Home Distiller

Lots of guys run a plate under packing with mixed results, some love it some are indifferent. Best way to figure out is split a batch and run it both ways, keep good notes and try to keep everything identical power and cooling wise.

Copperhead road wrote:

MoonBreath wrote:2 for me also.
More carryover, abv stays lower for my preferred profile.

Moonbreath do you have problems keeping plates stable and loaded while running 2 plates????

Are you running perforated plates or bubble caps ?

This is very interesting as I have never heard of anyone running 2 plates on a bubbler before..

IIRC moon is using caps, not an issue to keep the plates loaded then, for me , running perfs 2 was a pain, had to keep adjusting, 3 works good

Swedish Pride wrote:

Copperhead road wrote:

MoonBreath wrote:2 for me also.
More carryover, abv stays lower for my preferred profile.

Moonbreath do you have problems keeping plates stable and loaded while running 2 plates????

Are you running perforated plates or bubble caps ?

This is very interesting as I have never heard of anyone running 2 plates on a bubbler before..

IIRC moon is using caps, not an issue to keep the plates loaded then, for me , running perfs 2 was a pain, had to keep adjusting, 3 works good

Thanks Irish Lad

pfshine wrote:Lots of guys run a plate under packing with mixed results, some love it some are indifferent. Best way to figure out is split a batch and run it both ways, keep good notes and try to keep everything identical power and cooling wise.

Thanks for the reply. Kind of figured the only upside would be a visual point of reference for reflux through the plates but also assume there would be some loss in terms of the HETP’s. I will likely just stick with all packing for the spirit run rather than taking things apart to add a bubble plate.

I did my spirit run yesterday. My first spirt run ever. I packed my column with about 42” of copper mesh in the 4” diameter column. I am very curious what kind of take off rate others get.

I ran 12 gallons of 40% low wines. I was pushing about 2200 watts into the boiler and pulling about 450ml (just shy of 16oz) per 15-20 minutes. I never got anywhere close to flooding my column. My yield was around 4.8 gallons of 95% ABV which is pretty good. This was obviously much slower than the gallon every 20-30 minutes on my stripping run. The tails dropped off very fast. It went from 94% to 20% ABV over the course of less than 1 liter. The low wines had been treated with sodium bicarbonate for 10 days prior to the spirit run.

Since this was my spirit run, I err’d on the side of caution to insure a good run. I heated up with about 4200 watts and then dropped it back to 2200 watts for the run. I refluxed for about an hour and 20 minutes prior to take off. The entire run took around 15 hours which leads me to wonder how much faster I could have gone with additional heat without effecting the quality of the product.

One thing I will say is that this run was stupidly predictable. Granted, I have read more threads end to end and lurked here for over 2 years so I kind of knew how to run things in advance even though I had never run a still prior to my cleaning and stripping runs. My cooling setup consisted of a 55 gallon drum with water recirculating via a variable speed controllable pump. I feed the Deplegmator seperate from the PC via a manifold fitting and have a bypass valve on the dephlegmator feed to allow full reflux with the twist of a knob. I had a relatively slow flow rate through the dephlegmator but did have to swap water out once the coolant reservoir temp hit the 90’s. I had to do this a few times during the run while also using some frozen jugs of ice in the reservoir to slow down the temp increase in the water. I never had to futz with the needle valves or flow. I did a couple temp adjustments via the controller early on but that was it. Other than keeping on eye on the coolant temps in my reservoir, the run was essentially hands free. I collected using graduated cylinders in 450ml batches and knew when a swap had to be done. Like clock work, every 20 or so minutes (once I had the temp and flow dialed in) I had collected 450ml. The only variances I really had in the take off rates were when the coolant water in the reservoir heated and that obviously increased the take off rate. The parrot based hydrometer maintained a constant 96-97% reading through the entire run up until the final couple 450ml jars. One jar dropped to 95% which (due to the consistency of the run) led me to believe I was hitting the tails. The next dropped from 95% to 94% and the next dropped down from 94% to 87% over 450ml at which point I just through a jug under the output. The next 600 or so ml tanked from 87% to 20% at which point I knew it was over and shut my system down.

Anyhow, as I said, I am wondering what kind of take off rates other see with 4” columns. My guess is that if I had run the bubble plates and was seeing how the plates were stacking, I’d likely have been running significantly faster but with the column packed instead of running plates, I was likely run very slow compared to how I could have run it. I am also curious if running it faster would result in more off tastes or smearing. I tend to assume that there would be more smearing of the cuts but at which point (take off rate)?

