Achieving equilibrium

Paulwhy · Post by **Paulwhy** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 7:41 pm

A few posts Ive read say let your column equalise for about 30mins, this would depend on your still.

Once the head temp is stabilised has it achieved equilibrium.

My head temp seems to stablished after about 15 minutes once its heated, am I right to go at this point?

Post by **Grayson_Stewart** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 3:57 am

Once your head temp has equalized, there is an accumilation of one constituent of the product at the very top ( or wherever your theermometer is located ) It doesn't mean the entire column has actually equalized.

If it takes you 15 minutes to get the very top in a stable condition, how much longer do you believe it will take for the full column to stabilize?

Paulwhy · Post by **Paulwhy** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:53 pm

So once my head temp hits 78c, how does one tell how much time the column needs to equalise?

15mins, 30mins, 1hr etc?

Post by **Grayson_Stewart** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 5:51 pm

Trial and error....

An hour is a sure bet, some people use less. I for one wouldn't bother going over 30-45 minutes. You just need to play with it and see what works best for the rate you are taking the product off and the amount of heat you are running.

If you are running the piss out of it with way too much heat then you may never get real good seperation. And you can also ruin a fully equalized head by taking product off too fast.

markx · Post by **markx** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 1:47 am

I have two thermometers mounted on my reflux still. One is hanging directly over the packing and the other one is sticking in the middle section of the column. Once they both have reached stable temp values I assume that I have reached equilibrium (takes about 30-45 minutes as a rule of thumb).