Now the last time I did a batch like this, the glass thermometer sat perfectly at 79C, whereas this time, I\'m using a \"pocket\" digital thermometer (adapted to fit the bung with PTFE tape), yet with the tap wide open, it\'s been consistently measuring 81.6C, so I\'m wondering if it\'s me and kit that\'s not quite as accurate as it could be, or whether it\'s a mains pressure fluctuation.....
I\'m not overly fussed, as it\'s just recovering alcohol from wines/meads that would otherwise go down the drain - but it\'s handy to keep it (the alcohol), as it can just go into my large carboy to be used as a \"mixed fruit\" brandy (it\'s got some oak extract and about 5 packs of heavy toasted oak chips in it for \"barrel simulation\"), and then that in turn can either be drunk or used for fortifying wines/meads that either need a boost or just to top off after racking.
A little annoying really as it\'d be nice to have a thermometer that can be trusted as plus or minus whatever, to be able to know roughly where I stand.
As for knowing the strength of the still content being distilled ?
As far as I understand it, the theory of following the instructions i.e. filling the reflux chamber to just below the crossover pipe and then having the end of the thermometer sitting in line with the crossover pipe, should, allowing for the fact that the heater isn\'t adjustable/controllable, give a consistent strength of output, the only difference being that with a varying strength of charge for the still, would give a different total amount of distillate.
Perhaps it\'s just me being anal about it and trying to get too accurate a level of strength/purity from kit which is basically, well, basic.
I don\'t know.
As I say, I\'m not overly fussed, as it would be better to have a bit of other alcohols, and esters etc in the distillate to make it closer to \"proper\" brandy.
As for expecting different results allowing for altitude, well that\'s not an issue as I can categorically state that if anything, I\'d be at no more than 5 metres above the average sea level...so as long as the hardware is reasonably accurate, then when I finally remember to test the thermometers, they should give me 100C on a water boil.....
I\'m gonna have a bit of a check (again) next time I do a batch of wash though, as Opus points out, there\'s little gained in having a level of rings above the cooling collar, plus it give a little more leeway with where the end of the thermometer is positioned.
Ha! just to confuse matters more, the last couple of batches of wash have been run with either no rings in the chamber, or just a few and with the reflux chamber water jacket part disconnected from the water, so it\'s running in \"pot still mode\". When I\'ve got the last of my wines/meads done, then I\'ll be running it with copper mesh, not rings (the first stage distillate will be let down to 40%). So that then brings in the issue of how tightly to pack the copper mesh. Last time I tried it, it must have been refluxing quite a lot, as it took about 11 hours to run a batch.
Confusion, confusion.........Statistics: Posted by Phantom — Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:30 pm
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