How much wash should you put in a still?

[lustreking]

I don't think I've come across this on the forum, or the parent site.

I've been building a pot still using a 5 gallon pot as a boiler. How much wash should I put in there? I certainly know not to fill it, but I don't know what's safe: Half, less than half, two thirds?

[CoopsOz]

I'd say you could safely go to about 4G, on the provision that you don't have to violent a boil. All that can go wrong if overfilled is you will puke wash into your condenser, which means it will have to be run again.

[BW Redneck]

Often, it will depend on how notorious the wash is for foaming. Example: DWWG is known to foam up a lot, so only fill the boiler about 3/4 full, maybe less if it foams at that stage. Sugar washes and others you can get away with filling it at 4/5. My boiler is the same vessel that I mash in, so my capacity is limited by how much I can boil at a given time in an open pot.

A lot of it is trail and error, though.

If you're doing stripping runs, then a little foam is annoying and you have to clean out the guts of the still, but it won't totally kill ya since the stuff is going to be ran again anyway. It can be a problem if you're doing single distillations, though, but those can really only yield a lot in larger boilers.

[lustreking]

Thanks!