I am a new style of person here. Hello and glad to find this place, etc. Thought I might take part in the discussions here if nobody objects...
Just a dumb kid from Sydney, Aus. Howzit?
I somehow got interested in all these shenannegans about a year ago. Did a bunch of reading. Talked to my uncle who used to be an industrial strength welder type guy for Carlton among other things.
He managed to scrounge a bunch of parts for me including an ex-carlton stainless keg and mucho copper and stainless pipe/fittings to put together a cool rig. Even managed to nab me an authentic thermometer that screws in and all! High-tech!
Also spent many an hour visiting many local stores for bits and pieces including a 9Kg gas cylinder, burner, water pump, stainless scrubbers, and all the other misc paraphenalia. Took months to accumulate all the junk, but got it up and running recently! Thrilling!
It is an all copper+stainless getup with approx 30L (or something) boiler with a meter or so 2" copper reflux column packed to the teeth with stainless scrubbers. Has a couple of hose-pipes hanging off that go to a big garbage bin full of cooling water and a cheap little aquarium water pump that seems to do the job adequately (for now at least)
Will get some photos organised if anybody is interested.
Done about 4-5 runs so far. Collected sh*t up to 94% (Must have been the AWESOME silver soldering job I pulled
) but of course it varies and the average is about 92% when the hearts get all mixed together. So I am pleased to say the least! (hell I would have been pleased with 60% or 40% for that matter!)My first run produced stuff that was a bit, um, smelly. I believe this is beacause I was impatient and left sugar unfermented in the wash, unsettled suspended yeast carcasses as well as impurities I will mention later. I had it as a mixer in some ginger beer and the funk came through, unpleasantly so. But I put it on carbon for just a couple of hours and damn! It smelled literally sweet! Totally awesome.
So anyways, I have learned a bunch from the parent site here (H'oily crépe!) but always ready to learn more from all you high class expert guys here!
Have a couple of questions actually, which I couldn't easily find anywheres:
1) On my 2nd or 3rd run, I heated up very slowly. Stuff was coming out at a nice controlled rate and the temperature was stable. Thing is, I collected maybe three quarters of a liter before the temperature reached 78 degrees Celcius. This doesn't add up to me because aren't the foreshots supposed to be just a couple hundred mils? The meths, acetone etc. In my previous run(s) I had taken off just a couple hundred and still got good stuff pouring out at 78+ degrees C.
2) I got sick of collecting stuff below 78 degrees and so cranked up the propane. It shot up to 78 on the dot and stuff was coming out nicely. Strange thing is, a little while later I turned down the heat and the thermometer read about 65 degrees, and there was still a constant stream coming off! According to theory, nothing should have been coming off by then, am I right? So if all the low boiling point volitiles had been removed and the temp was fairly low, why was I getting anything at all??
3) As I mentioned before about impurities - my first attempt had mushrooms in the wort (Didn't give a rat's about hygeine and just used water from unwashed soup saucepans for the wort!) and while the boiler was heating up, it stuck around 29 degrees for ages and nothing was coming out. I sniffed the collection jar - PEACHES! Some kind of acetylene ester or some garbage I learned back in HSC chemistry that means nothing to me now. Weird and fun!
4) Can anybody tell me what kind of punishments exist within this country if somebody with some kind of distillation equipment is caught? If I'm not mistaken, it would be much worse if that person was caught selling products to people, right? Not that I plan to sell (want to keep it amongst family and friends, and for no profit because I enjoy it) but would be interested in knowing what kind of arse spanking I would be in for if the pigs happened to come around and started poking about where they weren't invited.
Needless to say that I keep components stored out of sight when not in use, just to be on the safe side. (I am a paranoid bastard at the best of times)
Apologies for an exceedingly long winded first post but I am enjoying the spoils of victory as we speak!
) you probably wont be noticed. Most busts come from informants.
I don't have a temp in my mixture, only at the head. Are you saying I was probably caning it just too hard and not letting it reach a reflux for each fraction, essentially? So therefore although I was pulling off pure substances, they were muddled because it was uncontrolled/fluctuating too much to reach an equilibrium?
