Yummy's continuous stripper

[LWTCS]

Btw Yummy, your observations are absolutely pointed in the right direction.

[Yummyrum]

Yeah, when using the reboiler as the steam source the foam up is a PITA.

Ultimately that is my aim .....to have a steam generator similar to what Popes talking about ..... I've wanted one for batch stripping Rice after boiling a keg dry on several occasions with the Thumper full of Rice
LOL ...more for the to-do list .

... need more height / distance from the injection elevation to the low wines vapor pipe. This helps to prevent the foam from dragging over into the low wines HX.

Excellent .I was wondering about that .

Could adding a small expansion bulb just above the wash injection site help?

Yes Thanks Pope ....that's two votes for something spacious .

Sounds like my internal monologue when facing most distilling problems - 'could x do y? Possibly. What ratio/qty/scale/rate/etc? No clue... let's just give something a shot and see what happens.

Just so happens Mrs Yummy has saved me a whole lot of guess work Pope . She was throwing these out a few weeks ago ....no ya bloody don't I said ...now I know what to do with them

[Yummyrum]

A bigger low wines HX would minimize the risk of wash boil up in the HX.

Cool , that's been plaguing me . I figured it was the case but didn't want to upsize the HX if it wasn't worth it .

Also Yummy, if your beer has enough dwell time in the column you don't need "20 plates" as such.

10 plates can get the job done. The big unit I have in Illinois only allows .5% alcohol to go down the drain with 10 plates.
So it's not so much about distillation cycles as it is more about giving the alcohol enough time to flash.

That's also good to know ...LOL ...not in any hurry to knock up another 6 plates but 10 is doable , 20 was never going to happen . I like the idea of plates rather than packing ...don't know why .

So far my little one with the reboiler runs at about 20 liters per hour and that's just too slow. It really needs to run at about 40 LPH so that it can process a 1200 tote in a single work day. I'm going to pull the reboiler off and install a small steam generator.

Woow , what size column and power do you need for that
I know a fella on another sight that's trying to get that from a 4" column , is it possible ? or are talking 6-8"

[Yummyrum]

Do you guys have any feedback yet on flavor shift (if any) between identical recipes stripped plated/pot/continuous?

Pope , I'm curious about same . So far I've only stripped sugar wash which was then turned into Neutral so can't say . But One of the main reasons I'm after this is because I have always believed that some of the commercial Rum I like namely Bundy and Beenliegh are continuous stripped and then Pot stilled . There is no hint of typical pot still Tails in either of these ..( others may argue about that ) ....but I have a keen nose for tails and hate them . I believe , and I may be kidding myself, that the tails go out with the waste if the stripper is run a certain way . Perhaps that's the 0.5% that Larry is talking about .
Time will tell .If I have been kidding my self , I've had a shit load of fun in the mean while

Btw Yummy, your observations are absolutely pointed in the right direction.

Thanks Larry , that means a lot

[Yummyrum]

Just continuing on my previous journey with this thing .

I forgot to mention that for all of my previous testing ( other than the one Rum experience ) that I had been using a Pseudo wash at 10% ABV ...it was a mix of heads ,tails , and spirits I had made but couldn't stand .
So Now I was using my first real sugar wash ....Yaah

In my last attempt I had tried a Bottoms HX and it had made a huge difference but I still wasn't sure it was big enough ...it certainly wasn't overheating the wash .
So I looked at my 1.65 meter long Liebig . It is 1" over 3/4" and has about 3.5x the surface area compared to the Deflag I was using ...surely it would have to be better

And It did appear to be working better .
The wash after being pre-heated to about 65-70°C in the vapour pre-heater (PC) enters the bottoms pre-heater and is raised to about 80°C before entering the top feed plate .
This was a really nice place to operate as it ment I was using no cooling water to strip the wash . The wash was doing all the cooling and the bigger bottoms HX was keeping up with the job of raising the feed temp .
I know Larry said not to place too much concern on feed temp and I get that now .... but I had found previously that if I could keep it in the range of 70-80 degC it ran nice with no chance of column crash . And that seems to be the advantage of using a bottoms condenser as well, ...it maintains that optimum feed rate temp and I now don't have to be so fixated on it like I had been with just using a single heat exchanger .

All went well on the first day but on the second day it all turned to shit .
The sun was out and the neighbors massive solar array had started to really kick arse .
I just couldn't get enough wash flow through the system . I think it was a combination of the extra power and also the demands on the pump to push through a small needle valve and a very long spiral wound Liebig coolant jacket was just asking too much .

