My first sacrificial

[RickyNZ]

I repurposed my homebrew 50L pot based boil Kettle with a EPTFE seal and clamps for the lid and a 2" tri clamp adapter added to the lid.

I ran in reflux mode and learnt a lot during the sacrificial run.

The was dextrose and turbo yeast (I know not desired but kind might as well use it ip) I used half a pack and 6KG of dextrose and 28L of water.

No leaks on the still so happy with that. I used 3d printed clamps to hold the lid down as we are currently in lockdown but they worked.
I also had to 3d print a knob for the needle valve on the Reflux condensor output as it being metal got a bit too hot.

I recorded all my notes straight into a google docs file from my phone so I dont loose anything. I've been a bit slack with my homebrew beer and had to play guess the beer when I forgot to label a keg so paying more attention to the documentation and labeling now I'm learning about distilling.

I was surprised how strong the acetone in the fores smelt. Tried to get a feel for aromas through run etc.
I will make some of the sacrificial run into sanitiser as the still was pretty clean to start with and it's not being consumed.

I have a birdwatcher batch ready to distill next weekend. For the birdwatchers I will replace the bubble column with a second section of pipe with more scrubbers in it as I havent had time or resources to replace the silicon seals in the column although I have ideas on how but the bubble plate colum gave me some good understanding of how the still warms up and behaves. The too tube is 500mm stuffed with copper pot scrubbers

I ran it off my homebrew beer control box which has a PID with a manual mode which I used to set the average power from the 4.5kW element.

Great to finally get to do a run and start putting what I've been learning into practise.