how to distill water from a reflux still

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:35 pm

hi, I am new to distiling and want to know what is the correct procedure for distilling water as a test run on a brand new 25 litre reflux still. I intend on filling the boiler with 23 litre of tap water..but need to know what temperature to run it..?...and if I need to run cooling water through the reflux column ?..any help is appreciated before I start to distill my first 8kg sugar wash...thank you

Regards
Andrew

The Chemist · Post by **The Chemist** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:48 pm

Welcome, AF.
First off, don't use 23 liters. You only want to fill the boiler about 2/3 full. I'd say 15-18 liters is about right--got to have room for boiling. Do run cold water in the condenser. The temperature will take care of itself, if you've sized your heat source correctly (some of the other guys can better tell you if you have). The water will boil at 212 deg. F (100 deg. C), which is higher than you will distill spirits at.

Oh, yeah--If you have exceptionally hard tap water, don't run too close to dry (collect only, say, 10 liters), or you'll have a hell of a time cleaning the scale out of everything!

Have fun!

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:56 pm

thanks for your comments...at what point should I start running the cooling water through the column?...and at what rate, I have heard that the recommended flow rate is 400 ml per minute..should I wait untill the temp has reached 100 deg celcius before running the cooling water ?..Sorry about the silly question,, its just that I am a bit nervous about running the still, with the pressure and steam that it produces..its all a bit nerv racking at the moment.

Kind regards
Andrew

outlawokie · Post by **outlawokie** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:31 pm

Did you build the still what kind of heat source do you have

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 5:45 pm

I bought the still from a brew shop.its a 25 litre urn type with a bult in 1380watt element. The column is packed with stainless steel pot scrubbers, and the usual hoses etc...I have not used it yet..I think the boiler is made in new zealand by Still spirits..

The Chemist · Post by **The Chemist** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:18 pm

Don't be such an old woman!

Seriously, you're worrying too much. If its a commercial-built still, and you haven't plugged anything up, there will be no pressure build-up. If you have steam coming out, you need to turn up the flow on the condensor. Simple as that!

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:28 pm

OK..thanks for being honest with me. I am going to run some water thru it tonight, on another note...what is the general opinion of using distilled water to dilute the %90 spirit..or is general tap water OK..here in australia the tap water is pretty good..but I am keen to optimise the taste of the spirits I produce. The last question I have is..how often should I remove the pot scrubbers for cleaning, and what is the best way to clean them...ie..what cleaning products are best ..

thanks for your help.

andrew

Pieterpost · Post by **Pieterpost** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 10:42 pm

First of all: good luck with your new still !!! And don't worry so much, you're not trying to ignite an atomic bomb! You're doing it right, starting with water !

Here and there I read that people use distilled water to dilute their spirit. Personally I wouldn't use that for diluting, I use spring water for diluting.

Distilled water doesn't contain any salts so it will draw salts out of your body (osmosis). This is also the reason why someone shoudn't drink large quantaties of it.

If you drink a little distilled water you won't notice much but when you are having a drinking night with your buddies, drinking distilled water won't make you feel any better the next morning, it'll be worse

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 3:25 pm

Thanks for everyones comments yesterday..greatly appreciated. Now..Last night I put about 17 litres of water in my still and fired it up..45 mins later the temp rose to about 95 degrees celcius..alot of steam was produced so I turned on the cooling water very slowly..this made the temp stay at about 94 degree celcius constant..the water started to flow from the outlet pipe but I noticed it was cloudy. This is the first time I have used this still, I also noticed the rubber hoses that connect to the main column were dribbling a bit of cooling water, but soon fixed that with a hose clamp. I waited an hour and collected about 800ml of cloudy water..can anyone explain why it went cloudy???...and is the temp of 94 degrees celcius correct for water distillation....I am only doing water as a test run before I put the mash in on the weekend.

DBM · Post by **DBM** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 4:37 pm

Wash everything good. be sure no soap or anything is left in the still. Run another batch of water, this time when the thermometer hits 200* turn on the water to your condenser and turn down the heat. Now slowly bring up the heat untill water starts dripping out. Now regulate the heat so that the output is a fast drop or a small stream about the size of a toothpick. The water will most likely be clear. I suspect your first time it came out too fast, probably had little bubbles in it that made it appear cloudy.
Some people who do not have access to soft water, or water without chemicals in it, use distilled water. If you do not have access to good natural water I would use distilled before messing up good whiskey with bad water. Most people have access to bottled water, which I use when I'm too lazy to go out to the farm and get some good well water.

