Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

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Hi all,
I am hoping that there is a chance I could please pick your brains?
I have SPP supplied locally by KegLand. I purchased a few bags of them, as well as the extension tube for my T500 reflux column from them (Previously I added a tri-clamp adapters and a 2" sight glass).
I have been testing the difference with the Still Spirits steel packing (Comes with the column) compared to SPP. The default packing was fine, but when I added the SPP the column flooded and reflux stopped.
The temp would fly all over the place, reflux would stop and nothing would come out. Then the temp would skyrocket (Over 80°C) and the distillate would 'spew' out with force and hot.
Any assistance that anyone can offer with this would be greatly appreciated.

Just FYI:
I used the Grainfather boiler, so i tried it both a 65% and 100% power, same result.
I also tried both shaking the column to add more SPP and not shaking at all with a loose pack.
At the boiler end of the column i have wire mesh with silicon gasket holding the SPP in place (Mesh is loose enough that it holds the SPP in but that is all).

Many thanks all!

You mean it has one of the mesh screens like this?

BigRig wrote:You mean it has one of the mesh screens like this?

Hey BigRig,
That's exactly the one :-)

That seal will cause flooding and puking.
Grab a pen and poke a few holes in it so the liquid can flow down like it supposed to.

The Stig wrote:That seal will cause flooding and puking.
Grab a pen and poke a few holes in it so the liquid can flow down like it supposed to.

Many thanks Stig!!
I will give that a try with this weeks run.
I didn't even think that the mesh could be causing the problem, I figured it was how I was packing.
Cheers :handgestures-thumbupleft: