Quest for high ABV. What am I doing wrong.

[Himert]

Hi all.
Thanks for all the great info on this site. I have learned a lot here the last few months since I found it.

I have a still made from a 30l Digiboil, various C-clamp parts and a worm condenser made from 5m of 15mm copper pipe.
I got the C-clamp parts from China and gradually started with a simple pot set up that produced sweet tasting spirit of about 60% ABV (average for the run). Then I went a little overboard on the C-clamp ordering and ended up with a consisting of a bulb packed with marbles and some copper mesh, 2" sight glasses with 6 copper plates inside, a 2" dephlegmator, another sight glass and a T-piece with a termometer on top.

To me it looks very impressive and it works ok. I can control the temperature on top of the column and keep it around 78degC. However the ABV never goes above 88%. I read on the forum people getting 96% like it is no big deal so I am wondering what I do wrong. If I drop the temp below 78 there is no output and if I raise it the ABV goes down.

I understand that this is not the smartest thing to waste time on. It is not like I will be drinking 95% ABV and I already had nice tasting spirit without all the extra stuff. It is not tasting any better now at 88%. I just want to know what I am missing.

[Setsumi]

96% is a big deal and controling temprature wil not get you there.

[Himert]

I missed out considering the outside temp. It is cold here. Right now it is -6degC outside and the still is in the garage. I brought the alcometer indoors and now after the spririt has reached room temperature it is measuring 92% so I guess it is not so bad after all.

Setsumi, could you please be a little more specific? What would I need to control except temperature to get to 95%?

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

He means, more specifically, stop trying to control tempature at all. My nuetral starts at 96%, and the tails end at 96%. Not one time has any one of my stills ever seen a thermometer.

Also, not sure specifically yours, but I haven't really seen out of the box outfits come in the mail that can hit 96%. So, you might also have a ceiling on your equipment that as is you wouldn't be able to break.

[Yummyrum]

A pic of your setup will get you more answers .

Like Setsumi said ,chasing temps won’t help your cause .
You need to forget temps and understand the principles of a reflux still .

Edit: Posted with Shineon Crazy D

[Setsumi]

As SCD says, stop controlling temprature. The two things that you must control is energy input (power or flame) and take off speed. Energy input will control your vapour speed and take off speed will manage your reflux volume.

And then as Yummy and SCD says your equipment will add or subtract.

[Himert]

It is not exactly out of the box. Just various parts bought without much of a plan other than that I wanted to see what goes on inside it. The Digiboil was for a short beer brewing career.

[Oatmeal]

For neutral you need something like 20 to 40 plates. To get higher proof you'd want a packed column of the appropriate length.

[bluefish_dist]

I disagree that temp in unimportant. It tells you the abv at the point at which you measure the temp in the column. If you want 96%, you will have to run at the boiling point of alcohol at your elevation and air pressure at the top of the column. For me at 6200 ft it was around 164f. If your column won’t do that even at low power and max reflux, then it’s because you don’t have enough plates or plate equivalents. Usually it takes around 15 plates to hit azeo and I found 20-25 ran even better. Add enough packing on top of your 6 plates to get to 20 ish and then run again.

[Himert]

Thanks for the advice guys.
It seems that more packing is the way to go. I would rather not buy more parts. Maybe use volcanic rock instead of the marbles in the bulb?
The setup is also limited when it comes to adjusting the energy applied. It has a 1900W and a 500W element both with an on/off switch.

[greggn]

Just various parts bought without much of a plan

It's hard to see from your photos but it appears that all those spools and sight towers above your deflegmator are just wasted resources. Move them below, and pack them with copper scrubbers, to gain reflux above the plates.

[Laredo7mm]

Looks like a 2 inch column. Could entrainment from the bubble plates be the issue?

[Himert]

It is a 2" and 1.5" column. Unfortunately the top parts cant be moved below the deflegmator. The reason I have them is that I started out using 1.5" parts before I changed my mind and got 2" parts for the plates and the deflegmator. The parts on top is a crossover from 2" to 1.5", a 1.5" sight glass and a 1.5" T-piece with a termometer.
Is there a point filling the crossover and sight glass with copper mesh with them still being on top of the deflegmator?

[Saltbush Bill]

It looks like you've just thrown a whole heap of parts together without any real plan.
The way it is it looks more suited to making brown spirits than making high ABV neutral.
Why is there a site glass above what you are calling the Deflegmator?
Is it really a Deflegmator or one of those jacketed condenser things?

[Himert]

It looks like you've just thrown a whole heap of parts together without any real plan.
The way it is it looks more suited to making brown spirits than making high ABV neutral.
Why is there a site glass above what you are calling the Deflegmator?
Is it really a Deflegmator or one of those jacketed condenser things?

Correct, I did not go by a consistent plan.
I started out with a plan to make something similar to Cognac but did not stick to it.
All glass parts are there because I want to see what is happening on the inside.
I dont know the difference. It is what aliexpress called it. It is a 2" jacketed(?) pipe with 8 smaller pipes running through it. The vapour is passing through the smaller pipes and the cooling water is circulating inside the jacket. It could very well be a jacketed condenser.