So with a insufficient wash feed to match the power requirements , the wash was starting to surge boil in the Vapour condenser which was spurting the wash erratically through the hoses and Bottom HX . There was more Vaporized wash in the lines than wash . In hindsight I should have had my power controller hooked up .

Anyway here's some pics of the dodgy setup followed by another quality diagram
Sorry the Vapour HX is on the wrong side in the diagram ....got lazy

Feed rate Control
Just wanted to say a few things about this from my experience so far .
From the get go , this was an experiment that I wasn't prepared to sink a whole lot of money into so pretty much everything I used was stuff I already had laying around .
The Pump is a Magnetic drive pump that most brewers will be familiar with . They are pretty tough fellas and don't seem to mind being throttled back .
The Valve I used was an old brass needle valve I had lying around .

Now basically with a 10%AVB wash you will need to feed in at around 5x the take-off rate . So if you are collecting 100mls a minute , you need to be able to pump 500mls a minute....and obviously 400mls a minute goes out the waste drain .
This is based on the fact that continuous strippers generally output at around 50% AVB
Initially I had checked the flow rate and it seemed OK for how much I expected to get . LOL , I didn't take into account the height of the column and resistance through the heat exchangers .

I do believe that what I did get right was to fit the feed rate valve before the first Heat exchanger .
I have seen a lot of continuous stills on forums where the feed rate valve is right at the column . Initially you would thing "yes" that's the right place , where you feed the column ...but.... not .
The problem is that all the while wash is in the Pre-heaters , its expanding and in many cases vapourizing so it must be fee to flow into the column and out .
It is a potential safety issue .
The feed rate control Valve Must go before any Heat exchangers

In my next enthralling episode of "yummys Continuous still " I will upgrade my feed valve ( amounst other things ) ...and still keep dreaming I had a speed controlled parasteltic pump

[Corsaire]

I am digging this build. As if I needed more stuff to gather now that I've been bit hard by the modular bug...

[jog666]

( amounst other things ) ...and still keep dreaming I had a speed controlled parasteltic pump

What about T'ing off with another valve to bleed some off back into the bucket? I might be missing something but its still early.

Either way, very cool project!!

[Kareltje]

This is a real nice story, Yummyrum!
Thank you for it!

[cayars]

All went well on the first day but on the second day it all turned to shit .
The sun was out and the neighbors massive solar array had started to really kick arse .

That really does sucks arse. Going to throw out an idea.
If this is going to be a problem you may either have to do your strip runs later in the day when the sun isn't kicking as much (or at night).
You can also check into maybe using a voltage regulator (might get by with a voltage stabilizer) to get you over this hump as well. Might even find a used one cheap(ish) if you look around.

No idea who you have for utilities but it might be worth a call to them to see if they could provide a voltage regulator for you at their costs since they are allowing the grid to go probably out of spec. Won't hurt to ask.

That or pick up a couple cans of spray paint and go decorate those panels. LOL

[pope]

Along the lines of the voltage issue, do you have an ammeter/voltmeter on your rig for your element? Just curious to know how much variation you're getting midday.

[Kareltje]

As for the inlet: when you have enough height, you could feed the system with gravity from a high placed container. To prevent differences in feedspeed you would need a feeding system controlled by a floating arm.

Y-voeding.jpg (9.46 KiB) Viewed 4395 times

[LWTCS]

Woow , what size column and power do you need for that
I know a fella on another sight that's trying to get that from a 4" column , is it possible ? or are talking 6-8"
[/quote]

We're trying to do this with a 4". I think it's totally doable. Also bear in mind that the plates are perfed on the stripper to allow for grain in beer feed. The big perfs absolutely allow for faster speeds with the commensurate amount of heat.
The tee sections are 10" tall to minimize pressure in between the liquid beds. On a 6" tall tee that added pressure from the power increase would just result in poorly behaved hydraulics that would promote flooding.

You guys helped me work out (spitball) the heat needed based on desired feed rate. We round tabled a 408 watts per gallon/h to 500 watts per gallon/h. So 15,300 watts to 18,750 watts needed to do a 300 gallon tote in an 8 hour shift.

[pope]

Kareltje, you still need to go down to the waste exit below bottom of column to catch that heat, then it has to move back up to the head. But I guess if the 20L vessel was high enough above the column gravity should push it through with enough force to dial in the flow rate.

That's a crazy output for a 4" column! Those must be some big holes. You might've told me already and I forgot. Also you're saying with the right rigging I could strip a 55 gallon drum on a school night... hmm...

