Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Wellsy wrote:Hey mate, not sure if it will make any difference or not, and it may be a trick of the photo. Does your cooling water go to both the input and output of the Rc. I could not quite follow the pic.

i was looking at that too.
doesn't look right to me, but i can't quite make out what's connected to what.
looks like a pressure thing, with the too many valves causing a water pressure eq, stopping/slowing flow through the RC & PC.
shouldn't the water inlet be at the bottom of both condensers, so there's no air trapped in the condenser?
i think i see how that valve arrangement would work in theory, but i would simplify it altogether.
is that the original water setup or new?

howard wrote:

Wellsy wrote:Hey mate, not sure if it will make any difference or not, and it may be a trick of the photo. Does your cooling water go to both the input and output of the Rc. I could not quite follow the pic.

i was looking at that too.
doesn't look right to me, but i can't quite make out what's connected to what.
looks like a pressure thing, with the too many valves causing a water pressure eq, stopping/slowing flow through the RC & PC.
shouldn't the water inlet be at the bottom of both condensers, so there's no air trapped in the condenser?
i think i see how that valve arrangement would work in theory, but i would simplify it altogether.
is that the original water setup or new?

Hey Howard. Fair questions about my cooling set up. It is set up as follows; cold water into the bottom of the PC (full noise, no regulation) then out at the top and into the bottom of the RC ( regulated flow) then out of the RC to waste. The other ball valve that you see allows me to re-direct the flow out of the PC (shutting off supply to the RC) so I can run it in pot still mode while keeping the product flow cool. This all worked well for me for a few years until my hiatus! Anyway, I tried Bryans suggestion and tested the PC again - all good. The only thing that I didn't do was put the cooling water back to the original (separate supply for both RC and PC) way I had it. Had about 12L of wash left so ran that with some extra water. Well, bugger me sideways, the bloody thing ran as it should! I'm going to leave the cooling set up as is for next full boiler charge run in a cupla weeks and see how that goes. either way, it has me a bit miffed as to why things would have changed (our ground water is not hotter than it used to be). Thanks for everyones helpful advice - much appreciated. Cheers.

Don’t forget Lowie you are no longer running your pc at full noise once you restrict the water to your rc as this put back pressure on your pc outlet. Unless of course you have a bleed off valve between the pc and r4 to allow the water pressure to be relieved.
I hope you have it sorted at last mate