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 5:54 pm

I will do another run of 17litres of water tonight, however I dont have a temp control on my still..its just a 1380 watt element in the bottom ...so I assume that the cooling water is the only way to bring the temp down..I noticed the drip rate was about 1 drip per second and sometimes it was trickelin out like a stream...Is it true that the first run of a new still has to remove any metal properties from the still..which can cause cloudy water..

DBM · Post by **DBM** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 6:53 pm

You MUST control the heat. Trying to regulate the still by increasing or decreasing the cooling water is going at it bassackwards, not to mention it aint gonna work. Get a controlable heat source and start over. use high heat to bring it up to temp then go to low to maintain operating temp. When running your still for alcohol production you need to hold your temp somewhere around 173-176* for the first few min, then slowly raise the temp up untill the alcohol is coming out a little faster than a fast drop or slow stream ( mine stabilizes at 179/180* and stays there for the next several hours) then you have to increase the heat a little bit (1 or 2 degrees at the time to keep the alcohol coming out slowly. I quit at 200*.
You can get good whiskey slow or something to give your brotherinlaw fast.

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:08 pm

interesting..I bought this still from a brew shop , who uses it to make %95 pure spirit, and he does not control the heat...the still was desinged in New Zealand by "still Spirits"..I spoke to the manufacturer of the product and he assured me that the element will slow boil at 78 degrees celcius with a cooling water flow of 400 mls per minute to keep the temp there..which should produce approx %90 pure spirit....would you think this is a fair comment....I thought if I went to a brew shop and bought a commercialy built still, I would be getting the right gear and advice to make a good clear spirit...as all I want to do is cut it to %40 to use essences for bourbon, rum etc...please dont get offended by this..I am still learning and am willing to listen to any advice..

Cheers
Andrew

The Chemist · Post by **The Chemist** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 1:05 am

I went to the Still Spirits website, and see that the 25L model is one of those "cooling water through the reflux column" affairs. (Please note comment in other post) But since you already have it, work with what you got.

Water will boil at 100 deg C, unless you're way high up. Impurities will lower the boiling point. Cloudy water boiling at 96 deg C certainly sounds impure.

Run the still again. If you still get cloudy water, curse under your breath, bitch at the manufacturer, clean the still, and run it again. Repeat until the water runs clear at 100 deg C.

linw · Post by **linw** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 2:51 am

My first still was the earlier plastic bucket SS still. The SS 'reflux' still is a cooling managed system and uses an external water jacket around the column to regulate the amount of vapour getting to the condenser outlet. Std CM stuff. It does work but because of the severely short and narrow column it should be described as a pot still with extra reflux. If you pack the column with mesh it helps. However, the abv you will get will max at about 80%. Maybe a bit higher with packing and a very low take-off rate (more cooling water to increase reflux.

Sorry, DBM, but you don't 'need' to regulate the element power. For a slower boil and more reflux it might be a good idea but these commercial stills have to compromise between time-to-boil and vapour speed.

So if you treat it more like a pot still you won't go far wrong. BTW, have you got the marble that sits in the water jacket area?

I don't know about the cloudy water but I wouldn't dwell on the water too much. It is a darn sight easier distilling alcohol! Just make sure it is clean and it can't be hard to check this with an open boiler and a piddly column.

Make a sugar wash and give it a go. Good luck.

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 2:53 pm

Lindsay, thanks for your comments, that makes me feel alot better. My 25litre container is from Still Spirits , but the column has been manufactured locally here in brisbane, its a 60cm tall stainless steel head that clamps onto the 25litre bucket, its packed with steel pot scrubbers, and has the usual colling hose running from the end of the outlet pipe back up to the top of the column then out and back in..where it drains out the base of the column...Last night I ran another 18 litres of tap water in int..the temp rose up the 94 degrees celcius and steam came out..so
I turned on the cooling water to a slow trickle..which bought the temp down to 93 degrees celcius, and then the distilled water began to drip faster and almost in a pin like stream..I collected about 700 mls in 1 hour..it was only slightly cloudy..better than the day before...it had a slight metallic smell and taste about it too..I am assuming this is becasue the still is brand new, and needs to be run in...am I correct here....you mentioned that alcohol will be easier to distill..I hope so..I have a 8kg sugar wash ready to go tonight..I have read the pdf from Still spirits..and will follow it to the letter..at 79 degrees etc...etc...thanks for you reply Lindsay.