[LWTCS]

6 mm holes. Big enough to safely allow for commensurately milled solids to pass.

[Yummyrum]

Larry , are there down comers on your plates or just holes?

[pope]

While on the topic of tall(ish) 4" columns, is there sufficient copper in the plates alone to use stainless for the main pipe? That '10 plate' statement had me thinking of how to get ten 10" tall plated chambers stacked affordably, couldn't you just weld 4" x 30" stainless pipe together and have plate chambers in sets of three, with one 3" sight glass per three plates? Braze the plates and downcomers to a center rod and weld a bead for a lip on the inside of each 30-odd-inch-long section to hold the plates up? Don't want to oversimplify but a 100+" column of copper is much more cost prohibitive than the same length of stainless.

Now I could see myself getting into this sooner than later, if I could strip a flour slurry.

[LWTCS]

Larry , are there down comers on your plates or just holes?

Yessir, 22.2 mm ID downcomer. No cups as grain would build up and clog. Downcomer tube below the liquid bed on the next plate level down is all that's needed.

[LWTCS]

While on the topic of tall(ish) 4" columns, is there sufficient copper in the plates alone to use stainless for the main pipe? That '10 plate' statement had me thinking of how to get ten 10" tall plated chambers stacked affordably, couldn't you just weld 4" x 30" stainless pipe together and have plate chambers in sets of three, with one 3" sight glass per three plates? Braze the plates and downcomers to a center rod and weld a bead for a lip on the inside of each 30-odd-inch-long section to hold the plates up? Don't want to oversimplify but a 100+" column of copper is much more cost prohibitive than the same length of stainless.

Now I could see myself getting into this sooner than later, if I could strip a flour slurry.

Just for stripping I don't think copper is nearly as critical. Spirit runs much more of an impact.

[pope]

I know there's a paper floating around on here that talks about sulfur compound reduction and copper location in spirit and stripping stills. I don't want to over-simplify but basically the most important location for copper was column in stripping and boiler in spirit runs. Not that you fellas don't know that, always worth repeating.

Anyway there certainly seems to be plenty of reactivity going on on those copper plates in my flute so I imagine that's plenty. Plus a long vertical line down from the continuous column top to a hx could be 2" dwv copper.

How many watts does it take for 6mm holes to support fluid? I'm thinking they probably only work in a certain range.

[cayars]

I think it's condenser on strip runs and boiler on spirit runs, isn't it?

[pope]

My bad it is the condenser not column on a stripping still! Now I can worry even less about a stainless column.

[LWTCS]

How many watts does it take for 6mm holes to support fluid? I'm thinking they probably only work in a certain range.

Errr,,,,full power lol. The main issue for me is making sure the holes are big enough not to clog. Most important. So that's where we felt most comfortable. And then there is cleaning / CIP ease. Any smaller and I would not at all consider running solids through the apparatus.

At that point its a balancing act to have enough liquid hold up to give the alcohol enough time to flash before it goes down and out the column bottoms outlet. Philosophically, I'm not shooting for "optimal" distilling / spirit run behavior. Just need to push enough heat to get the alcohol to flash. If bottoms temps are 212 or more, the job is done.

We are able thus far to do the 20 liters per hour with a bit less than 12,000 watts.
But we don't have the system dialed in because I believe our reboiler is causing too many issues (like foam up) to actually allow for optimal behavior. The reboiler has the ablity to take big 3 phase elements too. So finding the optimal power for optimal speed is more or less just a process of elimination.

Also the reboiler is a jacketed BM and the jacket size / pressure ratio is not favorable for the amount of heat we are trying to generate. Basically the jacket pressure is not commensurate with what should be jacket temps at that pressure. More volume in the jacket would allow for much better temps relative to the pressure. Even when we bleed out all the air from the jacket it's still not a good ratio. So I'm pulling the plug on the 50L reboiler and going to replace with the steam generator.

The little BM reboiler(kettle) would be just fine for batch distillation. Just not good enough heat transfer for a continuous feed rate of fresh feed stock. An immersion element directly in the reboiler would be more efficient from a heating standpoint. But then ya can't run solids

[pope]

So you're kind of stuck, running solids, at a certain minimum speed/kwh just to make it work in the first place for a given column diameter. If I've followed along right so far, (20lph is about 300 gal of beer/wash per 8-hr day, right?) to run grain slurry at a hobby scale of, say, a 20 gallon wash, you're looking at about a 45-60 minute run time, with two 5.5kw elements going full blast? I guess that frees up your evening...

