I ran my new flute with product yesterday for the first time and thought I'd report on it.
Here is how it was configured - you can see the cold finger of the RC coil in the top 2" inline sight glass:
(the still is not crooked - the picture is)
First, since I built this there is no instruction manual, and I've never run one, or even seen one run before.
Second, most flutes I've seen use a dephlegmator (CM?) to control reflux. I'm using a 2" CCVM head.
This is what I planned on doing:
1. Heat to boiling, RC coil all the way down for full reflux, wait for plates to load up.
2. Once it is stable, run for 15 minutes to balance it.
3. Raise CCVM coil a bit (reduce reflux ratio) to take off foreshots at a few drips per second.
4. Once the stream slows down raise RC again to take off heads at a bit faster rate
5. Once the stream slows down raise RC again to take off hearts at a faster rate.
6. Shut down when tails are detected.
So this is how it went:
9 gallons bourbon low wines @ 31.5% ABV.
2" CCVM head for reflux, 3500W element.
After heat up I ran at 80% power (2800W) and started balancing/stabilization.
Then I started very slow, collecting the first jar at 2-3 drips per second (45 minutes). This jar smelled almost like pure acetone, and it was 94% ABV.
Raised the RC to collect heads at a broken stream.
2nd and 3rd jars were much quicker, around 9 min per jar. They were at 94% and 93%.
I thought that was way too high an ABV to carry much flavor and that maybe I was running it with too much power and too much reflux.
So I shut down, dumped jars 2 and 3 back in the boiler (no need to add back that acetone) and restarted at 70% power.
After re-balancing, I raised the coil and started taking off heads with a lower reflux ratio. The reflux stream falling off the cold finger seemed to be about 3-5x larger than the output stream.
Jars 2-10 were 15 oz, 90% ABV
Jars 11-21 were 11-12 oz, 90%
22 was 12 oz at 87%
23 was 13 oz at 84% (and very nasty)
24 was 15 oz at 73% - at this point I quit collecting.
Plate levels (25-50% full) and activity was consistent thru the first 20 jars, started decreasing a bit.
My take off rate was about 3.2 LPH.
I did sample a few of the jars (diluted to 35%) as I was collecting and as I suspected, it wasn't carrying over much flavor, which was a bit disappointing. But I was really impressed at the volume of apparent hearts collected - seemed to be about 75% of the total.
conclusions:
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I'm thinking I ran with too much power and too much reflux as there is not much bourbon character in the 90% white dog. I saved the leftover stillage and will add all my jars back to reconstitute the low wines and run it again. I may do it several times just to learn my flute. The finished mash tasted pretty good, so I know there is flavor in there.
I think I'll run again with some changes.
During plate loading and stabilization, find the lowest power that keeps the plates loaded and stable.
Raise RC higher for takeoff at a lower reflux ratio - say 1:1, or the refluxed stream is about the same as the takeoff stream.
I would really welcome any advice you flute operators have for me.
