new guy cleaning question

[stuffs]

Hi all.
Built a pot/reflux still a few weeks ago and already did a run.still has a short column packed w stainless scrubbers.
Wash was a basic sugar with a bit of leftover rye flour thrown in just cuz and a turbo yeast.
Worked great 90% for aprox my first 1L made my place smell like green apple jolly ranchers. 60% for next started to have a bit of an off odor. Then I ran it until about 35% when it started to stink. All of the above were done in about 250ml separate ?pulls?. Anyway ran the still about thirteen hours. It's a stainless steel stock pot with all copper pipe soldiered with lead free flux, silver solder. Some joints failed and I used cornmeal/flour to seal them up.
So here's my question. By the end of the run it stunk, my place, clothing, everything including the still. I have since tried to clean my still ( distilling vinegar, soaps, drain cleaner, even ended up cleaning the pot with goo gone) the only thing that has worked thus far is the goo gone on the pot. I can't scrub and rinse the copper pipes the same way. The smell is kinda like the the wet cardboard I have seen referenced. But this is really strong I am not sure if this is normal. My worry as I'm about to start another wash and hopefully distill my first batch a second time is that this dank smell will leech back into the distillate. Is this something I need to worry about, is there a way to clean the pipes, is this normal?

[BayouShine]

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15489

[fizzix]

Re-posting my response from the Welcome Center:
My pal, clean that still properly to start: Cleaning a still
Then we'll move from there. We can help you through this if you make the proper effort.
Welcome to Home Distiller, and hang in there!

[stuffs]

Thanks.
I did read and follow the pre-clean info. I just finished doing another run without the scrubbers and some old bits and 1/4 bottles I had around. And I am thinking my problem was the scrubbers. I had washed them and boiled them in vinegar but I think they must have still had something left inside.i am going to do another cleaning run tomorrow and look for new scrubbers.

[fizzix]

Put the new scrubbers in the still during the cleaning runs. Don't clean them separately, do 'em all together.
Don't drink any of that first run either and don't re-distill it. No need to be risky. We'll have you making good stuff soon enough.

[rgreen2002]

Is this a pot still or a reflux still (or both...)? For a pot, get rid of the scrubbers and save yourself some hassle.

Put up a picture so we can help.

[stuffs]

I'd say the still is a combo pot/reflux (but nomenclature was never my strong suit). I needed something on the small side that would fit on my stove but would give as much reflux as possible. That was my thinking anyway at the time. Seems to work I never thought things would go this smoothly. A bit of a scrubber hiccups no big deal.
Just finished a run with muratic acid and as soon as it cools a bit I'll break it down and run some steam through.
On an other note I used the stainless scrubbers because I couldn't find any copper anywhere. Well I found something I think may work it's a copper woven tube at Lee valley used as a snail barrier in there home and garden section. I don't know the rules on posting links so I'll leave off for now.
Thanks again everyone for the advice

[Reverend Newer]

BOY, everyone is the master here, got tons of vague answers to confuse a newbie, good job guys.


Some of the pros here need to remember when they were born a distilling master straight out they momma.

IF any distiller here never learned from their mistakes they are a liar, don't listen to the fools, trust your instincts, smell, taste and eyes matter. No real moonshiner ever took advice from people with multi-plate columns.

GO FOR IT, everyone else be damn'd! weuu!

[jon1163]

I would be really careful cleaning with the muriatic acid and drain cleaner, really careful. If it were me I would use dish soap and scrub it to get any lingering smell out... Rinse really well and then do the tried and true method for cleaning posted above.

Soak all of your pipes in 1/3 vinegar to water and clean your still with the same... Then do a vinegar run in your still followed by a sugar wash run where you don't keep the distillate. If it still stinks after that try returning the still and buy a new one.

If any residual industrial cleaners are left in this pipes or crevices you could get really sick.

[Yummyrum]

BOY, everyone is the master here, got tons of vague answers to confuse a newbie, good job guys.


Some of the pros here need to remember when they were born a distilling master straight out they momma.

IF any distiller here never learned from their mistakes they are a liar, don't listen to the fools, trust your instincts, smell, taste and eyes matter. No real moonshiner ever took advice from people with multi-plate columns.

GO FOR IT, everyone else be damn'd! weuu!

Not sure what your problem is Reverand Newer .
Advise sounds fine considering its regarding a still which is new and we don't actually know exactly what it is . ( A picture always helps save a pile of questions before relative advice can be given )

So I wonder where your concise answer was as you seem to think the advise given so far is vague and confusing ?

Back On Topic . stuffs , as I said a pic would help but it sounds to me like you have a simple pot still with the riser stuffed with scrubbers .
In my opinion what you experienced was just tails .They certainly do cling to the scrubbers and its bloody hard to clean the stench off them .

Now if you have a reflux still that has a reflux condenser or Deflagmator , then don't worry about it as when you do the next run , the reflux will wash all the crap back to the boiler while you are holding in full reflux at the start .

