Still not hot enough to produce, but cold rag over collection jar smells like ethanol?

[HuckFinn]

Hi,

My still was in a unique area of the run. Before producing anything (even a drip) and only very very just starting to fog up the sight glass - the watered cold rag around my jar collection jar and the end of the condenser had a light ethanol smell.

If this was under the 174/80c temperature point, why? I was about 5% to 10% under it.

Thanks

[zed255]

There are small amounts of very light compounds, not ethanol, produced during a ferment that will come through well before your run really begins. They often smell sweet and fruity. I get this to varying degrees depending on what is in the boiler and consider it normal. Once real production starts this subsides. Never considered it a problem, but if you are concerned, open a window for a few minutes.

Put some tape over the thermometer and instead feel the warmth travel through the still, listen to the boiler and watch the spout. More new distillers get preoccupied with the thermometer than anything else. You'd think it was like one of those nudie girl pens where the clothes fall off when up to temp.

[howie]

one the interesting things i have found using a glass lab set for distilling is vapour production around the 60c mark.
it's not a lot, but i can see the vapour on the sides of the glass and watch it condense in the glass lieberg condensor.
once that has gone, vapour production stops again until it's pretty much the usual temps.
i think it's probably acetone or esters.

[Windswept]

Realistically you’re going to get vapour production at any temperature. Phase transformation doesn’t occur all at once at one temperature, otherwise we wouldn’t have rain until the oceans boiled. You’ll get a ratio of vapour:liquid at every temperature that increases with temperature and inverse pressure.

So yes, you’ll have ethanol vapour coming off the still before you reach the boiling point of ethanol.