Stripping run question

[no_no_no]

Did my first stripping run this weekend and was puzzled by my temps. Does the graph below look normal? I was expecting the temps to rise more slowly and/or stabilize lower. I was running the element at 4400 watts in case it matters. Everything I have read suggests running as hot as your condenser allows...

[jonnys_spirit]

Sorta shooting in the dark so have a couple questions -

What is this graph a temp of?
How much of that in your boiler?
What was the ABV of the material in the boiler?
How much did you produce and what was the total ABV?
What kind of still?
Pics of setup?

Thanks!
-jonny

[shine_]

More info on your graph could be helpful, but I assume C stands for condenser and it looks normal to me. (assuming this is Fahrenheit ?) You shouldn't care about this much when stripping, you must only know when there is no more alcohol left in pot and stop your run.

[no_no_no]

More info on your graph could be helpful, but I assume C stands for condenser and it looks normal to me. (assuming this is Fahrenheit ?) You shouldn't care about this much when stripping, you must only know when there is no more alcohol left in pot and stop your run.

Yes, Fahrenheit. Vapor temp in column and recirculating water supply temp. Good to know this looks ok. Just wanted to be sure my thermometer wasn’t bad before moving on to spirit run. Thank you!

[zed255]

I'm sure others will jump in to say don't worry about temperatures, but I'll say it too, DO NOT get wrapped around the axle over temperatures.

Just for reference, when I strip a boiler charge I take my fores slow like a spirit run then let 'er rip. When I turn up the power my vapour temp will jump to 90C-ish rising to 99C-ish over the course of the run, depending on the wash and how hard and deep I go.

More details are required to render any meaningful opinion, but if you successfully stripped the boiler charge into low wines then there is no problem.

[shine_]

More info on your graph could be helpful, but I assume C stands for condenser and it looks normal to me. (assuming this is Fahrenheit ?) You shouldn't care about this much when stripping, you must only know when there is no more alcohol left in pot and stop your run.

Yes, Fahrenheit. Vapor temp in column and recirculating water supply temp. Good to know this looks ok. Just wanted to be sure my thermometer wasn’t bad before moving on to spirit run. Thank you!

Wait what ? You use column for stripping runs ? Better post some links and pictures with your equipment and tell us what was in the pot.

[no_no_no]

What is this graph a temp of?
How much of that in your boiler?
What was the ABV of the material in the boiler?
How much did you produce and what was the total ABV?
What kind of still?

Vapor temp in column and temp of my recirculating water supply for condenser. I have a pot still with a 3in column and a 2 in shotgun style condenser. I think I had about 13 gal of diluted wash (topic of a different post probably ). Collected about 1.3 gal of 20%. Don’t know the strength of the wash unfortunately.

[no_no_no]

More info on your graph could be helpful, but I assume C stands for condenser and it looks normal to me. (assuming this is Fahrenheit ?) You shouldn't care about this much when stripping, you must only know when there is no more alcohol left in pot and stop your run.

Yes, Fahrenheit. Vapor temp in column and recirculating water supply temp. Good to know this looks ok. Just wanted to be sure my thermometer wasn’t bad before moving on to spirit run. Thank you!

Wait what ? You use column for stripping runs ? Better post some links and pictures with your equipment and tell us what was in the pot.

Lol, pot still made from 3 in stainless tube. I’ll take a picture.

[MartinCash]

I'd recommend taking the thermometer out or taping it over. There is no need for it in a pot still, and IMO it will just give you one more thing to worry about and distract you from what actually matters: flavour & aroma.

For stripping, assuming your was is pretty standard, just collect 1/5 to 1/4 of the wash volume as distillate. Measuring the ABV of your distillate is also somewhat more informative than temperatures, IMO.

[jonnys_spirit]

What is this graph a temp of?
How much of that in your boiler?
What was the ABV of the material in the boiler?
How much did you produce and what was the total ABV?
What kind of still?

Vapor temp in column and temp of my recirculating water supply for condenser. I have a pot still with a 3in column and a 2 in shotgun style condenser. I think I had about 13 gal of diluted wash (topic of a different post probably ). Collected about 1.3 gal of 20%. Don’t know the strength of the wash unfortunately.

Hey no_no_no, what everyone is saying is true about running without a thermometer. However, i have found that it can give you some rough and useful indicators. I attached a graphic that illustrates the relationship between liquid and vapor temps and ABV in a potstill.

I was wondering if you can blow up your graph to show the gradual rise in more vertical resolution when i suspect yoir still was producing.

If you only stripped 1.3 gallons of 20% total low-wines from a 13 gallon charge then your was abv was pretty low. I’d expect more like 3 gallons of 30-40% with about a 10%’ish wash. Either that or you have vapor leaks you need to fix which can be very dangerous and explosive.

What was your wash recipe? Did you take gravity measurements?


Cheers!
-jonny

[silverbean]

I think I had about 13 gal of diluted wash (topic of a different post probably ). Collected about 1.3 gal of 20%. Don’t know the strength of the wash unfortunately.

If my calculations are correct you started with only 2%ABV in the boiler which is a bit low to be efficient. Your temperature graph agrees with that, with a 6 - 8%ABV boiler charge I would expect to see the temp gradually increase then start to ramp up as the ABV dropped. There is a relationship between temperature and ABV but other factors can influence the readings so it is more a case learning what the temps mean. On a pot still I feel it is only useful at the start and the finish, When the temp hits the point relevant to the wash then the drips are about to start, then at the end it will start to climb as the ABV drops off. I can now look at the thermometer and back off the power before the foreshots start or stop collecting in cuts jars and switch to tails jar. It is a guide only and I found it is better in the boiler than the column.

[zapata]

I'm curious what you are using for the probes, software, and interface? For other reasons of course, as has been mentioned by others pot still vapor thermometers are minimally useful at best. Boiler thermometers are a little more useful but there are probably other equally accurate ways to asses whatever the thermometer will tell you. EG; I can hear when my boiler heats up and boils, and production rate is obviously lower towards the end.

But yeah, the top line looks like a very low strength run to me. The little dip is curious, as is how it lines up with the dip in coolant temp. Any idea what happened there? Cooled the water in your reservoir enough to chill your head? Might be probe placement close the the condenser, and you were briefly running it such that the coolant out was cold? Lots of little things could cause the wiggle, none problems in terms of a stripping run (hence thermometers causing as many problems as they solve). But if you're testing the thermo system as much as anything, there's a wiggle there, and you should know the cause and know if it matters for whatever else you have planned.

[Demy]

I believe that for a stripping it is enough to check that the distillate does not come out hot (so that the condenser does its job) and without exaggerating too much with the power (heat) even if the stripping is usually fast. The temperature will adjust itself, at this stage it is not the main actor.

[GNBrews]

I recently did my first stripping run as well, and had some weird results. So if you run the strip until you see 210F (~99C) vapor before the condenser, the phase diagram indicates that the vapor you're collecting is somewhere around 12% ABV. How long do you collect into those tails?

[shine_]

I recently did my first stripping run as well, and had some weird results. So if you run the strip until you see 210F (~99C) vapor before the condenser, the phase diagram indicates that the vapor you're collecting is somewhere around 12% ABV. How long do you collect into those tails?

As for me - I always stop at 99C.