Having said that , your run seemed to take a long time for a stock pot full on a pot still . This also was strange that you got 90% for first liter . That makes me think maybe you do have a real reflux still and not a Pot But Iff'n you are running your pot that slow that you can get enough reflux to get 90% then guessing the same cleaning of the scrubbers will happen .

[sltm1]

Reverend, would you care to expand on your dissatisfaction with the answers given? There's 2 ways to learn to do distilling, the quickway (using Youtube, Moonshiners and my brothers uncle did it "thisaway" info), or the right way, getting advice from folks that have already learned the craft , albeit the hard way in some instances. Safety is why we always recommend reading a lot of the post's before lighting upyour still in the 1st place, and to avoid trying to convince nay-sayers on topic's already discussed over and over again because there is empirical evidence as to why they're wrong. Believe it or not, we give advice to help, not confuse. If the answers don't make sense, perhaps you should go back to the written material on the topic and do some homework.

[TDick]

Hi all.
Built a pot/reflux still a few weeks ago and already did a run.still has a short column packed w stainless scrubbers.
Wash was a basic sugar with a bit of leftover rye flour thrown in just cuz and a turbo yeast.
My worry as I'm about to start another wash and hopefully distill my first batch a second time is that this dank smell will leech back into the distillate. Is this something I need to worry about, is there a way to clean the pipes, is this normal?

Welcome Sir!
I apologize if my assumption is incorrect, but I think you missed the instructions all of US NOOBS received upon jumping down this rabbit hole.

bleeding eyes.gif (24.78 KiB) Viewed 1376 times

Read Til They Bleed!

I got so tired of saying/writing it I finally added it as my signature. See Below.
1. Read The Parent Site especially as it pertains to your still.
2. Must read - Cranky's Spoon Feed - then learn how to use HD Google Search. Now you know the basics.
3. Scroll down Tried and True and find a recipe AND METHOD for something you like and feel is within your comfort zone.
Read the thread beginning to end. If you have any questions, read it AGAIN. If you still have a question, THEN you can ask it about that project
and particulars about your still. The guys & girls have already accomplished exactly what you are trying to do.
Follow this path and you cannot fail. You will also have the foundation to go explore recipes and methods and fall on your ass which IS the other
way to learn.

[stuffs]

First off thanks everybody for the input.

Second I'm posting via mobile and it's a pain. I've tried to respond individually to a few post but I keep auto logging out and lossing everything.
So I'll try and ansew a few things here.
As far as the cleaning I didn't jump right to harsh chemical it was a gradual process hoping to find something that would work.
I'd post a pic but as I'm on a mobile I don't know if or how to remove the xif data.
At the start I read more about theory and looked at a ton of pics of stills. Any time something looked unique or out of the ordinary I tried to find out why. I cobbled this info together and (poorly I may add) made my still. My plan was to make a neutral spirit. No grand plan besides basic vodka. The first wash run it took about a hour and a half to heat up. I have a digital probe in the vapor chamber that leads to the condenser. As soon. As the still hits 40c here it skyrockets in temp quick so I turn everything down to min and it just dripped away for the thirteen ish hours.
Today I stripped two batches of wash. This went a lot quicker about two hours each. Now I'm running those two back through again like I did that first wash. No scrubbers this time. So far my first 250ml pull is at 88%. So Its looking like a long night.
Lastly I do like to learn thing by doing including trial and error. I find things tend to stick a bit better for me this way. I figure as long as I know enough to not end up dead the rest just makes life interesting

[bbbark]

Question for the veterans here: How do I suggest something as a consideration to be added to the "how to clean" link/information? My thought was that when you are cleaning you could/should run a hose from your take off into a bucket of water so the vapor condenses. This would help eliminate the chance of a steam burn, IF someone accidentally put ethanol or other combustible liquids in with the vinegar/cleaning solution (read an instance of that on the cleaning how to), this would mitigate the fire hazard, and it would keep from steaming up your work area with a vinegar based vapor.

Just an idea.....................

[still_stirrin]

...run a hose from your take off into a bucket of water so the vapor condenses...it would keep from steaming up your work area with a vinegar based vapor...

But I like the smell of vinegar steam...reminds me of grandma making dill pickles.

But seriously, when doing the steam cleaning run and the vinegar run, steaming through the product condenser is fine. It cleans out the crud from construction. But, as you suggested....with the sacrificial alcohol run, the distiller must make sure to have the product condenser coolant ON, so that sacrificial alcohol vapors don't flood the still area. That would be dangerous, as you've noted.

Obviously, you don't want to push alcohol vapors all the way through the product condenser, so a hose on the output is really not needed. And it could possibly inspire someone to just leave the hose on when running a spirit run, thinking that the hose could help facilitate collection. And that's a no-no.

So, it is not wise to suggest to add a hose to the distillate outlet (even for the cleaning runs) as it might be misconstrued as acceptable for a spirit run as well...which it is not. I would not recommend adding those words to any of the cleaning threads already posted for this very reason.
ss

[bbbark]

I understand your reasoning for not adding that. As a newbie I once had a food grade plastics hose - but I learned. I love the smell of vinegar also, but when I did the cleaning I did run it to a bucket as I didn't want the area I was working in all steamed up. Thanks for the feedback.