Not sure what BM is, but is the jacket water or heating oil?

And for me at least, running solids is important for any grain alcohols except single malts! A must-have feature of a continuous column. With large 6mm bored plates and a bottom column temp at or above 212, you're seeing good flavor profiles coming off the column?

[OtisT]

Haha yeah. That's why taking a bullet for the team is so valuable for the rest of the community.

Yummy,
Thanks for taking this big bullet for our team.

I’m eating up this thread and the propeller on my head is spinning away with future build ideas.

Otis

[Yummyrum]

I am digging this build. As if I needed more stuff to gather now that I've been bit hard by the modular bug...

Hehe . Modular is so the way to go Corsaire . Not tied to one build

What about T'ing off with another valve to bleed some off back into the bucket? I might be missing something but its still early.

Might work I guess if you had a really powerful pump but its worth saying that any teeing would have to be done before any pre-heating was done otherwise it would upset the original wash temp and require constant readjustment in feed rate .

This is a real nice story, Yummyrum!
Thank you for it!

A pleasure Kareltje and hoping to inspire some out there . Regarding your suggestion re: the gravity feed . I think Pope covered it but yeah , if the feed rate was a constant , that would leave adjusting the power to drive it .
I guess I'm wanting to give it all the power I got and pushing feed rate to balance .

All went well on the first day but on the second day it all turned to shit .
The sun was out and the neighbors massive solar array had started to really kick arse .

If this is going to be a problem you may either have to do your strip runs later in the day when the sun isn't kicking as much (or at night).
You can also check into maybe using a voltage regulator (might get by with a voltage stabilizer) to get you over this hump as well. Might even find a used one cheap(ish) if you look around.

Funnily I was towards the end of the day . Its actually quite interesting as the sun dropped and the power went down due to O'l mates solar then after a while it rose again , Maybe the Utilities start to ramp it back up to counter that effect Then it started to drop again ....I guess as everyone started turning on their Ovens and heaters for the night ...not to mention the Nightrate Hot water Services start to kick in .

No idea who you have for utilities but it might be worth a call to them to see if they could provide a voltage regulator for you at their costs since they are allowing the grid to go probably out of spec. Won't hurt to ask.

LOL not shit show in hell of that happening . We are Rural and getting towards the end of a long line . I don't think the Supply is going out of spec as such but rather the extremes are becoming apparent due to the extremely fussy requirements of a Continuous stripper to balance Feed against power .
I also encountered an issue because it was at an extreme that my feed rate also bottomed out ....double whammy got me

Larry , are there down comers on your plates or just holes?

Yessir, 22.2 mm ID downcomer. No cups as grain would build up and clog. Downcomer tube below the liquid bed on the next plate level down is all that's needed.

Thanks Larry , guessed so but wasn't sure . There are a lot of funky looking stripping plates going around the traps so had to ask .

Curious you say 6mm is the minimum you would use for a mash .
I'm thinking kinda like I think Pope is too , that on hearing that, and the massive amount of heat you need to run it , that it suddenly makes a continuous stripper not a practical thing for home distillers wanting to do mashes .

But I'm thinking , from a flow point of view , mash on the plates isn't going to go through the holes but rather down the down comers .
So I guess , its when it comes time to clean it that that becomes the issue IE when you turn on the CIP , the 6mm holes will allow an easier clean .

Iff'n this is the case , then I see it would be a problem for you in a commercial sense that you don't want clogged up holes ....You want to be up and running again the next day .

But say'n you only ran a Mash once in awhile and didn't mind getting in there afterwards and cleaning the plate ready for the next run ....would smaller holes work and allow the stripper to run at a more modest rate more consistent with Home distilling power requirements .?

Haha yeah. That's why taking a bullet for the team is so valuable for the rest of the community.

Yummy,
Thanks for taking this big bullet for our team.

I’m eating up this thread and the propeller on my head is spinning away with future build ideas.

Otis

Good onya Otis ....mission accomplished ..got some propellers spinning .
There are a lot of Continuous stripper threads on the forums but they are either so esoteric that they don't seem doable and with minimal documentation , you just scratch your head whats going on . Others seem really basic and the threads fizzle out leaving you with the idea that they never got them working ...and from what I've discovered , that probably was the case .

My aim was to present this in a familiar way using fairly bog standard stuff that we all use so that it was easy to relate to . ...and hopefully others ...like yourself can run with it with the stuff you got lying around and have some fun .
God damn , you can't say we don't get bored doing the same o'l same old

BTW , The Bullet hasn't hurt too much and you all are worth it .

