learning my flute.

[freefall]

I have ran 2 small runs of my own foot burner bourbon, about 6 gallons each. So named because I spilled boiling water on my foot and took a large second degree burn. anywho, I had a few questions for the veteran flute guys. I am running 3 plates with about 2500 watts going. I stacked the column for 45 minutes and then ran the output as I would a potty. During the stack, I get a bit off heads out...Which is fine by me. that is my foreshot cut. (note..this is under full reflux with ample water going through RC.) I proceeded to fill pint jars. I am starting at about 90% and it goes down about 2.5% every pint or so. I believe I am running it to slow. Can you guys confirm this for me?
TIA

[Yummyrum]

The power level sounds about right but what is your take off rate in liters/ hour or equiv .

I find that if I start runnng too hard then tails starts pulling through either by sticking too much power up it that entranment just blows the tails straight through without enough mingling time on the plates. or if I set the deflag to allow too fast a product to come off , its not clean enough IMO ..... ut I hate tails n my Rum

[raketemensch]

I try to get the heat and reflux balanced so that it stays a little more stable that your rate of decrease in ABC. Maybe just a little more reflux would do it.

Again, that’s just me. Everyone runs them differently. After 5 or 6 runs you really start to get an idea of its sweet spot.

[Saltbush Bill]

I am running 3 plates with about 2500 watts going.

That sounds about right for the couple of different stills that Ive run with 4 plates, pretty sure it should run ok at 2500 with 3 plates.

I stacked the column for 45 minutes

In my opinion waiting that long is a waste of time ...you can start milking off the fores very slowly after a few mins, just adjust the dephlegmator flow so that product is leaving the still at a very fast drip or very fine broken stream. Your nose will tell you when fores are gone....not an amount in a measuring jar/ jug/ container.

I proceeded to fill pint jars. I am starting at about 90% and it goes down about 2.5% every pint or so. I believe I am running it to slow.

Shouldn't be dropping ABV that fast ....my gut feeling is that your pulling product off to fast ...try sticking to around 2- 2.5L an hour....your abv should remain more stable. Are all you plates looking stable through the run, or are they drying up or flooding maybe? Drying or Flooding of plates will both cause ABV to drop in my experience.....either will cause the still to run at less than its optimum.

[freefall]

Shouldn't be dropping ABV that fast ....my gut feeling is that your pulling product off to fast ...try sticking to around 2- 2.5L an hour....your abv should remain more stable. Are all you plates looking stable through the run, or are they drying up or flooding maybe? Drying or Flooding of plates will both cause ABV to drop in my experience.....either will cause the still to run at less than its optimum.

I may be flooding...It is bubbling like mad. I make sure they are all loaded. I figure if everything is even then it must be a happy spot for it. It was about 2 hours for 18 pints. that was down to 20% I ran till the clouds from the tails left and I had clear tasty corn water coming out. I wanted a few pints of that to temper down the proof.

[freefall]

I just went on to youtube and checked out some of Mikes vids. I would say I was bubbling a little more active than he was. I am also running 6" sections. Which gives me a bit more height from the plate to the window. I milled out my teflon gaskets so I could sandwich my perf plates between sections.
Part of my issue might be that I never ran small runs like this before. I usually run 11-12 gallons at a time. I believe my conversion was ok. I normally run a few 30 gallon barrels at a time.

[Saltbush Bill]

It was about 2 hours for 18 pints.

Thats about 4 Litres an hour, way to fast in my experience.
Cut back to half that speed until you learn more about how your still works.

that was down to 20% I ran till the clouds from the tails left and I had clear tasty corn water coming out.

Did you have the water to the dephlegmator turned completely off to achieve that ?

[bluefish_dist]

What diameter? I ran my 4" between 4000-6000w and about 4l per hour. My 2" was 1800w and 1l/hr. Based on your numbers I would assume a 3" and then it might be a bit too fast.

For me the number of plates has the biggest effect on the abv of what is coming off, not output rate. I found if I pull off too fast, I can see that in the downcomers as they wont keep flowing constantly. Ie that is the limit of takeoff. If you can't hold abv and reflux is pretty high then back off the power. You are pusing the vapor up the column too fast, which pushes tails up to the top raising the abv.

[freefall]

What diameter? I ran my 4" between 4000-6000w and about 4l per hour. My 2" was 1800w and 1l/hr. Based on your numbers I would assume a 3" and then it might be a bit too fast.

For me the number of plates has the biggest effect on the abv of what is coming off, not output rate. I found if I pull off too fast, I can see that in the downcomers as they wont keep flowing constantly. Ie that is the limit of takeoff. If you can't hold abv and reflux is pretty high then back off the power. You are pusing the vapor up the column too fast, which pushes tails up to the top raising the abv.

I am using 4" diameter ss 6" sections using perf plates. Thanks for that. I will watch down comers a bit more and see how they are running. They seemed to be dripping pretty good. But I wasn't really watching to see how they were. I hadn't even thought of it.

[freefall]

Did you have the water to the dephlegmator turned completely off to achieve that ?

I never had to turn deflag all the way down. It seems under powered to tell the truth. I bought it from SD. I botched mine, so just bought one.

I think I will slow the heat down a bit on the next few runs. I really needed to mash out 3 or more barrels. I stink stainless is a tricky animal, and will take quite a bit of playing with. I doesn't transfer heat like copper. I noticed on my stacking, that It continued to heat up even though the power was reduced. I had to back it off even more that I do on the potty which is copper. The deflag has s stainless, so is less efficient, which might give me issues on my knock down power.
Thanks for the input guys. I can try out a few different things next run.

