Length of time to distill

[jmd445]

How long does it take you to do a stripping run and then a spirit run with a pot still.

I do a 5 gallon mash in a pot still with 3000 watts to heat and then reduce to 1000 watts or so through a 3/8" worm.

It takes about 2-1/2 hours for the stripping run. I'll combine about 3 gallons of low wines together and run the still slow. Using my parrot I find I start out about 80% and run down to about 50%. The spirit runs takes about 3 hours. Is this what you are finding?

[goinbroke2]

Sounds about right for your power/cooil size. Takes me 3 hours from light up to cleaned up and ready to go in the house. I run 1/2" tube though and propane for heat. I did a strip run friday night. 40L 9% stripped down to 10L at 40% in about 2hours. Takes me almost exactly 1hour from light up to foreshots. Then another hour to strip and the third hour is clean up etc.

Every still is different. Bigger tube will be faster...no CAN be faster if you have the heat. 75,000btu propane CAN be faster than 1000W electric (if you've got the coil to support it). It's all relative. Small still with propane and 1/2" line might just scorch everything if your running only a 3 gallon still.

It is what it is. Is your output cold? If it is, you can run more heat/bigger coil. If it's warm at all your getting close to the cooling limits of your rig. More heat at that point would just turn to steam out the coil...and that's bad..um kay?

[flip]

hallo Jmd445
To me it sounds quite normal , however i do the second distillation slower,or longer,depending on weather i want flavoured or less favoured outcome.

[Usge]

On my rigs...strip runs take about 3 to 4 hours (depending on heat up time). Spirit runs can take anywhere from 6 to 9 hours start to finish depending on which head I use. I'm using stovetop gas...5 gal pot (that actually holds about 7 gals). So, I'm limited to what the old stovetop burner can provide in regards to heat. Although it doesn't matter much for a strip run how fast you run, so long as your condenser can handle it and knock down all the vapor, for a spirit run on 5 gals, I would think 3 hours start to finish is a little fast. Figure 5gals of low-wines/feints at combined 40%, you've got 18927ml x .40= 7570ml of potential 100% alc to collect. Given you aren't going to be collecting it at that high abv..and adjusting volume for the lower abv, and stopping at 20%, you'd probably collecting somewhere around 9000-10,000ml total . Divide that by 3 hours of run-time and you get 50-55.5ml per min. That's a tad on the high side for a spirit run I would think. If your actual runtime (not counting heatup, or teardown) was even less, I'd would say that's really fast for a 5 gal rig, and I'd be very surprised if you weren't pulling tails most of the run.

Every rig is different, flow-rates and all, but just for comparison, a "slow" flow-rate for me on a 5 gal pot would be 15-20ml per min. A med rate would be around 25-30ml per min. Anything over 30ml and I start to increase the chance I'd pull tails early.

[thepatchworkdoll]

Hi Usge thanks for bringing some sanity here. 50/55 mls per minute thats awfully fast. Your right in what you suggest 15 to 20 mls per minute depending on what gear you have. I appreciate that some members state higher yields proportioned to their kit but I do agree with you that 15 to 20 mls per minute sounds about right to me. Still on Usge.
Regards thepatchworkdoll

[Usge]

I'm just speaking from my own experience on a 5 gal pot. Every still going to be different. But, just doing the math, it seems a little quick (to me). The bottom line is what comes out the other end.

[blanikdog]

In my fifty litre kettle using propane (?btu) forty litres takes about an hour for the boil breakers to rattle and fores to begin flowing. I then cut the heat well back. The initial collection rate is around forty minutes to collect 750 ml. Of course, this drops as the abv decreases. Total time to collect a gallon of white dog and half a gallon of feints down to 25abv is about seven hours. The run out of the parot is about the size of a standard HB pencil lead.

I don't do stripping runs.

blanik

EDIT: emphasis is because all stills are different so rather than say X hour/rate/etc I sat around/about/etc.

[olddog]

All stills are different, like Blanik I have the same size boiler and use propane, my time to boil is the same. I have two stills, the Frankenstill which is a potstill with a built in thumper, and the Evil Twins twin column rectifying plated column still.
The Frankenstill will start at around 85 ABV and turn to tails at about 50 ABV producing 1lt every 20 minutes.
The Evil Twins starts the forshots at around 90ABV and settles down to hearts around 80 ABV, it will remain there until all the hearts are taken, when the ABV drops from there, everything is then collected as tails. Again around 1lt per 20 minutes is the output rate.