Anyhow, here is a breakdown of the run from start to finish. I keep logs on every run for future reference. I am curious what others with more experience with these stills thinks about the length of this run and take off rate. I also included a picture of the setup for reference.

Spirit Run

Start at 7:15AM @4200w
400ml Fores at 8:20
Set to full reflux for 1:20 minutes
Set power to 2277w

Jar# Volume Time ABV Take Off Temp
Jar 1 450ml @ 9:56AM @ 97% @69*
Jar 2 450ml @ 10:27 @ 97% @72*
Jar 3 450ml @ 10:55 @ 97% @72*
Jar 4 450ml @ 11:20 @ 97% @72*
Jar 5 450ml @ 11:50 @ 97% @72*
Jar 6 450ml @ 12:25PM @ 97% @72*
Jar 7 450ml @ 12:50 @ 97% @71*
Jar 8 450ml @ 1:05 @97% @71*
Jar 9 450ml @ 1:20 @ 97% @73*
jar 10 450ml @ 1:37 @ 97% @74
Jar 11 450ml @ 1:55 @ 97% @75
Jar 12 450ml @ 2:10 @97% @75
Reflux for 20 minutes
Jar 13 450ml @ 2:46 @ 97% @74*
Jar 14 450ml @ 3:05 @ 97% @73*
Jar 15 450ml @ 3:20 @ 97 @ 74*
Jar 16 450ml @ 3:33 @ 97 @ 76*
Jar 17 450ml @ 3:55 @ 97 @ 76*
Jar 18 450ml @ 4:10 @ 97 @ 77*
Jar 19 450ml @4: 26 @ 97 @ 77*
Jar 20 450ml @ 4:37 @ 98 @ 80*
Jar 21 450ml @ 5:03 @ 98 @ 79*
Jar 22 450ml @ 5:22@ 97 @ 74*
Jar 23 450ml @ 5:41 @ 97 @ 74*
Jar 24 450ml @ 6:00 @ 97 @ 74*
Jar 25 450ml @ 6:16 @ 97 @ 74*
Jar 26 450ml @ 6:30 @ 97 @ 72*
25 min Reflux break
Jar 27 450ml @ 7:07 @ 97 @ 74*
Jar 28 450ml @ 7:20 @ 97 @ 75*
Jar 29 450ml @ 7:33 @ 97 @ 76*
Jar 30 450ml @ 7:49 @ 97 @ 76*
Jar 31 450ml @ 8:07 @ 97 @ 76*
Jar 32 450ml @ 8:25 @ 97 @ 75*
Jar 33 450ml @ 8:43 @ 97 @ 74*
Jar 34 450ml @ 9:03 @ 96 @ 71*
Jar 35 450ml @ 9:25 @ 96 @ 71*
Jar 36 450ml @ 9:40 @ 95 @ 71* ?tails start?
Jar 37 450ml @ 10:02 @ 94 @ 72*
Jar 38 450ml @ 10:20 @ 87 @ 72*
Bottle 500ml @ 10:35 @ 20 @ 73*
End

What is the tube made of going from parrot to test beaker???

Copperhead road wrote:What is the tube made of going from parrot to test beaker???

PTFE.
https://www.fluorostore.com/products/fr ... mer-tubing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I picked up 10’ of the stuff.

We let the jars air out with the coffee filters for two days before doing our separations. After doing our separations, we ended up with 29 450ml jars of very good keepers out of 28 total jars. We diluted each sample down to 35% and smelled and tasted a small sample from each jar. Then spit it out, rinsed our mouths and repeated working from the center out to the tails and then from the center out to the heads. My wife and I compared and took notes to make our determinations. Since we were conservative with our cuts, I am sure the last couple head jars could have been fine had they sat for a week or two but they along with the tails were set aside to be included in a future spirit run. In the future, I may let the jars sit a week after airing out before doing the cuts. Needless to say, I am very surprised/pleased with the results as this stuff has virtually no taste at all despite it’s high proof. I got into some of the hearts jars a few nights ago and made the mistake of sampling a wee bit too much of the stuff straight. It’s lack of taste can quickly lead to over endulgance as I found out by the buzz I still had the next morning. That stuff is strong and despite only having a handful of very small swigs from various jars, I had underestimated its potency. Lesson learned.

So in short, packing the column as I did, produced a very neutral and high proof product. Only thing I wonder is what the difference in results would have been had I ran it faster as it was a very long run. I still have a batch of finished wash to strip and then do a spirit run with. After that, I’ll have enough neutral to last me a LONG time. Ill have some nice gifts for my family and I’ll also make some gin from some of it as well.

