Me running my CM reflux still by using a PID controller

[charcoal]

I used a food safe silicone tube after condenser.




0-30 seconds - Putting mobile in the rack
14 min taking 500 ml of distillate and rotating it
14:51 -My 0-90 spiritometer totally sinking in the high ABV alcohol
31 Min grape juice + vodka = Rose wine.

The Green A value is the percentage power output

PID Model is Inkboard 100vh
Sensor is pt 100
SSR is Inkbird 25AH

Boiler is fairly cool to touch
Water in washing machine is slightly warm. It used to be quite hot earlier.
You can see older thermometer probe on top of the still
The new probe is loose and is fixed by using copper Braid


My way of running this CM still
Packed the 500mm pipe with copper mesh
Loaded the 30L boiler with 25 L of 30% wash. Wash was mixed with Washing soda for 4 days to remove Ethyl Esters.

Dephlagmator is fed with a very small amount of water. 1 drop per second.

Ideally the PID will inject just the right amount of heat to only slightly overpower it and the lighter components would make it to the product condenser. If you run it cooler then the boiler has to be heated a lot more to fight this condenser. My 2200w element cannot overpower this dephlagmator.
If I run very less cooling then everything will make to the other side. This includes water and the alcohol is diluted.

First set this PID to 65C. This is based on the video by George of Grain and Hops channel.
You will get some drops. Most of them would be very strong smelling (loaded with Methanol and Acetone?
I filled 380 ml from it. Temperaure stayed constant.
Then I set the temp to 75c. This is also basedon George's post.Temperaure stayed constant.I filled 2 litres as heads .
Then I changed temp to 78 and filled 3.8 litres finally. You can see the high ABV.

[cayars]

No video attached if you were trying to do that.
George's video and your results likely won't be the same so you'll need to fine tune your heads/hearts cut but you're on the right track. Keep track (log it on paper) of your runs including starting ABV, temp, proof of jars (after cooling to room temp). Use your senses to find end of hearts/beginning of hearts and same with hearts to tails. Log what you smell/taste so you can come back and reference this info. A couple of runs and you'll be dialing in temp ranges to shoot for and will get closer and closer all the time.

[Saltbush Bill]

I used a food safe silicone tube after condenser.

Let's start with the simple stuff first charcoal.
Ethanol ,Acetone , Methanol and what ever else comes out of your still is not food.......it's mostly high grade solvents mixed with a little water. That's why you don't see other peoples stills here with bits of clear tubing as product outlets. Sometimes it helps to understand the basics of distilling before trying to get into the more complicated stuff.

[NZChris]

If my taste buds relegated 2l to heads for only 3.8l of hearts, I'd be going over my records to find out where I went wrong. My latest Bokakob all feints run yielded a much higher % of the run as hearts than that.

Watch out for the silicone. I don't know if that affected your heads flavors because my materials supplier advised me not to use it for distilling and I had no reason to disbelieve him, so I've never tasted the results for comparison. It might not cause a flavor problem anyway. There was a thread going a while back where a European poster was having health problems and reckoned it wasn't due to the silicone gaskets he was using, but a lot of what he said pointed in that direction. I hope he got his health problems sorted, but he hasn't been back for a while to give us a progress report.

[charcoal]

I used a food safe silicone tube after condenser.

Let's start with the simple stuff first charcoal.
Ethanol ,Acetone , Methanol and what ever else comes out of your still is not food.......it's mostly high grade solvents mixed with a little water. That's why you don't see other peoples stills here with bits of clear tubing as product outlets. Sometimes it helps to understand the basics of distilling before trying to get into the more complicated stuff.

Point taken about ingesting the plastics leaching in my food. Video is still uploading.

[charcoal]

If my taste buds relegated 2l to heads for only 3.8l of hearts, I'd be going over my records to find out where I went wrong. My latest Bokakob all feints run yielded a much higher % of the run as hearts than that.

Watch out for the silicone. I don't know if that affected your heads flavors because my materials supplier advised me not to use it for distilling and I had no reason to disbelieve him, so I've never tasted the results for comparison. It might not cause a flavor problem anyway. There was a thread going a while back where a European poster was having health problems and reckoned it wasn't due to the silicone gaskets he was using, but a lot of what he said pointed in that direction. I hope he got his health problems sorted, but he hasn't been back for a while to give us a progress report.

I did not taste the heads for taste. I did smell the fores though. I used to similar cuts in my Air Still but this time I just made a huge cut as I knew I had 25 L of 30% ABV in the boiler. That translates to 18.75 L of 40% vodka if I don't make any cuts.

I have a PTFE pipe but haven't got around to fit it on boiler. I am trying to fit this boiler on a table and fit a permanent PTFE or Copper pipe to it. Last week I was using a Kmart Hot plate, this week I have upgraded to insulation + internal element + PID controller. Things are still in a bit of flux.
The video is still uploading.

