StillSmart

Aidan you don't even know how easy that thing will be to drive ... compared to what you used to have...

Bubble caps are stupid simple.. to get good product with..

Congrats sir...

FS

Robert would I take the p***......surely not

Hey Aidan remind me what boiler and power are you going to use to run that with please mate

Admiral Toad wrote:Back to deliveries Michael have you tried the new courier in the UK found them v good and would be very appropriate

Some more research has shown that Austrian Post, though not the fastest, is one of the most reliable services around. UPS and DHL are fast but ultra expensive (we are talking ~ 10 times more expensive than Austrian Post), have a much higher damage & loss rate, and come with no transport insurance included.

We have already shipped quite a lot to the UK and Ireland, and the majority arrived indeed in time. There are and always will be individual cases with delay, but as mentioned before such can happen to any carrier. Austrian Post is fast in the domestic handling, and their responsibility ends at the hand-off to the foreign shipping partners (that's the online tracking message "Item forwarded abroad"), so it's pretty much always those foreign shipping partners causing the delays. Transport times can double during special occasions like Christmas, but that's not unusual and just has to be planned ahead. Parcels shipped next week should still arrive before Christmas, and we'll have a look what we can do about shipments done in the week before Christmas.

We are also looking into an additional carrier named GLS, who is not that much more expensive than Austrian Post and promises a faster service.

Striving for the best possible shipping solution for our customers is important to us, but the possibilities are limited here in Austria.

Hi Aidan

Just wondering about the rest of your setup, will you be using a packed section on top of the plates for neutral or just running the plates? Also what have you got for a reflux condensor? Is it a home made coil or have you got a Deflagemator?

Well lads the race of the year between the good burghers of Austrian post and the sneaky gang from Shanghai has been won !

And the winner crossing the the letterbox line is............The shanghai Express !!! Pass the Crispy duck

Already fitted to the boiler lid and awaiting the runner up aagghhh the frustration !

Oh and the Toon beat Chelsea Oh yes

Admiral Toad wrote: Hey Aidan remind me what boiler and power are you going to use to run that with please mate

My boiler is a standard converted 50Lt SS Beer Keg with a 2Kw element. I ran the cleaning run today and I'm all ready for the off tomorrow morning.

During the cleaning run I was rather disappointed that, at full power, the plates weren't awash with bubbling activity indeed it was very hard to see inside at all but what I could see was very little activity really, of course it was only water and vinegar so shouldn't have expected anything until tomorrow - it's just the excitement getting to me

Cheers AT

Anavrin wrote:
Just wondering about the rest of your setup, will you be using a packed section on top of the plates for neutral or just running the plates? Also what have you got for a reflux condensor? Is it a home made coil or have you got a Deflagemator?

My original setup was a 50Lt boiler topped with a 30" Riser and Pot Head feeding to a 6Lt Thumper with a custom vapour manifold to maximise distribution of the initial distilled vapour. This was a very effective and efficient setup that looked like this;



...a little cumbersome and time consuming to set up but the product was amazingly good. Both stripping and Spirit Runs were run through this system giving a final spirit that was triple distilled.

Now, I can replace all that copper pipe, connectors and converted pressure cooker, etc., etc., with the SD Hybrid I've built...as a pot still only.

I calculate that the three bubble plates, on their own, will give me an increased level of distillation over my old setup plus it's a lot less hassle to set up and prettier too.

So, no packed section, no dephlegmator (I still have a hard time pronouncing that word) and no reflux at all.

I've no interest in making 'neutral', been there done that, as I make Vodka for my beautiful wife and Bourbon Whisky for my sons and a few good friends - I don't drink spirits myself anymore but I have a passion for the craft of making first class spirits.

My ultimate goal is to secure a licence to produce Craft Spirits to sell legally and this Hybrid is my first serious step on that road. An 8 inch is only a couple of years ahead

AM

Pronounced "Deflamator" silent G I believe, I think you will still need some sort of reflux coil to properly run the plates and get the best out of them.

If I run any reflux I'll lose flavour from my all grain beer. Anyway, tomorrow will tell and I'll post what I find.

AM

I have run a single 2x4x2 torpedo,with no reflux cooling,on my pot still,and it boosted the output ABV by 5%.
And so acted as a thumper.
I would expect AM's set-up to boost ABV by 10-15%,from a typical pot ABV.

I did follow some advice found somewhere in my site-wide reading;to charge the plates first with some alcohol containing fluid.
As you might with a thumper.

Robert.

Aidan
Going to be very interested to see how it works without a reflux condensor which I assumed was a prerequisite

If it works I'll give it a go with the torpedo and pothead on my next whisky run

Try and give us some idea how the flavour carries through

Are you going to strip on a pothead first or run straight from a wash ?

BTW I'm thinking along the same lines for a future project

If I had 3 plates, I would think I could do a spirit run either direct from an AG wash or strip before a spirit run with two or three plates, in both cases I would expect the flavor to come through but can't see it working properly without some reflux to keep the plates flooded with liquid, a Dephlegmator doesn't need to be on full cooling, it could have a really slow cooling flow just to condense a little vapour to keep the plates working but still allow the majority of the vapour (with flavour from the wash) to pass.

Didn't run today after all. Too many domestic jobs to do and was knackered after that so decided to put it off until tomorrow, manyana ...really, I will

AM

Aidan no run today ...it pains me to say this but you're more frustrating than an Austrian postman. Lol

I know but what can I say ...I got sidetracked and then she wouldn't let me out of putting up some Christmas decorations

BTW, I've already stripped the wash so I'll be running low wines this time. Might try the all in one once I see how this lot works out.

AM

Admiral Toad wrote:Aidan no run today ...it pains me to say this but you're more frustrating than an Austrian postman. Lol

That has become quite a running gag, but to be fair, it really is not the Austrian Post. All tracking info I have looked through clearly show that hand-off to foreign shipping partners has been done without any delay, so if any problems during transport occur, they are caused abroad.