Nunyo wrote:We let the jars air out with the coffee filters for two days before doing our separations. After doing our separations, we ended up with 29 450ml jars of very good keepers out of 28 total jars. We diluted each sample down to 35% and smelled and tasted a small sample from each jar. Then spit it out, rinsed our mouths and repeated working from the center out to the tails and then from the center out to the heads. My wife and I compared and took notes to make our determinations. Since we were conservative with our cuts, I am sure the last couple head jars could have been fine had they sat for a week or two but they along with the tails were set aside to be included in a future spirit run. In the future, I may let the jars sit a week after airing out before doing the cuts. Needless to say, I am very surprised/pleased with the results as this stuff has virtually no taste at all despite it’s high proof. I got into some of the hearts jars a few nights ago and made the mistake of sampling a wee bit too much of the stuff straight. It’s lack of taste can quickly lead to over endulgance as I found out by the buzz I still had the next morning. That stuff is strong and despite only having a handful of very small swigs from various jars, I had underestimated its potency. Lesson learned.

So in short, packing the column as I did, produced a very neutral and high proof product. Only thing I wonder is what the difference in results would have been had I ran it faster as it was a very long run. I still have a batch of finished wash to strip and then do a spirit run with. After that, I’ll have enough neutral to last me a LONG time. Ill have some nice gifts for my family and I’ll also make some gin from some of it as well.

I have to ask, why do you have a camera setup on the barrel, pointing at your collection jar lol

Antler24 wrote:
I have to ask, why do you have a camera setup on the barrel, pointing at your collection jar lol

Damn, you have a good eye! I had a spare HD webcam that I use for my aquarium to keep an eye on things when I’m travelling. I actually have a few of them for that purpose and this one is a backup. When I was doing my ferments, I had the cam trained on the airlock/bubbler jar so I could make sure things didn’t go bonkers while I was at the office. Being new to this, I didn’t know what to expect and being able to monitor things while I was away seemed like a good idea. Especially the way the jar was bubbling during the ferment. In this particular case, this was my first spirit run and contrary to my expectations, things went like clock work. Only issue was that the clock was a slow one and this run lasted MUCH longer than I planned. Sitting in the garage watching the collection cup fill up every 15-20 minutes for the better part of what became around 12 hours was akin to watching paint dry. Ultimately, it was such a long run and was so consistent that when I would step into the house for a bit, the camera would allow me to watch the progress and stream consistency from my couch on my iPad. While I could never leave for long, even the few 10 minute breaks on my couch vs sitting in that folding chair was a welcome break. While most of my time was spent sitting watching the paint dry in my garage, the few breaks I got in the house were welcome as I started going nuts after awhile.

I have a couple of questions about running a flute after doing a few runs.

I have a 4" with 4 perf plates from MileHi, and I typically put 15 gallons of wash in the boiler at between 6-10% abv and run it at around 2500W after getting it up to boil with 5500W.

It has been pretty easy to keep the proof right around 190 for the course of the run. I've only run it a few times and am fairly new at it, but I'm enjoying playing around with the flow through the dephleg, the water temps coming out of the two condensers, and the power input. I'm kind of tweaking all of the variables as I run these first few times seeing what happens in the plates when I do it.

What do experienced flute users look for visually on the plates to know it's going well?

I kind of settled on a nice vigorous top plate where I couldn't see the top of the downcomer with decreasing activity on the lower plates. Each plate going down was a little calmer. The lowest plate was pretty calm. I can push more power into the wash and then add more cooling to the dephleg and product condensers to get a faster stream and more activity on all of the plates. Or I can lower the power, use less water, and keep a slower stream, and it all comes off at around 90-95%. It has been fun experimenting. The water comes out of the dephleg at around 150F when I'm collecting with kind of a thin continuous stream with no drips and around 2500W of power.

Over the course of the run the proof doesn't really change until the boiler temp starts getting around 205F or so at which point in order to keep the proof up I have to do lots of reflux and slow it down to a trickle. It starts picking up more flavor then anyway, so I have just been going the other direction and cutting down on reflux in preference of keeping the collection speed constant and letting the proof drift down. I shut it down at around 50% when the vapor temp above the dephleg is up to around 195-200F.

Does it sound to more experienced users like I'm on the right track?

By the way, maybe I'm crazy, but there are flavors to like down into the tails. None of my runs are really coming out with what I would think is neutral flavor, but they're pretty good. I dip a finger in from time to time and occasionally swear I can taste banana or cherries or other stuff. Not really getting the cardboard tails in the sugar washes I'm running so far to learn how it works.

