SPP oil from initial sacrificial run

[underdog]

Greetings!

I run a 2" 60 inch column with a traditional copper coil-cooled Boka head attached with a triclamp. I have a 16 gallon milk can stainless boiler with a 5500 watt element and a homebuilt power controller. I love my rig, but it's slow as hell - I can make a great neutral at azeo, but not much faster than a few drips a second.

So..... modifications were in order. I pulled out my aged copper mesh packing and replaced it with a liter and a half of SPP that I bought on the famous auction site last year from that guy in Poland. I also added a couple of soldered-in ports for future thermocouples, so a complete cleaning was in order.

I saw nothing unusual from the vinegar/water run. I found some feints, a bunch of 40% neutral that went cloudy, and some other odds and ends and tossed it into six gallons of water for the sacrificial first run.

Observations:
Run was nothing like a normal UJSSM run. Of course, there weren't any fores. Once I had about three liters of product, the vapor temp screamed up. Guess there weren't any tails, either. I was able to hold my desired vapor temp while maintaining a stream instead of a drip. Yay!! I also was able to flood the column at a higher power level. The gurgling sounds were pretty obvious. I've got a lot to learn now about my improved rig, but that's part of the fun.

Now here's my question, and thank you for reading this far. While cleaning up, I noticed an oily ring around the inside of the boiler and some dirty residue up the walls above the liquid level - obviously oil from the manufacturing process of the SPP. I ran a couple of hours on full reflux before drawing anything, so it likely was flushed out at the beginning of the run. Is this unusual with new SPP packing? I did some research and saw a thread where someone was degreasing his new packing before his initial run (why didn't I see that earlier?), so I guess it's not that unusual, but mine got into the boiler, which is as clean as new now.

Should I dump that three liters of ant killer back into the boiler, toss in the six gallons of water and do it again, or just call it done? I'm leaning towards doing it again.

Thanks,
underdog

[DAD300]

Was this your first UJSSM? The oil could have been from the corn/fermentation.

Soak the spp in the three ltrs of alcohol you just produced. Then use that alcohol to rinse the inside of the boiler and column. Wash everything in a light acid, vinegar, lemon juice or citric acid.

2" Boka's are usually drop machines.

You don't need 60" with spp. 24"-30" will do. So, unclamp that Boka head and use that extra pipe to make a CCVM and double your speed, still getting azeo.

[underdog]

Excellent suggestion!
Thank you very much.

I wasn't exactly clear. The oil ring in the boiler was from the sacrificial cleaning alcohol run. I compared the run to UJ just because that's what I'm accustomed to. I've got a starter UJ bubbling in the garage now, so I'm committed to the boka for a bit, but I sure will research the CCVM and get started on that.

thanks again.

[NZChris]

Should I dump that three liters of ant killer back into the boiler, toss in the six gallons of water and do it again, or just call it done? I'm leaning towards doing it again.

No. I would never advise using dirty alcohol from a cleaning run for cleaning a still. I either dump it, or let blow out to the atmosphere, then use my saved foreshots and/or heads for the next clean.

[Yummyrum]

2" Boka's are usually drop machines.

You don't need 60" with spp. 24"-30" will do. So, unclamp that Boka head and use that extra pipe to make a CCVM and double your speed, still getting azeo.

DAD , I’m confused . Reflux ratio determines purity . With the same power , the same column height and same reflux ratio , the takeoff rate will be the same regardless of whether you use a Boka or CCVM head .

What did I miss