Home Distiller

hey everyone, thanks for the advice before i did my first run...ive done three since then (all various sugar washes) and they've all been pretty consistent and overall pretty good but ive got a few questions..
1. ive been diligently smelling/tasting a drop every couple ounces or so especially when my first distillate starts coming out and when it gets near the end of what i calculate as potential yield...i really cant taste or smell any difference, but it stays stead in the 90-95% ABV range for the most part but then starts trickling off down as low as 40%, but no change in taste or smell? do i just have really bad senses?
2. my thermometer hit 100 degrees right as water started boiling when i tested it with a stove pot, but in my still setup i literally start getting distillate at about 40 degrees, and it takes another half hour for it to get up in into the 70s...is that normal? i put a liter of water in the still kettle and brought it to a boil, distillate started coming out when my thermometer read 50 degrees. any advice?
i attached a picture of my setup, its a brewhaus pro series II with a water pump cooling system and propane stove for heat.
thanks for any input!
[img]C:\Users\Jacque\Pictures\still.bmp[/img]

gohokies88 wrote:hey everyone, thanks for the advice before i did my first run...ive done three since then (all various sugar washes) and they've all been pretty consistent and overall pretty good but ive got a few questions..
1. ive been diligently smelling/tasting a drop every couple ounces or so especially when my first distillate starts coming out and when it gets near the end of what i calculate as potential yield...i really cant taste or smell any difference, but it stays stead in the 90-95% ABV range for the most part but then starts trickling off down as low as 40%, but no change in taste or smell? do i just have really bad senses?
2. my thermometer hit 100 degrees right as water started boiling when i tested it with a stove pot, but in my still setup i literally start getting distillate at about 40 degrees, and it takes another half hour for it to get up in into the 70s...is that normal? i put a liter of water in the still kettle and brought it to a boil, distillate started coming out when my thermometer read 50 degrees. any advice?
i attached a picture of my setup, its a brewhaus pro series II with a water pump cooling system and propane stove for heat.
thanks for any input!
[img]C:\Users\Jacque\Pictures\still.bmp[/img]

gidday,

RE 1. Try to dilute to about 30% for the tasting. even better is to collect in small jars and air it for a while before diluting and tasting. tails are hard to taste at higher proofs.

RE 2. You shouldn't be getting distilate at 40.... maybe a drip or two over the 50's though? sounds like a thermo issue if pure water is coming out at 50*. we can't see the pic by the way, that might help.

for the picture, you need to upload it using the attachment thingy at the bottom, under Save Preview Submit buttons.

kiwi,
thanks for the advice, i will definitely try diluting my product down before taste testing next wash, i have a batch of gerber wash in the airlock now it should be ready by sunday.

lemme try again with that pic!

mr. goho.....welcome...

first thing....i see some potential dangers in your setup.... looks like your running distillate through a plastic hose from your condenser to that demijohn...

if so you need to bag that thing and not use it again.... rig a piece of copper tubing ... collect on something much more solid than a plastic lawn chair... could be knocked over dumping distillate by that burner there....

are you running that as a reflux or detuned as a potstill.....?

You can use a stainless compression fitting to attach it to a copper pipe to the output. But, if you can't rig that up, just buy copper tube thats next size up from your stainless tube, so it fits snuggly over the top of the stainless one. Slide it up a couple of inches and then put something around the top to seal/hold it. If you need to angle it away more, solder a 45degree union on the end of the copper pipe and add a small section of copper pipe to the end of the 45 that is long enough to slide up and over the stainless output.

gohokies88 wrote: i put a liter of water in the still kettle and brought it to a boil, distillate started coming out when my thermometer read 50 degrees.[/img]

If that's pure water (not wash) then it's physically impossible for the vapour temperature to have been 50 degrees.

Ergo, the thermometer is not reading the vapour temperature correctly, which suggests it isn't positioned with the bulb in the vapour (discounting the possibility of a wildly inaccurate thermometer). It should sit in the vapour path just at the entrance to the condenser.

A pure sugar wash won't give a lot of flavour so the smells associated with heads/tails might not be so noticeable. (I haven't enough experience to say - just a thought). It took me quite a while to start picking out the smell and taste of the off flavours when distilling. You only really notice them when you are on the fourth or fifth glass of whiskey in the evening. Suddenly you want to puke...

CletusDwight wrote:

gohokies88 wrote: i put a liter of water in the still kettle and brought it to a boil, distillate started coming out when my thermometer read 50 degrees.[/img]

If that's pure water (not wash) then it's physically impossible for the vapour temperature to have been 50 degrees.

Ergo, the thermometer is not reading the vapour temperature correctly, which suggests it isn't positioned with the bulb in the vapour (discounting the possibility of a wildly inaccurate thermometer). It should sit in the vapour path just at the entrance to the condenser.

A pure sugar wash won't give a lot of flavour so the smells associated with heads/tails might not be so noticeable. (I haven't enough experience to say - just a thought). It took me quite a while to start picking out the smell and taste of the off flavours when distilling. You only really notice then when you are on the fourth or fifth glass of whiskey in the evening. Suddenly you want to puke...

add some mix and take it easy...hehe.

In those type of CM stills, where the cooling water from liebig is routed through the top of the column...ie., right next to the therm...that can throw your therm readings off —particularly if you are running a lot of cold water through it. Use a hydrometer and/or parrot and measure/monitor the abv of the distillate it comes out. That would be a more reliable indicator of things. As to cuts, if smelling/tasting doesn't work, another way to find fusels in tails is to feel for them. If you rub the distillate between your fingers, the tails get greasy/oily when the fusel oils start to come over. At such high proof (over 90%) there is going to be very little flavor anyway. But, watering a sample down will sometimes bring the chemical off-tastes or heads out more.

the bottom of the thermometer is about flush with the bottom of the stopper

Just spotted that. needs to be lower. shove it an inch further in.

Good catch Kiwi.

Stopper? And what would that stopper be made of?

Another good catch! Yep...might want to replace that with cork. I had one of those little flip-top bottles that has a cap with hard rubber seal/washer on it. I put some 170 proof in it and forgot about it for a week or so. When I tried to open it, the washer was gummy, sticky, melting. You can bet the underside of your rubber stopper is going to end up the same at some point. Best to take care of that now.