It's designed to operate as a standard CM column still, or as what I'm calling a 'semi-continuous' beer-stripping still for lack of a better word, or of course as a pot still (by not putting any water through the reflux condenser), by adjusting the valves at the top of the liebig.
The idea of the 'semi-continuous' mode is that wash is fed into the bottom of the liebig, and in condensing vapours, it's heated up enough that by the time it reaches the top of the liebig, it's near its boiling point. At that point, it's fed into the top of the column. This idea is based on the still used to make Armagnac, which is a brandy that's apparently made in a single continuous distillation without cuts (I've never tried Armagnac - I've seen the price tag and recoiled in horror, clutching my wallet).
It's only 'semi' continuous, because there is no drain - you can continuously input wash only until the boiler is full, then you have to switch to feeding the liebig with water, and drain the coolant back out to the coolant bucket as with a normal still.
The boiler is a beer keg with a 1500 W electric element. By my math, that should be enough to strip about 18L/hour of 9% wash, and the same heat, dumped from the vapour into the coolant, would be enough to heat 18L/our of 9% wash from 20C to its boiling point. Of course that's assuming the whole thing works with perfect efficiency, which it won't - some trial runs should reveal what it really can do.