[Saltbush Bill]

If there are smaller pipes inside then its probably a proper deflegmator.

[Yummyrum]

A few things I see.
You have what looks to be 5 plates above a packed section ( your bulb)
Those that have experimented with 2” plates have reported that they don’t work well unless there is a huge space between them . Yours are too close together .If you removed every second one , it would help .
Also plates work better below a packed section , so you’d be better off sticking the bulb above the plates with the deflag on top .

Personally though , I think you would be better off to remove all the plates and fill the entire thing up with scrubbers and you will get a much better ABV than the mix you have .

Now the Digiboil . Those things are great for setting a mashing temp but are absolutely useless for distilling .
You see, to maintain a certain temp , the element is turning on an off which causes the vapour production to surge instead of being a constant flow up the still .

Getting a high ABV needs a state of equilibrium in the packing and plates .without a constant flow of vapour , the column is always out of balance .

This is one of the reasons we tell people they need a power controller not a temp controller .

Check out this tipic about modifying them .

viewtopic.php?p=7628454#p7628454

Gosh , good thing I didn’t get up you for using Silicone gaskets in the sight glasses ….. oh , I just did .

[Chauncey]

*Get up your arse


Wait what

[Renhoekk]

Now the Digiboil . Those things are great for setting a mashing temp but are absolutely useless for distilling .
You see, to maintain a certain temp , the element is turning on an off which causes the vapour production to surge instead of being a constant flow up the still .

.

They’ll work as a still boiler. The temperature on Digiboils and Brewzillas etc can be set to over 100C. So when using it as a still boiler it would never reach the point where the element turns off….simply set it at 105C or so.

[Renhoekk]

%. I read on the forum people getting 96% like it is no big deal so I am wondering what I do wrong.

You’re not doing something wrong - your equipment will never give you 96%. You’d need about 14 plates or a long packed column. The gap between 92 and 96% is pretty big - it takes a disproportionate amount of effort and equipment just to close a gap of a few percent.

Although you could do yourself a favour and leave those glass marbles in the chemistry set. They’re not the best packing. Stainless steel scrubbers are cheap and would give better mileage.

[Himert]

Now the Digiboil . Those things are great for setting a mashing temp but are absolutely useless for distilling .
You see, to maintain a certain temp , the element is turning on an off which causes the vapour production to surge instead of being a constant flow up the still .

.

They’ll work as a still boiler. The temperature on Digiboils and Brewzillas etc can be set to over 100C. So when using it as a still boiler it would never reach the point where the element turns off….simply set it at 105C or so.

Thanks, that is what I have done lately. However when starting out, before I learned that the boiling point of the wash will raise gradually as the alcohol is leaving it, I tried to use the temperature setting to keep the temperature at the boiling point of ethanol. Of course that did not work very well, among other things because the Digiboil keeps shutting down when it reaches the set temperature. Also it makes no sense trying this knowing the boiling point of the solution eventually will raise above the setting.

I think I will remove the plates like Yummyrum suggests, get rid of the marbles and and replace them with packing. Stainless steel scrubbers are possible to buy in stores even where I live, copper I would need to order, so thanks for that idea.

[Renhoekk]

Thanks, that is what I have done lately. However when starting out, before I learned that the boiling point of the wash will raise gradually as the alcohol is leaving it, I tried to use the temperature setting to keep the temperature at the boiling point of ethanol. Of course that did not work very well, among other things because the Digiboil keeps shutting down when it reaches the set temperature. Also it makes no sense trying this knowing the boiling point of the solution eventually will raise above the setting.

Yes I've heard that before where people use brew kettles as a boiler. It's an easy mistake to make when starting out. You can, however, have some control over your boil in the Digiboil by switching elements on or off. You can run "slower" if you need to once you get the temperature up to production speed.

You'll have more luck chasing a high ABV if you stuff your whole column with those scrubbies. Probably 91-2%.

[bluefish_dist]

Thanks, that is what I have done lately. However when starting out, before I learned that the boiling point of the wash will raise gradually as the alcohol is leaving it, I tried to use the temperature setting to keep the temperature at the boiling point of ethanol. Of course that did not work very well, among other things because the Digiboil keeps shutting down when it reaches the set temperature. Also it makes no sense trying this knowing the boiling point of the solution eventually will raise above the setting.

I think I will remove the plates like Yummyrum suggests, get rid of the marbles and and replace them with packing. Stainless steel scrubbers are possible to buy in stores even where I live, copper I would need to order, so thanks for that idea.

The single temperature for boiling of alcohol is a common misconception. In the boiler, you never have pure alcohol, but a mix of water and alcohol. Because of this the boiling point varies depending on how much alcohol is present. It also increases as you found as the alcohol is depleted. Eventually it will get up to the boiling point of water at your altitude.

In the column the temperature can be used to determine alcohol concentration. Lower temp, more alcohol, higher temp, more water. There is a graph around that shows the temp vs abv. I believe still dragon sells a electric parrot which will do the conversion for you.