[Yummyrum]

Following on after my last adventures where I used the big Liebig and had flow rate issues using the small needle valve I had a re-think .
I was still wanting more Bottoms pre-heat and I figured that a lot of the surge boiling issues were coming from the relative heights of my Heat exchangers . There were hoses running up and down and up again . Also the Needle valve situation was really pissing me off .
Then there was the issue of column temp stabilization and lag time in adjustment verses seeing a result . I thought that having a small re-boiler would mean a quick setup time ...but no .The re-boiler would quickly come up to temp in about 10 minutes but it took about another 5-10 minutes before the column got hot enough to start producing product , then about another 15-20 minates of shagging around with feed rates until the thing was stabilized and running consistently.

Then a parcel arrived in the post from another member elsewhere of unwanted big arse stainless steel scrubbers .Thanks Crackers After buying a few more to make up the 1 Meter of column I had another crack .
So The heavy scoria rock was replaced with much lighter Scrubbers .

This time I used ( which in stupid dumb hindsight I should have earlier ) the good quality Parker needle valve and three way valve manifold off my Flute
This mod was to allow more flow due to the Parker being a bigger valve and being of higher quality , less backlash in adjustment / Also the threeway manafold gave me the ability to have full flow , no flow or controlled flow ( via the valve ) so once set via the valve it would be easy to start up from cold achieving the optimum target quicker .

I went back to the 4" Deflag but this time added my other shotty to it . This time I had more Bottoms pre-heat but in a more compact form with much less restriction in flow .( than I had using the long Liebig )

I lowered the Vapour HX as much as I could to near horizontal without causing too much pooling at the end ( I considered melting the end off it and adding a better take off but decided I had sacrificed my flute enough so far) in an attempt to bring all the Heat exchangers closer to the same level to aid inter connecting flows .I hoped this would help with the surge boiling and flow issues .

and the diagram .

Well Shit ...it was amazing .

Heat-up was dramatically reduced . The time to heat a column full of cold rock verses Stainless scrubber was ridiculously reduced . It was as if there was nothing in the column and the heat wave instantly traveled up the copper pipe and in no time there were drips appearing . I always pre-load the top plate with wash so there is something alcoholic coming off immediately other than just the steam . I figure that its got to help in getting things closer to normal operating conditions

The needle valve upgrade was a good move .It was more responsive .

The Scrubbers again proved their superiority over the rock in terms of thermal mass . The column stabilized soooo much quicker . I'm sure this is to do with the heat retention...thermal mass.. of the rocks verses the scrubbers .
This also seriously reduced the lag effect I was getting in previous runs . Adjustments in feed rate were more responsive . Previously , if I had ,say pushed feed rate too high , it would take maybe 5-10 minates in which time the column would start taking a downwards crash , then it would take about the same time to heat it back up and get it going again . all this time was annoyingly wasteful. Using scrubbers the cause and effect were much reduced time-wise.

The extra condenser in the bottoms seemed to help . But as I had other variables going I was not sure how much it was helping. By that I mean the " clamping" effect of maintaining the feed temp at around 80degC with variations in Vapour HX output due to flow rate fluctuations . I think I mentioned this earlier . Its where the bottoms HX seems to hold the feed temp more constant . I don't know if its a thermal mass of all the copper or some "clamping " to the 100degC waste wash but either way it seems to help .

All in all, I was really happy with how this ran . There was minimal adjustments needed and it pretty much ran itself for the longest period of time I had experienced so far .

So as far as a Sugar wash Continuous stripper goes , this was serving me quite well ....If only I can get it to run on Molasses washes

I shut it down a few times and using the Control valve Manifold setup to start up I was able to get reasonable output after about 15-20 minutes from power on to stable running ...this was a vast improvement on when it was full of rock .
Now I knew where the needle valve should be set .
From a cold start , I basically waited until the first drops appeared then slowly swung the three way valve from stop toward the Needle valve position ...effectively slowly increasing the feed rate over about a 5 minute period .
I was looking at the Vapour pre-heater output temp. with minimal flow ,It quickly heated to over 80degC . I controlled flow slowly to send that up to the feed plate via the Bottoms HX .....but remember at this stage there is nothing coming out the waste so its getting no heat from there . I needed to feed initially slowly so I don't feed the top with cold wash (as the lines at this stage are all full of cold wash) and risk a old crash straight up .
I just needed to slowly let it trickle through until the heated wash got to the top . Then I ramped it up a bit . Soon after, bottoms were starting to exit and the Bottoms HX was starting to do something useful .Then it all ticked along quite nicely . There is an initial "fiddling " period require to get it locked in but that was fairly painless in this setup compared to my last one .

