At what power do you run your rig?

[casper the Irish]

"with more modern packing, higher power settings, and higher collection rates, you can even take that last bit of the run to 96% without issues ... "

Does this translate as helical or spiral packing, 80% flooded column, 70+mm dia.

With plain old mesh tightly rolled, higher power is reducing my %ABV.

At 70mm and 3kw this rig wont flood. but it isnt stable. i use csst tube from TO liebig to RC and the two coils struggle at times to strike equilibrium. As heat increases ABV goes down, TO vol goes up then falls. moving RC strikes a new equilibrium, flow is up for 300 then stops again.

Reduced power restores steady TO 3 litre/hr and raises ABV

Dad has said he struggles to squeeze early tails (>RR >power)

1.do i want tails from vodka or gin? Once hearts are taken by reflux is there anything useful in thr 10%-15% waste?

2. fruit and sugar or molasses. rums and brandies have fusels in the strong tails. But their weak tails are sweet ans are ideal to dilute hearts to cask strength. I am inclined to stop at hearts but retain the hot ale to be added to my next stripping run.

3. switching from reflux to potstill during a spirit run is not so difficult in VM as it may be in LM. I can see how the Manu LM could run head to tail with ease. so perhaps LM will fractionate the tails- which can then be carefully blended OR just thrown in with the next run! Thats the scotch method, recycle tails to flavour hearts. By collecting on LM reflux do you control your blend, mixing hearts with selected tails?

[skow69]

Hello Casper.

Dad has said he struggles to squeeze early tails (>RR >power)

Not sure what you mean by "squeeze" but all I've ever heard Dad say is that he can easily collect tails by increasing the heat.

1.do i want tails from vodka or gin? Once hearts are taken by reflux is there anything useful in thr 10%-15% waste?

I find nothing useful below about 85% when running reflux.

weak tails are sweet ans are ideal to dilute hearts to cask strength.

Isn't that a lot like just making the tails cut later?

I am inclined to stop at hearts but retain the hot ale to be added to my next stripping run.

You mean the backset from your reflux run?

[casper the Irish]

I don't want to stray too far off topic, my digression was more about where that power is best used to enrich hearts.
And I would prefer to learn from this thread how to boost yet balance power in my rig and improve my hearts above 90% with faster TO

What Dad said was "I hear all the time that VM's can not collect tails. I can...it gets slow and requires more power."

Odin made an inspiring thread on how to add flavour to whiskey hearts in a reflux run by collecting feints and recycling them. This specially applies to barley whiskey, perhaps corn whiskey too. It's also true that LM collects tails, where VM gets sticky (if you don't cap off RC and run pseudo-potstill).

I do want those weak tails, would like to recover them from the reflux spirit run, but it's not efficient to run full power beyond hearts.
I am suggesting that we don't always need to collect ALL feints. Not at all for vodka nor gin. Perhaps if we retain feints within the backset, add them to mash and 50:50 to low wines it recycles all feints (good +bad) but saves time+ power.

But sometimes specific tails have essential flavours. Strong barley tails weak fruit tails and golden rum oils; to blemd and age with hearts.
Why push up the power as hearts come to the end just to collect strong tails we don't want, and how do we collect and recycle the precious tasting weak tails? It's not just a later cut that is needed.

[Hank Reardon]

4 inch Flute with usually 4 plates
Internal element 5500W
15.5 gallon keg boiler at about 75% full

Heat up: about 5000W
Once at temp: Usually about 1800-2000W

Ditto on those numbers.

[Pgjackso]

2" diameter reflux column
8 gallon boiler
3.8kW element
2" shotgun condenser with five 3/8" tubes (roughly 14" long)
2" shotgun intercooler with give 1/2" tubes and needle valve to control cooking flow
Heat sink: 12,000 pool

I run mine at full power by loading the element with an intercooler. I measure temperature above the intercooler and adjust a needle valve in the intercooler for the amount of reflux and temperature differential. I've found that without it, the element barely loads up and it takes for ever. With the intercooler, I can get a good stream going off the condenser.

[skow69]

Is your still a packed column or plated? Is an intercooler the same thing as a dephlegmator? It lives above the packing and makes reflux, right?

I run mine at full power by loading the element with an intercooler. I measure temperature above the intercooler and adjust a needle valve in the intercooler for the amount of reflux and temperature differential. I've found that without it, the element barely loads up and it takes for ever. With the intercooler, I can get a good stream going off the condenser.

I don''t understand. you mean the boiler won't heat up unless you are running water through the intercooler?

[raptor402]

I have a 8 gallon stainless milk can pot still. With a Liebig condenser.

I have a 1500 watt, water heater element to heat the boiler. I run just slightly over half way, but not quite 3/4 on the potentiometer. This gives me a broken stream in a room that's 50 degrees this time of year.

I turn it up to full power once my abv, drops below 35.

I hope this helps with your question.

[raptor402]

I forgot to mention that I pack my column with five scrubbers.

[OtisT]

INSULATION. I run my 10g fractioning still between 800 to 1000 watts after I reach a boil. (7-9 out of 12 on my 1500w hotplate). I think I can do this at a lower power than most of the posts here because my still is fully insulated, from the boiler to the top of the column. I've increased heat with little/no increase in product output.

Still info:
Heat/boiler. 10 g SS boiler, 14" diameter, on a 1500watt professional grade hotplate. I use a 7 pound aluminum block between the hotplate and boiler for a steady/consistent supply of heat to the boiler.
The sides and top of the boiler are insulated with 1/2" thick closed cell foam.
Column. 2" copper column, about 5' long. Vapor Management. 36" of copper mesh packing when I am fractioning. The column and VM valve is insulated with 3/4" closed cell pipe insulation.

[bitter]

With 8-10% wash I can run my 3" boka with the 5500W at full and pull 95.5 to 96%

With a 40% charge can not do so much only 2/3 power before flooding.

B