NFI wrote:BigRig wrote:Sorry mate only just saw this.
I have a large steel water tank for cooling and it sits in the shade and never heats up. Pergola has no sides so i am undercover but its in the open.
Icy cold cooling water and gale force winds plays havoc with heat up and reflux / passive reflux. So i have given up running in winter.
If your product is not drinkable it could well be your wash / mash and what your taste expectation is.
What spirit are you trying to achieve ? Vodka ?
I have mainly been doing Tffv, I ran the last one a couple of days ago and out of a 45 litre charge I have only kept 4 X 200ml cuts as semi drinkable out of say 6.1litre collecting down to 25%. I follow the "easy" method, heat up 4800w, back off to 2400w as heat comes up tees, full reflux, cut element to 200 volt then refluxed for 1 hour, slowly drip off fores 200ml, then take product at less than 2.1L/h in 200ml cuts (6+ mins/cut) until I taste tails, continue 200ml for a couple more then switch to 750 ml when I can see tails signs in the column. When I first got the still I was getting good results with tffv, tpw ,wbab then everything went to hell. As I said, I had some stalling issues but that last one ran well and I was disappointed at the end. I have put on another TFFV and a TPW hopefully I will have a better results.
Thanks
I can say with certainty the easy method guide on here is good as a guide for running a bubbler but does not work for us outdoor guys using a mac 4ssg. The defleg is too efficient for a 2400w element. You will more likely be needing 3000w then increase as you progress through the run.
I am guessing you are not getting a good enough rolling boil and therefore not getting a good enough reflux to "clean" the spirit up.
Next time try heating up with 4800w, when you feel heat in the 3rd tee back off to 3000w, leaving defleg in full reflux, you will eventually see drips, when you do, slowly (in increments) shut down the defleg until you get an unbroken 2mm or toothpick stream.
Some blokes talk about * litres per hour, forget that. Every wash and run is different. If you run it accordinging to numbers and figures online you will always struggle.
You will get a feel for your still and it's sweet spot, i would stick to that regardless of take off rate.