Cheers
Andrew C

linw · Post by **linw** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 3:29 pm

Ah, so the column is not the original. Sorry, I didn't realise that. So it has a through-tube at the top and bottom of the column. This should be OK, as, at least, the through-tubes aren't in the middle. The one at the bottom will kill some of the vapour thus ensuring that the vapour volume/speed is not too great. The one at the top will be inducing reflux.

My advice is to very soon quit the water distilling. Most people wonder about how the output gets to be so foul!! And trying to control it is no help for your alcohol run.

Sugar wash runs
You will have a learning curve in getting the control right. Just keep in mind that the vapour temp depends on the composition of the vapour (etoh vs water) and not on what you do. Try to see whether you can completely stop output by running lots of water through. In other words, can you get 100% reflux. If you can, let it stay in that state for about an hour. Then decrease cooling water till product flows slowly. This is foreshots (50ml or so) and will be followed by heads. If you can get this amount of control, the head temp should be around 78 deg C but will be dependant on the speed of your take-off. (High take-off rate = lower abv and higher temp).

If you can't get 100% reflux you will find that the temp will be higher as the abv will be lower (more water). That's OK as this is how many stills work. Temp may be up to 84 deg C. Just depends on reflux and thus purity (abv). If abv is lower you fix the slight off taste by filtering with activated carbon.

Let's know how you go. Good luck.

andrew_fev · Post by **andrew_fev** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 3:42 pm

Lindsay, you mentioned the 100% reflux, this was happeing last night with the water, I could maintain 94 degrees C and no drips were coming out..is this what you mean, and when I run the wash thru tonight ...are you referring to maintaing the 1000% rerflux as soon as the wash boils...so that means ..I would start the still up..wait an hour or so untill it boils..get the temp to about 79 degrees C...and DONT switch the cooling water on..leave it for an hour to build up the "foreshots".....the guy I bought it from said to switch the water on when the temp gets to about 50degrees C..then collect the first 100 ml and chuck it out..then control the temp at 79 degrees C for the next 4 litres..and then stop...I can understand this method, as the last part of the run is weaker spirit ..is this true ?...another question if you dont mind.. My container is 25 litre, is it safe to put about 23 litres of wash into it to allowing boiling room..?..and what do you recommend you clean the still with, and should I take out the pot scrubbers and clean them also..?

Thanks
Andrew

linw · Post by **linw** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 2:32 am

Forget the water distillation as it really bears very little relationship to an alcol/water mixture.

Hey, you MUST have the cooling water running hard to get maximum reflux. The man was right - switch that water on at 50 deg or so. It would be potentially dangerous if there was no cooling water flowing. This is what I said, "Try to see whether you can completely stop output by running lots of water through.". Note the "lots of water".

The instructions you got were pretty much right for a still that could not get a high purity of product. The temp of 79 deg implies quite a high abv, however, as a pot still operation would be more like 84 deg. The product will get weaker towards the end and this will cause the vapour temp to gradually rise as there is more water in the vapour and water has a higher boiling point than ethanol.

OK. Just run as your "guy" said. When the alcohol starts running you can try adjusting the output flow by adjusting the cooling water flow. This will show you what your still is capable of. Try lots of cooling water - does the flow stop? Reduce the cooling water slowly and see what happens to the product flow and temp. Both should increase. The best product will come when the output is slowed down. It will take you several runs to get the hang of your still. Just try to keep the temp stable by adjusting the cooling water.

Are you sure the boiler will only hold 25 ltrs? I thought they could take a 25 ltr wash which means that that would allow some headroom. I would check it out. A sugar wash doesn't need a lot of headroom but it certainly needs some. You do NOT want it boiling over!

Vinegar is good for cleaning copper. Try it on the scrubbers, too. As for the boiler, what is wrong with warm water and a scourer pad (NOT a soap one!!)? It doesn't need to be sterile - just clean so it doeasn't have funny tasting stuff in/on it.

Good luck.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:30 am

Use copper scrubbers instead of Stainless

linw · Post by **linw** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 9:55 pm

Anonymous wrote:Use copper scrubbers instead of Stainless

Agreed. But make sure they are real copper and not copper plated plastic!

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