I agree, the T500 isn't suited to full powered stripping because of the plastic bits, but there's nothing stoping you from running it a little warmer than normal and collecting everything from all 4 batches before combining all the strip for a spirit run.
In a standard pot still, filled with 25lts of say 12% wash, you would expect to get around 5lts @55-60% if you run it until your output gets down to 30% (measured on a distillers parrot)
However the T500 has a packed column and you need the coolant running, so I would suggest running it a little warmer than normal to speed up the collection, also because of the reflux in the packed column, your out out ABV will be high and never get down to 30%
So the question is, when to stop collecting???
This is how I would do it, for example, 25lts @12% contains 3lts of alcohol, so run it and collect, measuring volume and ABV% once you've collected 80% - 90% of the calculated alcohol shut it down, save what you have and move on to the next wash, here's some idea of what volume you might expect depending on the ABV%
90% = 2.88 - 3.11 litres
80% = 3.25 - 3.50 litres
70% = 3.70 - 4.00 litres
60% = 4.33 - 4.66 litres
50% = 5.20 - 5.60 litres
Do this for each 25lt batch, then combine them for the spirit run and water the total down to 30% to make the charge for the spirit run.
Baking soda/powder is either sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate, it can be added to the charge before the final spirit run and can help reduce ethyl acetate (heads) by breaking it down into ethel alcohol and sodium acetate (a salt that doesn't boil off), there's no point adding it direct to the wash before stripping, I've never used it but I know that sodium carbonate works instantly and sodium bicarbonate needs a few days to have the same effect, hope this lot makes sense, my heads battered now
Statistics: Posted by Anavrin — Tue Mar 31, 2015 10:43 pm
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