Flooding in my bokakob

[theskaz]

Good morning! got an issue and want to see if there is anything i can do today to get around it.

I have a regular bokakob 4ft. column sitting on a keg. I did a stripping run yesterday and got my 30 gallons of bourbon wash down to 8 gallons of low wines. during operation yesterday I blew my triac that I used to control the 5500w element. So, not easily deterred, i removed it and wire-nutted the lines together so it runs at 100%, 100% of the time. had puking issues as i always do with all grain runs, didn't care because i knew i was going to do a spirit run with low wines. today, i filled up with my low wines and added water to about 12 gallons total. fired it up and let the column equalize. I took all of my copper mesh out. my column started flooding. out the top, over the corrugated SS condenser. so i figured i could slow down everything by putting packing back in, that didn't work. it is still flooding. normally i would take the power down to 50% and then slowly bring it up to about 70-75%. but since I'm at 100% I'm not sure what to do to not waste this stuff that took about a month to ferment. and all day to strip. I don't have another power controller readily available. unless i can get it from lowes or home depot.

anyone got any ideas. if you need pics and stuff, i can provide that. everything is off and im on standby right now. doing some research in the mean time.

[bitter]

You are going to need a new power controller. If things are stripped, they will last till a new one comes in.

Another option, heat up on 220V/5500W and then switch to 110V/1375W for the pot run. Might be a bit slow.. but insulate your keg and column to make the most out of the lower power.

B

[theskaz]

ok, so I took that as "You are going to need to reduce power". I happened to have another project in the works that gave me extra parts. so i made a controller. based off an esp8266 and using an SSR. I whipped together a WiFi enabled "voltage regulator". it cuts power over a 10 second period. 50% percent power would equal 5 seconds on and 5 seconds off. 70% equals 7 on 3 off.

[theskaz]

I change the power by going to http://192.168.1.123/level?params=60" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

i change 60 to anything between 0 and 100

[still_stirrin]

ok, so...I whipped together a WiFi enabled "voltage regulator". it cuts power over a 10 second period. 50% percent power would equal 5 seconds on and 5 seconds off. 70% equals 7 on 3 off.

So, I'm not sure how well a 10-second duty cycle will work. That's synonomous with the way a thermostatic controlled electric stove works. It may be unstable and cause surging, or pulsing of the vapor. I guess, you should try it. But don't be surprised if it doesn't give you the stream you're looking for.
ss

[bitter]

That is going to surge... and not be ideal for our purpose.. One the reasons we dont recommend most electric stoves.. They surge

[theskaz]

that was a starting point. i can change the duty cycle down to about 100 milliseconds. will that be low enough, or are we talking microseconds?

[theskaz]

i took it down to 1 second duty cycle. that is low as i can go without running into stability issues in the code. i might be able to get to 750ms, maybe even 500 but running a risk of locking up.

[still_stirrin]

i took it down to 1 second duty cycle. that is low as i can go without running into stability issues in the code. i might be able to get to 750ms, maybe even 500 but running a risk of locking up.

Well, good luck. The SSR runs on a 16.7 millisecond cycle (1/60).

[theskaz]

right now it is on 500ms, off 500ms (50%). and everything seems to be stable so far. watching it like a hawk

[theskaz]

went to 75% and finishing up the tails now.
Checking the proof:

All this is going into a 3gal barrel