Concerns about still

[Pete8686]

Good evening guys :handgestures-thumbupleft: broke my potstill last week and got my first rum wash ready to strip. So I borrowed a homemade 'reflux still' off a mate. My idea was to just run cooling to the condensor and run it as a pot. Im concerned the offtake tube is rather small (think its 3/8) and the pressure building up. It'll have a silicon bung in the top but I run gas and dont want the bung popping out. Has anyone got experience with similar stills that may be able to offer any advice?

[woodduck]

Not too sure about that still mate but i did notice you have a 2" boka in your profile, you could pull the packing out of that and use it as a pot, maybe? At least you know that still.

[Pete8686]

Cheers Woody, I've used the boka as a pot a few times but it needs a leibig. The distillate comes out that hot when I strip that vapour oozes out of my jars. I could just run it a bit slower I guess

[scythe]

Or build a nice liebig so you can use the boka as a pot still properly.
they don't take much time or effort to build.

[Pete8686]

No $ til next week scythe, guess I can hold on. Or just see how I go

[MickC]

You could take it apart and see what sort of pc you can build from the bits and pieces?

[Pete8686]

Aha!! Now thats an idea Mick, cheers :handgestures-thumbupleft: theres 2m of 3/8 running through that condenser hmm :think: I can just use the whole condenser if I can make a good seal between my 1/4 offtake to the 3/8 condenser. The boka is capable of stripping at 3l an hr

[Pete8686]

Decided to just give the still a go with my rum wash. Strips at about 4l an hr which im pretty happy with. And god rum washes are so nice, cant wait until its aged

[Pete8686]

So I decided to just use the homemade job. Thought it worked well, the stripping run went great taking off about 3.5l an hr and the spirit had that sweet molassesy smell and aftertaste. The spirit run refined it quite a lot and I just cant find those real rummy flavours. Abv throughout the run was as one would expect from a pot, starting off at 80 for a few litres then slowly working its way down. I have read that the rummy flavours dont come through a lot until a few months on oak though. So I guess my question is, does it sound normal for a rum run? Or is the still somehow draining out the cogeners during hearts. I put all my jars in to age after heas down to 63% on the spirit run