I learned a lot about my liebig today

[Full_moon]

What I was running today. 5 gal. potstill, ujsm on a liebig. Using a Broilking 1500 hotplate with a controller, not the Broilking on/off dial. Cooling is a pond pump in a 5 gal. pail, which I refresh with cool water now and then.

finishing the run and saving tails, I noticed the abv on the proof / tralles was down to 35% and I was still running a toothpick sized stream from my parrot. I turned the controller up to 100%, It really didn't have that far to go as I had gradually increased it a few times.
The liebig started huffing. Now on the exit hose from the libig I have a garden hose wye with adjustable gate valves. I was already turned down on one side and off on the other to a crayon sized stream. The water coming out was warm. I turned it down again to a small pencil size and the huffing stopped immediately. Turn it up, more volume of water I got huffing, down, it stopped and it was immediate.
What was more astonishing to me the ABV stalled at 35% and climbed to 37% and then seem to take forever to drop finally down to 20%. The exit water seemed warmer. I added a pail of cooler water to the tank and got some slight huffing again.
The liebig was warm at the bottom to very warm/hot at the top. But it was doing the job.
I'm thinking I should run this small pencil size stream from the get go now. I have been running the liebig to cool. Or what just happened.

[Halfbaked]

RCtime it is really nice for someone to answer questions and give info but don't it make you feel good to figure something like that out on your own. That is a lesson you will remember for the rest of your life.

[bearriver]

Hands on learning can really give you a tada! moment with the stuff in the back of your mind from here. Good show.

Just wait till you unknowingly flood a reflux still and get a spewing volcano of high proof distillate. Which you very well might do at some point. That will keep you on your toes for sure!