Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi All

Hoping to get some thoughts on what might of caused some issues in my last run.

Went to run around 20 litres stripped Teddy's FFV topped up to around 40 litres with water.

Things were odd straight up, I had issues maintaining a slow drip for the fores, it was either nothing or gushing out. I managed to get it to a point where I slowly bled off fores and heads with some ultra fine RC adjustment (I'm talking millimetre adjustments of the gate valve), and I thought everything should be fine. Went to adjust the output to around 2 litres an hour when I was in hearts, but struggled to get it above 1 - 1.5 litres an hour to point the RC gate valve was completely closed and that was all I could get output wise.

So I'm like hmmm, open the value up figuring I've gone heavy handed and output basically stopped. Close it completely, output was a pretty steady 1.5 litres an hour. And I finished the run like that. Took a long time.

So I'm trying to figure out what would have allowed me to run at that speed with the RC completely shut off.

Now, I have found my couple runs have taken a lot longer, for example my stripping run of said FFV (close to 100 litres) took 10+ hours and I shut it down at 30% because I cbf waiting any longer.
I don't have dedicated circuits for my still just yet so I'm only running 1 x 2400 and put it down to that.

I'm starting to wonder if the element might be buggered? It's only got a handful of runs on it, but I'm guessing that doesn't really mean anything. It's about the only reason I can think of at this point.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Cheers
Tim

Buggered element or real low abv wash are two thoughts that spring to mind. My money is on element :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Edit: How long was heatup?

Was a stripped wash so was definitely at least 30ish percent by the time I watered it down.

Heat up did take ages as well now I think of it, at least 2 hours I reckon

Do you own a multimeter? Unplug boiler and test resistance between nutral and live.(the two angled pins) Google search for the resitance value for your element wattage..

Yep I would say element. Check it doesn't have build up on it, it may just need a clean?

Not sure if this helps but my Neutraliser with a 50ltr milk can and 2 x 2400 elements takes 60 minutes to get 40-45 litres to full reflux in victoria at single figure outside air temps (no heating in the shed :( ).

I haven’t done a low lines FFV yet but I’ve got one set up ready to go this week.
I only run both elements until I get to reflux then I turn the top one off.
I have no problem running 2.5 ltrs/hr output but I do have a needle valve and the coolant flow through my RC is about 180ml/minute.
Just a dribble really at this time of year.
I reckon your heater element or power supply could be underperforming.

Good luck

Thanks guys

So I ended up checking the resistance on the element, was around 22ohms which matched the other element I had that has never been turned on, and my old brass 5 star element. Opened it up to check the wiring and everything looked good there.

So I figured I'd just time a heat up of 40 litres of water with the existing element and the new one I had, while plugging it in I noticed the extension cable I'd been using (it has a clear sheath) looked black/burnt around the connectors on the plug ends. It was a china #1 job from Bunnings, $8 for 20 meters or something, so I'm guessing that's toast as after changing out the extension cord each element heated up the water in the same time. It it appears that was the culprit.

In any case, heating up on a single element is killing me, I need to get off my ass and get sparky around to sort out power.

Cheers for your help all.

Awesome glad you got it sorted :handgestures-thumbupleft:

^What he said.
Glad you got it sorted without burnng the house down.
:scared-eek: