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Hi guys ..... and girls, I guess

I'm at 1050 metres ASL ( about 3400 feet ) and I'm trying to work out the decrease in boiling points. At this altitude, Water boils at 97.2 C instead of 100 C, which is 2.8% lower. So ... does that percentage carry through for every agent involved in the distillation process ??

That is ...
Ethanol 75.8 C instead of 78 C
Ethyl Acetate 74.9 C instead of 77.1 C
Methanol 62.2 C instead of 64 C
Acetone 54.9 C instead of 56.5 C
... blah blah blah

A technical question, but is the change constant ?
It has a fair effect on where you make your cuts, especially for a newbie still developing " the taste ".

LF

No, the change is not constant across the board.

More importantly, what type of still are ya runnin'?

If yer runnin' a column still, then a thermometer is a great tool, but doesn't need to accurately read temp... it needs to acurately read TEMP CHANGES.

If yer runnin' a potstill, the thermometer will not only not help a bit, but it could mess ya up buy makin' ya pay attention to it when ya really need yer attention elsewhere to make good cuts.





I wish ya luck.

+ 1 What Holy said about pot stills.

blanik

Hi Holy ... and Blanik ( you again !)

I've got one of those Still Spirits pot heads on a 30 litre boiler. First run was a nightmare. As you say, I ended up ignoring the thermo and just tasting every few minutes, but the cuts were very dodgy. I'm calling it a stripping run. 22 litres of sugar wash finished in 2 hours.

So are we saying a thermometer is just for decoration on a Pot. I went to the trouble of getting a digital one 'cause I thought I'd need the accuracy.

LF

LlamaFarma wrote:So are we saying a thermometer is just for decoration on a Pot

It has no practical use unfortunately.

LlamaFarma, making cuts on a pot still is more a matter taste, smell, and feel, than anything else... And don't place so much weight on taste alone... Smell the spirits coming off the still, both full strength and cut with water... Tasting is better when cut because your taste buds won't get deadened by the high proof alcohol... Once deadened everything just tastes wet, if that... And if you're doing more testing that usual, spit instead of swallowing and then breathe in through your puckered lips to get a mouth feel... Some folks, including me, sip and spit diluted spirits in much the same way coffee tasters test coffee blends, while breathing in and pretending to chew - a practice known as the Kentucky Chew when dealing with aged spirits...

rad14701 wrote: while breathing in and pretending to chew - a practice known as the Kentucky Chew when dealing with aged spirits...

Last time I tried that my wife thought I was having a spaz-attack... she told me to quit it!

So much to learn, so little time ..... the Kentucky Chew, I'll have to practice that.

I've seen Kiwi's diagram of how heads, hearts and tails overlap. I understand that. What worries me is - if the still is running too fast, like mine did, is it possible to have your heads in your tails - Basically all fractions boiling almost at once, or do they still behave in some sort of orderly fashion.

LF

LlamaFarma wrote:I've seen Kiwi's diagram of how heads, hearts and tails overlap. I understand that. What worries me is - if the still is running too fast, like mine did, is it possible to have your heads in your tails - Basically all fractions boiling almost at once, or do they still behave in some sort of orderly fashion.

LF

They behave in an orderly fashion, but "overlap" (as in the diagram) is an important funtion of a pot-still. "Overlap" is why the heart of the run of a pot-still is so flavorful. The way the vapors are handled in different pot-still builds also impacts the amount of "overlap".

S&S

Thanks S & S,

Think I'm getting the feel for it.

Obviously my original question was irrelevant.

LF