alcohol poured out the top and ignited, man did we bounce. The flames shot up and spread across his veranda iron, we turned the gas off and threw a blanket over it within seconds but things definitely could have taken a turn for the worse. The lesson is pay attention , do your job and dont get complacent just because everything has been fine before. That example was completely avoidable creating a dangerous situation where one shouldn't have been simply through complacency and a lack of diligence, I'd never want to see that again anymore than Id like to read about it happening to anyone else.

[Chriss]

Leaving the still unattended. This is exactly what my newphew did. Pissed off 3-4 times in the first hour to vape, the important hour to setup and start demonstrating the importance of the foreshot and seperating heads, cutting them into jars, etc, etc. So I turned it off early.
He has the ignorance to say "Do I need to listen to the instructions? After I spefically mentioned the saftey risks of boiling ethonal, vapours can spark, etc.
But then in person and texts me about how the homebrew is going so he can have free drinks. FREELOADER. :P in 2026 two years later :) so I ignore him now.
It is his kind of people that die of methonal, cause homebrew acidents. Never learning from mistakes.

Once I used an 5m extention cable and it started to smell and was hot to touch, uh oh. Lucky I was nearby and shut everthing off. Electrical cables have printed text for their ratings.
Once I got high on ethonal vapour and lit a fire, cost me $800 in court fees.
Once I spilled 5-10l of hot backwash and lucky no injuries.
So yes please be alert, ventilate, keep an eye on your setup. Get an IR thermometer to help you understand how hot each component/cable becomes.

We could use an air quality monitor with audible and visual alerts, but too close to the boiler coloum or pot it will detect high numbers of particles, find a nearby spot. Great anyway for 3D printers and distilling.

[Yonder]

Damned smart advice, Chriss. I’ve nearly had my own unfortunate incident but was right there to save the equipment. Folks would do well to heed your warnings. :text-thankyoublue:

[Wellsy]

It happened in the blink of an eye. The kettle had been coming up to temp slowly on my first all grain whiskey wash, I used some chocolate malt in the mix and the shed was smelling amazing. Check temp and figured I had 15 minutes before temp control was needed turned on the pc in the shed and tried to decide what colour scheme to use on my barrel collar. Hmm that sounds weird and looked over my shoulder to see a full blown puke underway.
The shit was coming out the spout and breather valve flat out.
In the space of 2 minutes we went from still got 15 minutes to disaster. Lost about 1 litre of wash but the cleanup now needed is a pita. If I had been away and not in the shed it would have been a different story.
No matter how many times we do this guys we need to show our still some love or they might not respect us in the morning.
Stay safe guys

[TheRealMrMessy]

Thermometer with alarm during the heat cycle is a good safety net - 80c on the boiler and 45c on the tower. Never had the tower go off without the boiler first, but its a good backup in case of the boiler one failing. I'm also never far away during heat phase too.

[Wellsy]

I was 2 meters from the thermometer messy, just not looking at it for those 2 minutes

[Amature_Hour_247]

As a relative newbie, the abrupt change from "come on, do something!" To "oh shit that temp gauge is rising fast" was eye opening.

I have already had the output hose kink on me first run, now it has a hanging place. You lot sharing these stories have likely saved heaps of new players :text-thankyoublue:

[TheRealMrMessy]

Boiler thermo is great to have, you learn when its gonna start and when tails is likely to start.

Tower thermo of course gives you info too, but no warning.

I like the alarms when heating as yeah, things happen fast at those critical phase change moments and even metres away you can miss things.

[RuddyCrazy]

With my still the thermo just sits ontop of the keg boiler and don't need any alarms as when the tails start to come in the site glass's start to fog up so time to load the plates and compress the tails. When the plates start to fog again it goes from 90% to 20% in less than 200ml.

As I use LPG and my BDburner I'm now never far away and in clear sight of the boiler at all times and when the lower plate starts to warm up the cooling water is put on, then about 15 minutes later first drips come out.

Now I don't want to repeat my last F'up so all attention is there as we should :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Cheers Bryan