Home Distiller

Well that's it really; you have a little collecting jar with fluid running up round all sides of the hygrometer. Even with careful design details doesn't the product flow through lop-sidedly to bad effect? (Talking pot still here)

I was thinking I should build one and got to working it out in my head (I would hang it from the flake stand for starters) but that left me wondering if it would cause any potential problems, given how careful I am being to told to be about other design details on the collection side.

I do realise that some people don't see the need; I can also see that to a novice (me) it would be a help to have the % continuously measured. So I'm not asking "Do I want one?" here. I'm asking if leaving it out and learning to do it the hard way will produce noticeably better results.

If you had a diverter loop so that the parrot is out of the system until you turn a tap, a lot of this might be avoided. You take a measurement then close and empty it again; should be easy enough to arrange. Then if there is any mixing that would only happen when you took a reading. But is this all getting too precious?

Put a valved drain in the bottom of the parrot???????

by their nature a parrot does "smear" abit. I minimize this effect on my runs by running the initial heads portion directly into my first jar or two then substitute the parrot when I think the heads are starting to wane. The parrot lets me monitor the abv rate of change and after a few runs of a particular wash I know about how much alcohol is left in the boiler to distill. Just another tool, not necessary but nice. Learning to cut by taste is what I'm shooting for, the parrot just lets me know where I'm at until I don't need that crutch anymore.

Roundyround wrote:by their nature a parrot does "smear" abit. I minimize this effect on my runs by running the initial heads portion directly into my first jar or two then substitute the parrot when I think the heads are starting to wane. The parrot lets me monitor the abv rate of change and after a few runs of a particular wash I know about how much alcohol is left in the boiler to distill. Just another tool, not necessary but nice. Learning to cut by taste is what I'm shooting for, the parrot just lets me know where I'm at until I don't need that crutch anymore.

That's about what I thought and where I'd like to go too. Thanks

Wiski; I can imagine a parrot with a bypass blocked by a tap; open the tap (well a nice smooth bung that doesn't scramble the spirits as much as the parrot might!) and the distillate goes straight past; close it and the parrot works. Take a reading and switch it out of the system again. I might make one.

I'm not sure if smear is the proper term; smear to me means what happens to the "vapor stack" if ran too fast. the mash/wash running too fast will cause turbulence and disrupt the desired and even vapor stack where the vapor is stratified which each layer having qualities resulting in the distillate coming in order of fore-shots, heads, tails etc. By the time the liquid gets to the parrot the smearing has already happened. It's true that if smearing has already occurred, the liquid flowing out of the parrot is a mixture of fore-shots and heads or heads and hearts, ect. There is a delay or lag in the reading of the hydrometer reading (the larger the volume of the parrot, the more lag) and the hydrometer reading is not exact to what is actually flowing from the condenser into the bottom of the parrot, but that is a given and evens out.

BG

unless you parrot is attached just take off fores then sit the parrot under the dick.
if attached then you need a drain on the parrot.