Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Wondering when using a carter head the stuff that collects in the sight bowl. Does that just come from precipitation as steam passes over the botanicals. Which leeches some oils from botanicals?

What i should have asked the rc is before not after the botanical basket?

You're pretty much right on both counts mate.

Some of the oils extracted are too heavy to be carried by the vapour over to the PC so they fall down into the collection chamber.

You don't necessarily need an RC but if you use one then yes it would go before the botanical section so you can put the still into full reflux and change the botanicals mid run or even leave them out until you're definitely into hearts if running straight from a wash or low wines.

There's a great thread here some where that explains how the carter head works.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

I'm not sure I understand the question quite right so sorry if my reply sounds dumb.

The professor is right about the rc placement from what I understand if your running a basket on a bubbler but a true carter head doesn't have an rc near the basket, from my understanding doesn't even need one at all it works on passive reflux and oils running down into the sightglass bowl. The sight bowl is in effect a thumper so the reflux coming back down will have some oils from the botanicals in the basket up top of the head before the pc which will then be re infused with the vapor coming through the thumper, so it gets two bites of the cherry I guess you could say, once through the thumper oils and once through the botanicals.

The tap you see on the bottom of the bowl is there to drain all that goodness out at the end but can also be used to run back to the boiler mid run for even more flavour transfer.

Ps I have never run a carter head this is just what I've picked up in my research so I may be waaay off. Hope it helped a little.

Edit: sorry professor, just re read your post and you did mention they don't need an rc. My bad :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Ok so vapour leeches flavour from botanical's it runs down into collection "sightglass" bowl. The bowl fills to a certain level than acts like an inline thumper vapour comes up pipe down through liquid picks up flavour then passes over botanical's then into pc. I was trying to work out if that liquid in the bottom bowl was from passive or forced reflux. Didn't realise it was actually a thumper I thought it was just there to collect the oils and provide a visual as to when it needs to be emptied..

There's quite a few threads on it around with some pretty good pics too. Try

http://aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=7750

And

http://aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic ... 7&start=80

Should get you started

I've tried the stuff in the bowl/thumper...
:puke-huge: :puke-huge:
Not worth keeping.
Low alcohol and full of off flavours.
Looks pretty though, if you do lemongrass or similar - see my avatar as an example >~~>

dogbreath vodka wrote:I've tried the stuff in the bowl/thumper...
:puke-huge: :puke-huge:
Not worth keeping.
Low alcohol and full of off flavours.
Looks pretty though, if you do lemongrass or similar - see my avatar as an example >~~>

That's interesting, I thought doc collected and used the thumper contents although I do recall mention of redistillaion.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Professor Green wrote:

dogbreath vodka wrote:I've tried the stuff in the bowl/thumper...
:puke-huge: :puke-huge:
Not worth keeping.
Low alcohol and full of off flavours.
Looks pretty though, if you do lemongrass or similar - see my avatar as an example >~~>

That's interesting, I thought doc collected and used the thumper contents although I do recall mention of redistillaion.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

You are right, Doc does collect the contents of the thumper/sight glass.
But in my set up it just isn't worth it.
The thumper acts like an extra purifier and the flavours in there are horrible.
I would keep them if I could see any value in them.

Hi guys ...I do collect the oils from the bottom of the carter head ...but we no longer use it in any of our products for drinking ... I do use the oils in cooking, perfumery, and also we give some to local artisan soap makers... I am working on a gin botanical stuffing for low and slow smoking chickens at the mo...I think the oils will play in the cooking.... I am thinking something like beer can chicken but using gin oils... we really do try to not create waste if anything has a further purpose....I hope my ramblings are clear.
Doc

Very clear I reckon.
We found running the FSD carter-head without an RC you get early onset of tails if you use low-wines...
running diluted hearts fixes the problem, but we're thinking about bubble plates and an RC prior to the carter-head...
5 plates and a botanical basket over low wines makes bloody nice gin so It should work with the carter head set-up too we think....

Should only be using hearts when making gin not low wines.
You could potentially lose some flavours you are trying to extract.
Or as you have found you get early onset of tails.

the Doctor wrote:Hi guys ...I do collect the oils from the bottom of the carter head ...but we no longer use it in any of our products for drinking ... I do use the oils in cooking, perfumery, and also we give some to local artisan soap makers... I am working on a gin botanical stuffing for low and slow smoking chickens at the mo...I think the oils will play in the cooking.... I am thinking something like beer can chicken but using gin oils... we really do try to not create waste if anything has a further purpose....I hope my ramblings are clear.
Doc

Thanks Doc, perfectly clear.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.