[charcoal]

Video uploaded:

[Corsaire]

Sorry, still no video.

[charcoal]

I can see it in the top section now.
Here it is again.

[thecroweater]

The forum does not promote the use of plastics in contact with high ABV alcohol, you would be well advised to swap out those plastic output houses for copper or stainless tubes

[Saltbush Bill]

Did I miss something..... or does the laundry tap need a new washer?

[charcoal]

Did I miss something..... or does the laundry tap need a new washer?

It does. But the landlord is stingy!

[charcoal]

The forum does not promote the use of plastics in contact with high ABV alcohol, you would be well advised to swap out those plastic output houses for copper or stainless tubes

Hi, thanks for pointing it out. I will make some plumbing solution soon.

[Hügelwilli]

2000W maximum wattage. You use sometimes 30% of this, sometimes 60%. What a small diameter does your column have, that you have to use so little wattage? And if you are able to knock it down with one drip per second water, it means almost nothing of this wattage is reaching the top of the column. Why? Way too low wattage and an uninsulated column. Most reflux happens somewhere at your column walls and is much less effective as it could be.
Correct me if I am wrong.

[charcoal]

Are you talking about my still? This is 2200 watts . 2" and is insulated using a card board tube.

Top of still is a solid 78 for 33 mins. You can see the drops in Glass jar. That means that just the right amount of heat is being applied.

I have shown my still and parts in my other post.i have shown the boiler drilling in another post.
You can see the insulation in boiler drilling post or here at 32 48 mark. It is the same cardboard tube heating element came in

[Hügelwilli]

Dephlagmator is fed with a very small amount of water. 1 drop per second.

1 drop of what? You meant probably 1 drop distillate per second, right? I thought you meant 1 drop of water. 1 drop cooling water per second would knock down something like 15 watts only.
Sorry, I misunderstood.

[charcoal]

One drop of water per second. I have wrapped the knob with tape and can show the flow in the evening.
Do you have a similar still?

[Danespirit]

Nice setup.
How big is your dephlegmator?
The still will heat up faster with some insulation on the boiler and the column will benefit from it too.
I know you just made an experimental setup to show the concept.

[charcoal]

Nice setup.
How big is your dephlegmator?
The still will heat up faster with some insulation on the boiler and the column will benefit from it too.
I know you just made an experimental setup to show the concept.

195 mm
If you see closely then both boiler and column are wrapped in card board.my other post has some photos

[charcoal]

viewtopic.php?t=77100&start=60

You can see insulation there.

[HDNB]

so i don't want to start this all over again, but you are showing 78 at the top of the column if i read that right?
the PID throttles the element with sufficient energy to maintain a boil, that in turn maintains 78* at the top of column?
this particular PID will pass a % of the energy? i saw 100, then a bunch of numbers in 20's and 30's when the little light flashes on and off?

[charcoal]

That is correct. The element is switched on and off. That percentage of shown on second line

[acfixer69]

Why not run the setting to 212F and put it in Manuel srt the %

[charcoal]

What is that srt?

[charcoal]

If I set it to 212 then it will move all the water to my collection vessel

[Corsaire]

That's the temperature trap.
Can you try to use more power, and turn up the cooling flow to your reflux condenser?
You can monitor the vapor temp going into the vapor condenser, to keep it at your desired temp, just don't use it to control heating power.

More power and more reflux help to get higher purity distillate, so more neutral. Or that's how I understand it.

It could get you higher takeoff speed. It'll be a while before I can run a reflux still of my own to do this experiment.

[charcoal]

I got >95 % so I am satisfied for now. Next month I would do another run.

Riku says this is an alternative method to control an CM still. And it did work for me.

BTW, what do you use to control heating power? And how you arrive at the value to use?

[thecroweater]

Oh boy, you are getting good results in spite of your controller not because of it. The boiler can only get to the temp the higher alcohol compounds will allow until those compounds become depleted and then the temperature will rise to the boil point of the next lowest boil point. If something other than this is happening then it is smearing to all hell, that is simply how distillation works. There is not nor ever was nor ever will be an alcohol still that is controlled by temperature regardless of what some Muppet on YouTube might say.

[charcoal]

I took very large cuts. I knew roughly how much alcohol was in boiler and my distillate was like 95 %. I just used half of what is there in the wash. Rest is kept as tails. I have another thermometer in the boiler (Below reflux column) so I would know when the temperature is going up.

BTW If you know Riku (rkr), he used the exact method. He has one post on this very method on this forum. He runs his own forum and has written at least one book mentioning this method.

[thecroweater]

I could not possibly care less, I was pointing out the very basic fundamentals of distillation. These fundamentals of distillation is simple physics and can not be changed by a controller or management system. Welcome to the wonderful world of alcohol distillation