Chinese Pot Still Conversion
Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:44 am
Decided to add a column and reflux condenser to my Vevor still, to see if it could be converted into a reflux still & hoping I wasn’t wasting my money.
As this was my first run so I used about 5 liters of feints topped up with water.
After a little bit of trial & error I started getting a steady stream running with an ABV of 93%, the the vapour chamber holding steady at 78.2 deg C.
After a couple of hours holding the ABV & temp the temp started to rise in the vapour chamber and the ABV dropped quickly to 90% & the stream slowed to drips. The boiler temp had risen to 98 deg C by this time so I stopped the run ending with up about 2.5 liters. Very pleased with the end results
This hobby of distilling is still (no pun intended) all very new to me especially with regards to the heads, tails etc. I took about 150mm of foreshots then took about 250mm of heads. When I did a taste test of the heads I thought it tasted ok (and will consider throwing them in after I check them again tomorrow). Very different to the heads & tails I’ve getting when running as a pot still.
When the ABV stated to drop I changed out my jar and collected about 250mm before shutting down. This didn’t taste as good as the rest so most probably i will not be including. Again will taste again tomorrow to confirm.
My question is, could I have gone lower with my ABV? And are there any other things I should be aware of?
As this was my first run so I used about 5 liters of feints topped up with water.
After a little bit of trial & error I started getting a steady stream running with an ABV of 93%, the the vapour chamber holding steady at 78.2 deg C.
After a couple of hours holding the ABV & temp the temp started to rise in the vapour chamber and the ABV dropped quickly to 90% & the stream slowed to drips. The boiler temp had risen to 98 deg C by this time so I stopped the run ending with up about 2.5 liters. Very pleased with the end results
This hobby of distilling is still (no pun intended) all very new to me especially with regards to the heads, tails etc. I took about 150mm of foreshots then took about 250mm of heads. When I did a taste test of the heads I thought it tasted ok (and will consider throwing them in after I check them again tomorrow). Very different to the heads & tails I’ve getting when running as a pot still.
When the ABV stated to drop I changed out my jar and collected about 250mm before shutting down. This didn’t taste as good as the rest so most probably i will not be including. Again will taste again tomorrow to confirm.
My question is, could I have gone lower with my ABV? And are there any other things I should be aware of?