[Hoosier Shine9]

FreeFall

I have a 4inch 6 plate bubble cap flute. all copper.
I have NEVER had clear water come through.
Mine holds abv fairly steady through my run when keeping a fairly good reflux going. Within about .5% to 1%. The only time it changes much is close to the end.

You mentioned videos by Mike (I assume Haney) and his flute. I watched that video as well. I used it as a starting point for running my flute.
Mine works just like his video shows. Holds abv, slows down at the end, till it STOPS.
My assumption is either too much power or not enough water to the pre-condenser.

I normally have about 12 gallons in my boiler.
However I did make a run with about 7 gallons. I fought that run the whole way. It was like running a completely different rig.

[Saltbush Bill]

I have NEVER had clear water come through.

Agree, that should be almost impossible if you are running the still correctly.....before that happens plates would be drying from bottom upward.

Mine holds abv fairly steady through my run when keeping a fairly good reflux going. Within about .5% to 1%. The only time it changes much is close to the end.

Mine behaves that way to..as do all other bubblers/ plated columns / flutes what ever you want to call them that I have personally operated or seen operated.

You mentioned videos by Mike (I assume Haney) and his flute. I watched that video as well.

I also had a look at that , its a pretty rough n ready tutorial, I wouldn't expect great results from just copying what he does. You need to experiment and fine tune things, finding the correct depleglamator setting can be fiddly in its self.

I ran my 4" between 4000-6000w and about 4l per hour.

Ive yet to see a 4 inch perf plate that will run at that power and at that speed and still produce a good tasting product, you must have an exceptional still .

I think I will slow the heat down a bit on the next few runs.

If you are using 2500 W that should be fine but a little less might not hurt .....I think you need more water running through the defleglamator to keep the the amount of product leaving the still slower which in turn should help keep the ABV up. Being able to get 20% abv from the spout while still having water running to the defleg is really some feat. I think you need to rethink how you are running the still completely.

[freefall]

Thanks for the replies guys. Just to clarify....The colorless water was at the end of the tails. All the oils had gotten out already. so just flavored water. Again Thanks for the input.

[Hoosier Shine9]

Hoosier Shine9 wrote:
You mentioned videos by Mike (I assume Haney) and his flute. I watched that video as well.
I also had a look at that , its a pretty rough n ready tutorial, I wouldn't expect great results from just copying what he does. You need to experiment and fine tune things, finding the correct depleglamator setting can be fiddly in its self.

When I got my flute it was my first ever still.
I had ZERO idea of how to run it so...that video kind of gave me a point of reference to work from.
It took me 2 or 3 runs to see how it worked and I have made adjustments for my rig.
As Saltbush Bill said....You need to experiment and fine tune things, finding the correct depleglamator setting can be fiddly in its self.

[bluefish_dist]

I ran my 4" between 4000-6000w and about 4l per hour.

Ive yet to see a 4 inch perf plate that will run at that power and at that speed and still produce a good tasting product, you must have an exceptional still .

i would flood at about 4000w using bubble plates and about 6kw for the sieve plates. Just over 200 holes and at 30w/ hole that's 6kw. 5500w on a 4" is 20 ft/sec, which is on the top end of vapor speed IMHO. I was running it over a 120 gallon boiler, so a bit different than most here.
Now it's a 6" and I top out at 12000w of power, when running barrel aged product with 2 plates I can fill 1.5l in 6-8 min at the start of hearts. 3 plate whites are about 12 min for 1.5l. All from 10% wash.

[freefall]

i would flood at about 4000w using bubble plates and about 6kw for the sieve plates. Just over 200 holes and at 30w/ hole that's 6kw. 5500w on a 4" is 20 ft/sec, which is on the top end of vapor speed IMHO. I was running it over a 120 gallon boiler, so a bit different than most here.
Now it's a 6" and I top out at 12000w of power, when running barrel aged product with 2 plates I can fill 1.5l in 6-8 min at the start of hearts. 3 plate whites are about 12 min for 1.5l. All from 10% wash.

Sounds like an awesome set up. I would love those take off rates. You have photos of your rig on here?

[Saltbush Bill]

I was running it over a 120 gallon boiler, so a bit different than most here.

So in realty your take off speeds and power inputs have very little to do with anything in this thread or the problems that freefall is having with his still. There is a big difference between the 6 gal that he is running and the 120gal that you are /were running.

[bluefish_dist]

I got similar output rates with the same inputs on a 15 gallon keg still with the same column. The column doesn't care how big the boiler is, other than it will hold setting longer as the abv does not change as rapidly.

The down side of only running 6 gallons is the abv will change rapidly on a 4" column as there is only .5 gallons of alcohol. So by the time you load the column it's going to go through the changes I see in 6-8 hours in less than an hour. The takeoff rate should be similar as the vapor speed is the limiting factor. Instead of adjusting the reflux every 20 min, he probably has to do it every min or two if running at full speed. At 2500w, the takeoff rate will only be 1.5-2l per hour to get good product. If you take off at 4l per hour at 2500w you are going to get a lot of smearing. I was simply pointing out that a 4" can run a lot faster than what he was running.

[WIski]

Thanks for the input Bluefish. Your insight and knowledge are always helpful here. I for one always appreciate the knowledge you share with the community as I'm sure most others do as well.

[freefall]

thanks for the help guys. I will give it another go in a bit. need to get more 2row.