Today I had what I would call my first true success at running my bubbler. I ran 60 litres of BWKO, heavy on the rye this batch, through 4 plates. I have struggled previously to hold ABV via “the easy method” and had some trouble again this time.
What I did was “give her all you got, Scotty” instead. Well, not quite. I put one 2400 element on full, put the other on 75%, and heavy refluxed it. Then slowly backed off the reflux. Top plate was going crazy, then less and less so as I opened up the RC water bit by bit. The top plate was always bubbling harder than the rest, but the bottom 3 were in pretty good balance.
And glory be - hit 89% ABV with a RC temp of around 30 degrees, rock steady for ages. When it got close to tails I started tweaking it some. I was afraid to mess with it once I had it stable. I never did see the “fogging” of the bottom glass as tails started through as I have seen mentioned. Any advice on that would be appreciated.
Now, I do not know if this is the only method on my still, but it is “a” method. The key in this run was to power it up, reflux it heavy and ramp the water down bit by bit.
It was a relief to get it stable. I was more than a tad frustrated with how it was running prior to that.