OD

[LWTCS]

Lately, I have been forcing my vapaor into doing pony tricks and the like. Jumping through hoops and squeezing into little clown cars and so forth.

I changed my dis-charge size and am taking approximately 100ml per minute with no huffing

I'm getting 1200 ml (or so) with no tails and another 900 (or so) with that early tails potstilled goodness. I leave alot behind as ugly tails I'm sure but the 3 hour maximum set up to clean up is really intriguing.

It's fast and not as refined as some would prefer. But thats only once through. When I strp first my ABV actually rises as the spirit run progresses.

I'm not sure if I'll run this way for ever, but I do have a lot more testing to do.

EDIT:
1200ml??? My math is comical

After looking at my notes I get 10 to 12 300 ml Jars of 80s and another 4 or 5 300 ml jars in the 70s.

[Usge]

Blanik, Olddog, looks like we in the same ballpark inso far as output rate:
750ml in 40mins = 18.75ml per min
1ltr (1,000ml) in 20mins = 20ml per min

I run mine between 15ml-20ml ..that's a small/even twisted stream.

LWTCS, if you count the highest volumes you gave from your notes (twelve 300ml jars plus five 300ml jars) that comes to 5100ml of spirits collected. 5100 divided by 160mins (3 hours) is 28.3ml per min. If you use the lower amounts 10 jars plus 4 jars...you get 23ml per min. If your actual distilling time is less than 3 hours (you mentioned start to finish/clean up), say...1.5 hours, then you are at 46-56ml per min. At 100ml per min, your total distilling time (not counting clean up or heat up time) to collect the above would be 42-51mins.

To figure flow-rate for your rig, all you need to know is how much distillate (total) you collected and how long it took you to collect it. You can do that anywhere you want along the run....ie., if you using 300ml jars, and you want to establish a 10ml per min flowrate, then you should be taking one jar every 30mins (jars-collection size/divided by flowrate gives you the time in mins). If you want a 30ml flow-rate, that's one jar every 10mins (300/30). 20ml would be on jar every 15 mins (300/20)And so on. That gives you something to gauge by during the run that you can adjust heat in small increments, recheck and adjust heat every time period until you are getting it in the range you want. If you want to figure your total run-time, just extrapolate it out based on how much potential alc there is in your stillcharge, use a volume correction (because you aren't collecting at 100%...I use 1.25 (75% average) or 1.3 (70% average), and that should give you close to your overall volume if you stop collecting at 20%. Divide that by your flow=rate and that should give you your total runtime in mins. Divide by 60 to get it in hours. Take the total corrected volume and divide by your collection size (jar size) to find out how many jars you will need.

I do these figures (pre-run calcs) on every spirit run I make and keep them in my notes (along with flow-rates, etc and notes on each jar). I go back and refer to them all the time.

[LWTCS]

Thanks for the break down Usage.

My last run was the first time I ever took notes as such. Don't really see the need when I only concern myself about such matters. But when discussing such matters with members, clearly performance notes are benifit. Kinda why I even took so long to get a hydrometer.

I did mine like this:
Distillate starts pouring, I look at my watch,,,,,,,when I get to 250ml (plus or minus) I get ready to switch jars. on the 300 ml mark I look at my watch and switch jars as simultaneously as possible.

Let the distillate cool, then check each jar for ABV. Pretty basic huckleberry notes.

I collected 300 ml every 3 minutes on average. I pulled the plug at 30%

[blanikdog]

... My last run was the first time I ever took notes as such. Don't really see the need when I only concern myself about such matters. But when discussing such matters with members, clearly performance notes are benifit. ...

Same with me, Larry. First time I've ever bothered, but good to see that I'm in the ballpark with others with similar rigs. Sometimes it's good to be forced to check these things.

blanik

[olddog]

One reason that I run potstill varients is that it would drive me round the bend running a reflux still for 8-10 hours.

[Usge]

I pretty much let the results determine what the best flow-rate is....the time it takes is what it is — although I always "hope" it won't be bad .

[blanikdog]

Me too, Usge. But, it was good to see that we all get similar results.

blanik