You usually get a pretty precipitous ABV drop with tails on a flute. I always collect down to 20% for a future neutral run, and once I switched to the flute I haven't really been building up much, it takes forever.

Personally, I think my tails still taste pretty gross. My wife's word for them is "vomitous." A lot of people look for a late tails jar to add, but mine have been so compressed that there's usually only one or maybe two jars.

Everybody likes different things, everything else you've mentioned sounds about normal to me. I started with 4 plates, and unless I was running full reflux all 4 of them didn't load evenly. After a while I dropped to 3 plates, then 2. It feels to me like when you're planning/building you think, "I want lots of all the things!", so we all tend to build with a lot of plates. I believe OD's original flute had 6? But then his next design was set up so that you could enable/disable them at any point...

The going thought seems to be "more plates, less flavor," but flavor is an individual thing, so experiment and see what you like best.

OK, after going through all the pages of the mythic FLUTE TALK thread.

I did 2 runs with my 4 inches 4 plates flute.

I start by filling my RC and PC and then turn on the heat full blast @5500W.

When I start to see liquid on first plate I open the flow to the RC all the way and reduce power to 2475W.

I let it run full reflux for 45 to 60 mins.

I then reduce flow to RC to get 1 drip per 1/2 seconds to take out foreshots. I then reduce the flow a little more to get a broken stream to collect heads.

This is where I have a question. After collecting head, should I reduce flow to the RC in order to get a pencil lead stream to collect hearts or instead increase the power to get the pencil lead stream (91 ish ABV with my 4 plates setup)

During my 2 runs I decided to reduce the flow to the RC to get a pencil lead stream. However, as the run was going on the collection rate was dropping (ABV was also dropping a little bit). I decided to increase power in order to get back to 91ABV and pencil lead stream.

Is it a correct approach? Should I increase power or instead decrease flow to RC? Is it normal?

cheers!

As you deplete the alcohol it will take more power to keep the same rate of vapor production. Water takes more energy to boil, thus the power has to increase as the wash is a higher % water.

With that said, I run with a lot more power on my 4". On my vodka column 6" bubble plate under 96" of 4" packed, I run from 5500 to 8000w. I do reduce power at the end of the run to help delay the tails. This is different that what you experience as the power is much higher.

blizzstill wrote:When I start to see liquid on first plate I open the flow to the RC all the way and reduce power to 2475W.

Sounds good

blizzstill wrote:I let it run full reflux for 45 to 60 mins.

In my experience there is no real need to do that, you can start milking the fores of very slowly almost immediately, Maybe try that on your next run and see what you think for your self.

blizzstill wrote:After collecting head, should I reduce flow to the RC in order to get a pencil lead stream to collect hearts or instead increase the power to get the pencil lead stream (91 ish ABV with my 4 plates setup)

You can do either of those two, both will work, its all a bit of a juggling act that you will learn as you do more runs.
If you notice that a plate is starting to dry up you will need more power, usually not a lot but some.

Saltbush Bill wrote:

blizzstill wrote:When I start to see liquid on first plate I open the flow to the RC all the way and reduce power to 2475W.

Sounds good

Totally agree ...this is a good power level to aim for .Some claim ridiculously high power like 4000w + on a 4" 4 plate ......that's fine if you want to drag tails through and you like tailsy shit or your taste buds can't detect it
But if you want a nice drinkable spirit that you and your mates might like to drink sticking around 2500 watts will serve you much better . .... strangley , this is where most seem to run

Saltbush Bill wrote:

blizzstill wrote:After collecting head, should I reduce flow to the RC in order to get a pencil lead stream to collect hearts or instead increase the power to get the pencil lead stream (91 ish ABV with my 4 plates setup)

You can do either of those two, both will work, its all a bit of a juggling act that you will learn you do more runs.
If you notice that a plate is starting to dry up you will need more power, usually not a lot but some.

Yup again good advice Salty .
Note how Salty referred to the lower power level , the bit about plates starting to dry up . .......running with enough power to keep the plate loaded and running nice . This is usually the happy place . If you pump excessive power into it , you'll just get tails pulling through and flooding issues ......drama's you don't have to have if you keep the power to a reasonable level .

Bottom line is you need to keep an eye ( tongue) on the product coming out .
Keep the plates loaded and running smooth but not mad flat out and adjust deflag so the product tastes good .

As the run progresses, you may have to up the power a bit...... but you will find the taste suddenly takes a dive ....I usually use a new jar while frigging around here ..... this is when you need to back off the take off rate ( increase Deflag water flow a bit ) to maintain reflux and tails compression

bluefish_dist wrote:...... On my vodka column 6" bubble plate under 96" of 4" packed, I run from 5500 to 8000w. I do reduce power at the end of the run to help delay the tails.

