Disappointing results when experimenting with SPP

[lurklaban]

Hi all!

Not sure if I’m posting in the right place and in the right way, so pleace move to a more apropriate forum if so…

We’re running a 75 l boiler with 2 x 2,4kW electrical elements for heat up (later reduced to 2,4 kW for heads take out an then increased to about 3 kW for hearts) loaded with 50 l of mash or some times about 30 l of low wine.
The column is SS CM (I argued for VM but my voice wasn’t heard) and has a diametre of 84 mm and a hight of 125 cm where around 25 cm is used by the reflux coil and say 90-95 cm by packing (I know this is abit short for that diametre).

Any ways, a few batches ago we replaced the packing, wich was ss scrubbers, with 8 mm pall rings since we had some problem with… eeuuu.. I don’t remember right now but I’ve read that columns bigger than 3” might have some problem with scrubbers.. However, I can’t say that there was any benefit, really (maby the ABV even was reduced from 94 to 93,5 - hard to say) so since I’m always trying to improve things and my goal is to reach azeotrope, I started to wind my own, what I was hoping to be, SPP (I will try to post some images). The first SPP bach of about 10 cm of column hight didn’t made any apparent difference - wich I was prepared for. By accedent the SPP and the pall rings then were mixed and then I winded maby 12-15 cm of supposed SPP and added - still maintaining about 90-95 cm hight of packing. To my great dissapointment this niether made no difference (about 93-93,5 % ABV). The taste though was verry good but I tend to think that has more to do with the stripping than with the change of packing.

Is there any point in winding more ”SPP” (I’m experimenting with winding them around a triangular shape instead of a square one in hope to get more surface area, but haven’t found a fiesable way to do it in practice)

Any input is greately apreciated! I will hopefully post some images in the next few hours.

Chears and peace and all the best!

/l