Now what is interesting is that from power on to running fairly constant is about 250mls ....basically half a jar ....or stuff all in the scheme of things . and that half a jar is about 25% AVB ...LOL ...I just chuck it in with the rest So what I'm say'n is that from the first drops , its all worth collecting . The stripper seems to run typically with 50-55% AVB and rarely under 50% . so when run from one extreme to the other , the output ABV doesn't change as much as I would have though . Sure if you get a cold crash or supper heated experience it will momentarily drop but for the most part it pumps out the good stuff

[LWTCS]

Excellent.

Yummy, further back in the post you also talked about adjusting heat input. You don't need to do that. If you keep your heat input constant, the only adjustment will be pumping speed. So pick a heat setting and leave it alone. Then use your low wines vapor temperature to govern your feed rate. The feed rate will also govern beer feed injection temps if you see my meaning?

[pope]

You are literally living the dream. But now I'm moving down this path again... I'm planning out a steam generator mod atm.

Are you watching your temps anywhere other than feed at the top? I'm curious what your ex-hx waste temp is now, not that it's a super important measurement.

If you put a needle probe into the bottom plate puddle/pool would that be an accurate reading? IE making sure it's at 100C to ensure there's no loss?

[LWTCS]

Imo the low wines vapor temp is the primary focus.
Beer injection temps ultimately become a byproduct of maintaining the desired vapor temp.
Bottoms out temps are important because if temps are too low then there is a good chance alcohol is going down the drain.

Yes yummy, smaller perf holes would definitely help if power were in short supply. But remember now, with 11500 watts I can pull 20 mph with a rum beer with those same size holes.

I think Pope talked about a flour slurry? I'd be very comfortable with smaller holes if a flour slurry was used. It's just I'm doing something that needs to be a bit more,,,universal.

[Yummyrum]

Excellent.

Yummy, further back in the post you also talked about adjusting heat input. You don't need to do that. If you keep your heat input constant, the only adjustment will be pumping speed. So pick a heat setting and leave it alone. Then use your low wines vapor temperature to govern your feed rate. The feed rate will also govern beer feed injection temps if you see my meaning?

Yeah , I was referring to Karaltj suggestion to have a fixed feed rate via gravity feed . I was saying that in that case you would need to adjust power to balance it .
But no , I use full power and adjust feed as you say .

but now I'm moving down this path again... I'm planning out a steam generator mod atm.

I think that's an excellent place to start . ...and you can use it for other stuff in the mean time .

Are you watching your temps anywhere other than feed at the top? I'm curious what your ex-hx waste temp is now, not that it's a super important measurement.

Yes , I mainly look at the wash/beer as it leaves the Vapour HX . I find that this temp is a direct relation to flow and an indicator of how stable the still is running . It happily sits in the 70-80 degC area . If its starting to fall ,I tweak down the feed ....if its starting to creep up , I tweak up the feed .I do monitor injection temp but it generally sits happily in the low 80s.
I also have a Thermometer in the re-boiler head space to tell me if there is alc going out the waste . Normally this sits around the 99degC. I have seen it drop down to 98degC and run up around 100 . I don't worry to much about it when its running sweet.

Unfortunately I haven't measured the waste beer temp since I used ended up with the configuration I have ...LOL I run out of thermometers .

If you put a needle probe into the bottom plate puddle/pool would that be an accurate reading? IE making sure it's at 100C to ensure there's no loss?

I guess it would , similar to what I am doing now but probably more real time . IE if you are only measuring on a plate it would be a quicker response than in a re-boiler where the is a lot more volume to change

Imo the low wines vapor temp is the primary focus.
Beer injection temps ultimately become a byproduct of maintaining the desired vapor temp.

I need another thermometer to watch .
I can't seem to picture why Vapour temp would be so important but I think I need to investigate as I trust your view on it .

Yes yummy, smaller perf holes would definitely help if power were in short supply. But remember now, with 11500 watts I can pull 20 mph with a rum beer with those same size holes.

LOL , stripping that hard would be wonderful but I guess most of us are more likely to have a 44gal drums worth to deal with rather than a tote full so just thinking of being able to scale it back a bit.
So again thanks , if it will run with smaller holes and lower power ,I think some of the flour paste users will be interested .