Bluefish , I don’t see what relevance power levels on your predominantly packed section has to do with a 4” plated still .....other than to confuse Beginners in a Flute thread
However . On a packed section , that sounds perfectly reasonable

Yummyrum wrote:

bluefish_dist wrote:...... On my vodka column 6" bubble plate under 96" of 4" packed, I run from 5500 to 8000w. I do reduce power at the end of the run to help delay the tails.

Bluefish , I don’t see what relevance power levels on your predominantly packed section has to do with a 4” plated still .....other than to confuse Beginners in a Flute thread
However . On a packed section , that sounds perfectly reasonable

I ran similar power levels on my plates as well. My point was that on a 4" he was running on the low side of the power you can throw at it. That changes what the still does with more power. At the power levels I run, more power will lower abv of the takeoff. Too much vapor speed and it really starts smearing the components. Slow it down and the still works better to separate the components.

Yet when running half to 1/3 the power level more power can increase the abv as you are running the risk of unloading the plates and not having enough alcohol in the column. I see this if I run too low a reflux rate. The flow down becomes too small and its hard to keep the column steady and the abv surges or bounces around a lot. In that case I would increase power and/or reflux rate like the poster did.

Wow!

Thanks to all for the replies.

If I decide to run 2 plates instead of 4 for rum or whiskey...

Should I remove plate from the bottom 2 "tee" or the top 2 "tee" ?

option 1 option 2
( deph) (deph)
( plate ) (empty)
( plate ) (empty)
( empty) ( plate )
(empty) ( plate )
(boiler) (boiler)

Or
Defl
empty
plate
empty
plate
boiler

the logic being to have more space between plates and deflagmator .This will reduce Entrainment ( pulling tails through ) .....and you'll need all the help you can get with less than 4 plates .

With only two plates you will need more reflux to get a decent product. It does work and can work well, but you will need to monitor the abv of the output and keep it above say 130 proof.

Id suggest learning to run your still properly with 4 plates before experimenting with less.
Jumping all over the place wont hasten the learning, or improve the way the still runs.
My guess is you will probably make some really bad booze running two plates, its going to drag tails really easily, but I guess at least you will learn something from the experience.
There is a reason that most of the hobby size Flutes / Plated Column / Bubblers , what ever you care to call them, sold commercially are sold standard with 4 plates. The majority of home builders also build them that way for a reason.

also if you're on perf plates, 2 plates can be a bit tricky, my still was really hard to drive on 2 plates, 3 plates is a doddle.. ish

Thanks for all the tips! I'm running plates with bubblers, not perf plates.

blizzstill wrote:Thanks for all the tips! I'm running plates with bubblers, not perf plates.

Same and you will still find it will be somewhat unstable with two. I'm not sure why but all these trayed columns seem to stabilise at three plates and load more or less equally four or five even more so but two is a bitch with little better than pot still results.

Even Olddog himself reconed 4 plates was the go .. and that was after he went to a whole shit load of bother to make flute Mk2 with all its plate dissabling and stuff ... apparently it was a waste of time and effort .
Still ... to each their own .

Swedish Pride wrote:also if you're on perf plates, 2 plates can be a bit tricky, my still was really hard to drive on 2 plates, 3 plates is a doddle.. ish

Same here with my rig.

I guess it's ymmv, I run two perf plates all the time. Still is warming up as I write this. I really like what it makes for barrel aging. I run 3 for all my whites and have tried 4, but it stripped too much flavor. The beauty of a modular column with plates, is that it's easy to change out plates and try different configurations.

bluefish_dist wrote:I guess it's ymmv, I run two perf plates all the time. Still is warming up as I write this. I really like what it makes for barrel aging. I run 3 for all my whites and have tried 4, but it stripped too much flavor. The beauty of a modular column with plates, is that it's easy to change out plates and try different configurations.

2 plates (perf) are my go to also, with the same results as Bluefish..

frunobulax wrote:

bluefish_dist wrote:I guess it's ymmv, I run two perf plates all the time. Still is warming up as I write this. I really like what it makes for barrel aging. I run 3 for all my whites and have tried 4, but it stripped too much flavor. The beauty of a modular column with plates, is that it's easy to change out plates and try different configurations.

2 plates (perf) are my go to also, with the same results as Bluefish..

Good to hear your input lads
I may have thrown in the towel to soon, I have some UJ I can run through the 2 plate configuration as I find it's really lacking in flavour, only on get 3 or 4 so may be the reason but no harm messing about a bit.