StillSmart

Stripped 4x25 litre finished cider , ended up with 3.5 gallons for spirit run on pot still.....set grainfather top switch to boil and bottom switch to mash, has taken 12 hours and I am still getting 60% alcohol....would the new controller for the grainfather help in making for a faster spirit run?

had enough spirits at 60% so switched to full power and stripping the rest

Don't the destructions for distilling on the GF state bottom switch on normal (not mash) top switch on boil, again not mash??

packapoo wrote:Don't the destructions for distilling on the GF state bottom switch on normal (not mash) top switch on boil, again not mash??

it runs to fast them , like a stripping run

Hmm... Sounds like a case for a power controller & a plug in energy meter

Doesn't it...

Got the new controller connect and can set what power I need, sorted

Did you get the energy plug tooo - makes it easy to 'dial in' the exact setting next time.

guest5234 wrote:Got the new controller connect and can set what power I need, sorted

@ guest...Be interested in your take on it.

Detail would be nice

Robert.

Not sure if this has been addressed elsewhere but worth a bump.

I've just used the Grainfather Connect (non US model) for my first T500 spirit run.

I used the power control feature (which I didn't know it had until a week ago) to run the heads as slow as I could.

Hold down the heat button for many seconds - after a few seconds it switches to "100degC" target temperature, after a few seconds more it switches to a screen showing you the current temperature with the power percentage meter on the right. Press Heat once more to activate the heater (this was confusing) and now you can use the up and down arrows to change the power's duty cycle.

(I assume power controllers work the same, exactly as when mashing etc it pulses the power to the heater by powering on and off the heater every second - so if you're on 10% for example, it will be on for 1/10 of a second, and off for the other 9/10s).

I found for the heads section it needed to be around 80%, where it would drift between stopping entirely and then running a bit quick. The drawback is the precision is only 5% so there was much toggling between 75% and 85% to try to keep things steady. It would be better if you could dial in more precisely (might be possible, will go back to the manual).

I ramped back up once in clear hearts and all seemed well. Blind tasting tomorrow to determine the results, but the Connect controller seems to do the job reasonably well.

ITMA wrote:I assume power controllers work the same, exactly as when mashing etc it pulses the power to the heater by powering on and off the heater every second - so if you're on 10% for example, it will be on for 1/10 of a second, and off for the other 9/10s

Only the cheapest controllers work that way - full power on an ON/OFF cycle.

SCR controllers give you an actual power so if you dial in 50% you get 50% and they usually switch at the mains frequency so it is ON/OFF at 50x per second.

Proportional controllers are the same but they also self regulate on a cycle that typically lasts for 40 to 60 seconds.

PID controllers are more sophisticated and calculate how much power you need to get to your target level and self regulate on a shorter cycle of about 10 seconds.

Interesting thanks Myles. It makes my kitchen lights flicker!

ITMA wrote:Interesting thanks Myles. It makes my kitchen lights flicker!

Most likely that is EMI/RFI. If it becomes too much of a problem you can buy filters to reduce it.

On the SCR controllers the filter is either built in or not needed due to the design of the switching circuit.