Hello from NicksExa_N13

[NicksExa_N13]

Hello fellow distillers. As you already know if you reading this post i am new to the HD forums. I have been Distilling alcohol for the last year and absolutely love it. I find it a very addictive hobby that is taking over my life very quickly. I find myself lucky that my family and girlfriend is so understanding of my hobby. Ah well i guess free alcohol is persuasive

Anyways to my distilling set up at the moment.:

The still i use at the moment is short column 25 litre essencia express reflux still which has met all my expectations and with ease i produce 95% clean distillate. I know i can probably do better than this with a better set up but i really couldn't be bothered going to the effort of making or buying a reflux column when i am happy with what i have got at the moment.

I have four 25 litre fermenters and two 60 litre fermenters. However at this very moment i am thinking of getting rid of all of my fermenters (except maybe 2 25 litre fermenters) and buying myself two 200 litre fermenters.

The next step i have in mind is making a 200 litre pot still and matching my essencia express column to a 50 litre boiler.

I am intending in either making or buying (maybe HookLines) a liebig condenser and matching it to a 200 litre 301 grade stainless drum boiler similar to the ones shown here:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum// ... 0144&st=20" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I am not sure what size fractionating column i should use or the finer details about fractionating columns.

In the 200 litre boiler i am intending to use two 2000 watt heating elements as shown here:
http://www.aussiebrewer.com.au/componen ... Itemid,89/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I am intending to use this pot still as a stripping still to cut my 200 litre washes down to about 50l at around 60%

I then intend to use a 50 litre keg boiler matched with my essencia express short column condenser to further refine my distillate to about 30l at around 95% these are only rough figures.


I am interested in upgrading my distilling gear and in my opinion this seams to be the next step for me

[NicksExa_N13]

oh and peeps before you ask if your wondering about my name an exa is a type of car and N13 is the model

[kiwistiller]

How on earth do you get 95% with the Essencia? I though I'd exhausted all the options and I couldn't push above 92% with it. That paticular still is in my past now but I'd still love to hear about it...

[NicksExa_N13]

I don't know ey the guy from home brew store i bought the essencia from told me the still would yeild more % if i changed the reflux packing to this other copper packing he had in the store so i said to him since i was paying him $500 for the still would he give it to me for free and he thought about it for a while as the still was already on special for like 25% off or something but he was like yeah ok so i got it put in when i bought the still... Took me a while to get used to running the still as it was my first. Early attempts i was getting 91-92% but yeah now I'm used to setting up the cooling water right etc and taking of the tails i get about 95%... wasn't really much effort involved in getting to 95% but i haven't got better than that yet.

[kiwistiller]

so you are getting 95% on a single run? Sorry for all the questions but results like that are pretty much unheard of from a still like yours...

[NicksExa_N13]

yeah 95% single run about 3.5 litres and about 700ml tails at about 60-70% i run it till its minutes between each drip coming out... would take pictures of alcometer in some of my distillate but have finished my last run ages ago got like 45 litres at 40% stored away now so im planning on upgrading my distilling gear before starting my next run

[olddog]

If your likker is hot you will get a false reading, that could be the answer.

[NicksExa_N13]

Hi olddog my alcohol was about 30 degrees celsius i guess cant remember exact temperatures but i used the table supplied with the alcometer to correct the reading...

[NicksExa_N13]

Hi peoples after much screwing around i ended up buying a new alcoholmeter and found that my old one was out by 4.5% Has anyone else had this problem? i made sure since i bought it that i took care of it and didn't knock it around... Anyways im aiming for bigger and better things now days I am drawing up plans for both a 3" and 2" vapor management stills at the moment in my 2",3" VM 3d model design topic in the Column Distillation and Design section of the forums. Any feedback into my designs will be much appreciated I have set aside an hour and a half each day to update the models to peoples feedback to achieve the optimum up to date vapor management plans:) which i and many other users can use to build a cutting edge technology vapor management still.