Hi, We're new

[kaz1104]

Hi everyone,
We are new to this brewing game, and its a pretty steep learning curve.
This forum is great with lots of information for newbies like us.
We jumped in the deep end when a friend went shopping for us and we become the owners of a still spirit super reflux still.
While waiting for it to arrive in the post, we bought, took delivery of, and tested an ebay bokabob tower with great results.
The bokabob produced 87% clean sweet spirit, and was very easy to control.
After that we took delivery of, tested, and were appauled with the result from the SSSR still. Maybe we are just incompetent but we figured we would stick with a good thing and had a taller bokabob built (after reading the forums here).
So now starts our dramas, and so the signing up to this forum. There are many people with so much knowledge here that can hopefully help us refine what we are doing.

We had great hopes for our new bokabob but at the moment its not working "straight off" like the first one we got. we expected the taller bokabob to be easier to control and produce a higher % product more easily ... But.
When set to 100% reflux after initailly drawing off the first 200ml, the temperature is very unstable and the top of the tower above the plates is filling with condensed liquid to the point that it spits out the top cap. We had 4 attempts at re-packing the copper scrubbers much more loosely and reducing the heat input to no avail.

We have spent hours searching this forum, and I'm sure the answers are here, but being a newbie, it's a little hard to find the answers we are looking for.
Any advice would be appreciated.

M & K

[rad14701]

Greetings, kaz1104...

Any chance of you posting some detailed pictures of your Bokakob column so we can be of more help... It sure sounds like a case of too much heat input or too tightly packed column, but you never know... It could also be due to too small of an air gap between the dual slant plates, but that's relatively unlikely...

We'll do what we can to help you along...

Good luck...

[rubber duck]

Welcome aboard,

Pics would help a lot. It's a steep learning curve but you can handle it if you have the tenacity.

[kaz1104]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.
we were keen to get to the bottom of our issues with our new taller bokabob.
We did another run today (what better thing to do during annual leave !!). The boiler (coffee urn) I have been using has 2 elements but they were welded together out of the factory. I separated the 2 elements and ran 2 power cords so now I can have full 2800 watts, or choice of 1800 watt or 1000 watt.
I re-packed the tower with the copper scrubbers, ran it to the point where the temperature started to ramp up pretty fast, then switched back to the 1000 watt element only.
Now in full reflux, no bubbling out the top, and the temperature was much more stable. Ran pretty stable and slowly increased in temperature as the alcohol % depleted in the wash to the point where it starts to become unstable and the temperature fluctuates wildly.
Overall much happier though we did expect to see some benefit in the taller tower: Maybe some of the points below ??
1: ability to draw off faster, especially early in the draw off ..... no
2: greater stability ..... no
3: better % spirit average ..... no
4: greater volume of high % spirit extracted/recovered ..... no
5: better Quality .... not sure on that one.
6: Ability to pump in more power, so increasing reflux, and draw off at a faster rate without losing quality or % spirit .... no

We might be totally off the track in having expectations from the taller tower ??

But .... It seems that in our case there has been no benefit in going from an 800mm tower to a 1400mm tower.

Comments and advice would be much appreciated and we will take some pictures in the daylight.

Regards,
M & K

[Kentucky shinner]

I also have a bok. I had the exact same problems with mine the second time I ran it. I was running a 1.5" diameter and 48" tall. The first time I ran it was great I did not have problems until the second time. This is what I found.

1. packed to tight and packed all the way up to the bottom plate.
FIX - A. I loosen up the packing to the point I could blow through it pretty easy.
B. I made sure I have 6 inches below the bottom plate before it gets to the packing.

2. ABV not what I had hoped for.
Fix - A. now I run total reflux for 1 hour before I start taking of any product to keep.

I hope this may help you some. I love my bok now that I learned how to drive her. I think you just need to run it a little more and you will love it to.
I never have a problem with the issues your concerned with.

Also when you went taller with your column did you use the same diameter? Taller will only give you a little better ABV, larger diameter will give you faster take off while maintaining your ABV.

RAD correct me if I am wrong but these are things I have experienced.

Good luck
KS

[rad14701]

@Kentucky shinner

Pretty much spot on...


@kaz1104

Even with the taller column you probably still need a controller to fine tune either the 1000W or 1800W element for optimal performance... I'm not aware of any reflux column that runs its best with any element running balls out, regardless of element size... Too much or too little heat will make controlling your still an act of futility...

[kaz1104]

Hey fellas,
Thanks for you replies. We are starting to see things a little clearer now. All a bit daunting when things don't go to plan and you can't work out why the heck not.
When the top part of the tower above the plates was flooding, instead of continuing with the run we decided to try and get some answers. We shut down and unclipped the lid, checked the spacing between the plates, removed all the packing, re-packed much looser and tried again.
After doing this 4 times, loosening the packing more each time, including shortening the packed length of the tower, the problem was reduced but not eliminated .... and then all the packing fell out into the wash, and we had a mess of wash and flour paste everywhere.
What we could not address at that point was the element but have since done so with much better result.
The next plan is to be able to adjust the remaining element ... How do we do that (I know .. read the forums)

I suppose it was a case of having expectations after we (total newbies) ran the original short bokabob with 2800 watt element, averaging 87% ABV, sweet and clean over about 5 - 6 hours.
We though we would see benefit in the taller tower. Were we expecting too much ??

As a side note, we also tried the SSSR still with a 600mm extension column under the head ... run was a disaster. So little control and the final product was awful, yeasty smell and very poor ABV% (around 72% average).

Thanks again for help

M & K

[Oxbo Rene]

Hi,
I am in the process of building a LM/VM.
I spent all day fabricating a copper plate to fit in the bottom of my pot-lid-fitting to prevent the mesh from
falling out into the mash (staying one-up on the forseeable problems).
I just cut it out like an "X" with a ring-edge around.
I saw that one coming and got it solved before Murphy's law came visiting....
You're a bit ahead of me (already stilling), I just ordered a bunch of stuff today, getting closer.
These folks here are the best ! ! !
Best of luck to you .......