turbo 500 still faulty

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jedics
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turbo 500 still faulty

Post by jedics »

Hi all, Ive had my still for about a year now doing regular runs without issue, the other day I followed my usual routine of filling the boiler with a wash, turning it on and letting it get to temp for about 50 min then turning on the water to maintain it at 60 to 65 degrees. This time though my temperatures quickly dropped to 35 degrees so I turned the water flow right down to half what I usually needed which only increased the temps to just under 40 degrees, turning the water off quickly makes the temps go up over 80 degrees. I checked the thermostat was not faulty and that the boiler is indeed pulling the roughly 2000 watts from the wall required as asked by Still Spirits and they don't have any more ideas for me to track down the problem which has brought me here.

Anyone with some suggestions on how I could track down or has had this issue?

Cheers!
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: turbo 500 still faulty

Post by Saltbush Bill »

You dont need to follow temps to run a T500, go by how much spirit is leaving the still..........the slower the better.
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Yummyrum
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Re: turbo 500 still faulty

Post by Yummyrum »

Trust what Salty says . He used to run a t500 and hes run a lot of stills a lot of times . :thumbup:
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: turbo 500 still faulty

Post by Saltbush Bill »

I'm a little over typing out the same answers to people with T500s who are having problems. It seems to be mostly always the same things. A lot of the problems seem to stem from a lack of understanding of how the still works. Tonight I cobbled this together from other T500 posts Ive made ....maybe in the future it might save me a bit of typing.

Jedics
Your better of running you T500 by watching the flow of spirit leaving the still rather than the temp.
I know this because I ran one many many times when I first started distilling.
A T500 is a coolant management or what we call a “CM" still.
The more water you allow through the reflux condencer the more the still refluxs the spirit.
This in turn slowes the output rate, in turn you get a higher abv, and a purer spirit with less taste.
Note that if you turn the water flow up really high , no spirit leaves the still, that is because its refluxing everything.
Turning the water flow down will give you less reflux, spirit will leave the still at a faster rate , but it will be less pure in taste and of a lower ABV.
Using that knowledge you can run your still without looking at the temp gauges at all.
If you want quality you can disregard the temps and just keep the output real slow.
You need to aim for a very thin constant stream leaving the still.
Using small jars and filling them with about 250ml of spirit will teach you more a lot quicker than using bigger jars if you are new to making cuts with this size still.
The manual that comes with this still says you only need to take a small a small foreshots cut , then keep the rest of the run, It also says that this still will not produce tails.
Do not believe the owners manual or anyone who tries to tell you that you don’t need to make cuts when you use this still, nor that it won’t produce tails. That is complete nonsense.
There is not a still on earth that doesn’t require you to make cuts and they will all produce tails at some stage of the run, though CMs have a reputation for being better at holding tails back than many other stills.
The other thing that you can do to dramatically improve your product is to build a pot still head for the boiler and then strip your wash before refluxing it.
Lastly , Ive never personally had the problem that you are having, I have read about other T500 users having similar problems, my understanding is that its mainly due to the column packing being to tight or loose ..have you had it out to wash it recently?
jedics
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Re: turbo 500 still faulty

Post by jedics »

Ahh, yes I haven't cleaned it in a while, I will try that next but it doesn't seem that likely as it went from working perfectly to not at all in one run to the next.......Now that I think of it I did tilt the still very sharply to drain it which may have moved things around inside it....

Will give it a clean.... Thanks.
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