Chinese Pot Still Conversion

[GrantB]

Decided to add a column and reflux condenser to my Vevor still, to see if it could be converted into a reflux still & hoping I wasn’t wasting my money.

As this was my first run so I used about 5 liters of feints topped up with water.

After a little bit of trial & error I started getting a steady stream running with an ABV of 93%, the the vapour chamber holding steady at 78.2 deg C.

After a couple of hours holding the ABV & temp the temp started to rise in the vapour chamber and the ABV dropped quickly to 90% & the stream slowed to drips. The boiler temp had risen to 98 deg C by this time so I stopped the run ending with up about 2.5 liters. Very pleased with the end results

This hobby of distilling is still (no pun intended) all very new to me especially with regards to the heads, tails etc. I took about 150mm of foreshots then took about 250mm of heads. When I did a taste test of the heads I thought it tasted ok (and will consider throwing them in after I check them again tomorrow). Very different to the heads & tails I’ve getting when running as a pot still.

When the ABV stated to drop I changed out my jar and collected about 250mm before shutting down. This didn’t taste as good as the rest so most probably i will not be including. Again will taste again tomorrow to confirm.

My question is, could I have gone lower with my ABV? And are there any other things I should be aware of?

[howard]

i think you have done well.
what was your take off rate?
did you hold the still in full reflux for a while at the start to stabilise the column?
you can watch for temp changes before the RC with a cheap digital thermometer pushed inside the insulation.(pic)

i predict another column being added :smile:

[GrantB]

i think you have done well.
what was your take off rate?
did you hold the still in full reflux for a while at the start to stabilise the column?
you can watch for temp changes before the RC with a cheap digital thermometer pushed inside the insulation.(pic)

i predict another column being added :smile:

Hi Howard,

I clocked the take off at around 40 minutes per liter and yes after reading a few posts on AD I held the still in reflux for around 45 minutes. I wasn’t too sure how to go about getting up to temp so I had the water turned off to the reflux condenser until the temp in the vapour chamber started to rise. Then turned on the water to the condenser Togo into full reflux for the 45 minutes.

Great tip about sticking the temp gauge into the insulation I’ll definitely be doing that next run.

Just curious, why do you predict another column going in? Is there an advantage to go taller?

Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers

[howard]

yes, i started with the provided 500mm column, then added another 600mm.
so with the height and all that extra packing (plus insulation/power controller), i went from 89%abv to 96%.

the digital thermometer in the pic had just dropped about 2c, from a 40minute constant 74.8c reading, to a constant 72.3c.
to me, that's when the lower temp vapour has settled at the top of the column.
the top thermo reads the ambient temp of 28.8, which indicates the RC is not letting anything past.
that's the only time i use a temp gauges in distilling now.