Wattage?

[Iain]

Never mind my coat I had better get filling in those emigration forms pmsl


Iain

[Bachus55]

My SmartStill (Mark II) is also of the 320 Watts type and has a regulator knob (don't know the proper word for it, potentiometer ?) to adjust the power.
This sounds nice but made me wonder...
As I understand it lowering the power does slow down the output and creates less smearing, but... when I adjust the power, the fan also throttles down.
This decreases cooling I suppose.
In an older post on this forum I read of someone who let the fan run on full power whilst lowering the heating power.
I would like to know if my assumption is right that lowering the heating power and keeping the fan at full throttle is the way to go?

[chill]

If you put less power in, you will get less steam out and hence need less air to cool it into liquid. The theory is sound, I have no idea of the practice on that particular device. More air would not hurt anything but may not be of any benefit either.

Chuck

[Bachus55]

Hi Chuck,
I think I get your point, but if cooling is at it's max and less steam is coming out, does that not enhance the reflux and thus creating better cuts?
Just my inner ramblings and just trying to learn...

[chill]

It is an AirStill, there is no reflux to speak of. And this is the condenser, not the dephlag, so all you are going to achieve is cooler condensate.

Chuck

[Bachus55]

Hi Chuck,

Another illusion shattered
But thanks for the enlightment on what's going on "under the hood" of my mysterious still...

[John51]

I bought my first airstill just after the 'EZ Still' came out. iirc, it was a couple of German guys that imported water coolers, changed the heater to 300w, closed up the chlorine vent and also upgraded the fan.

Mine had an abs plastic lid, not stainless so I was always dubious about double distilling.

I get the theory about liquids being at the same boil temperature whatever the heating wattage but the nicest spirit I ever made was from an 'amazingstill'. Heat source was an aquarium heater adjusted to give 55'C. Difficult to imagine liquid at 78'C when the heater only goes to 55'C.

Then again, it did take over a week to distil 8L of wash. Brilliant product from just one ruin though.

[chill]

It does not need to be at a boil to distill, boiling just makes it faster. :-) You do need a boil to drive a reflux still.

Chuck

[lawnerd]

Sorry but Capt-Cudellez is absolutely correct.

The boiling point of a liquid is a physical constant. It cannot change. Water at sea level boils at 100oC. If you add more power it changes nothing, water will still boil at 100oC. A mixture of water and ethanol will boil at a lower temp depending on the ethanol percentage. Adding more power does nothing but waste energy. At best a higher wattage unit will come to boil faster. Accordingly, the only benefit of having a lower wattage unit is you will save energy but will take longer to distill.

Ethanol selectively evaporates at the lower boiling temperature because it has a lower vapor pressure.

I have a Ph.D. from Yale University and work as a scientist and absolutely confirm Capt-Cudellez understanding. Those of you making Star Trek jokes are, unfortunately, demonstrating your ignorance of basic physics.

FYI-traditional pot distillation is done over a raging fire. Which corresponds to a lot more than 550W per gallon.

I respect all of your knowledge of distillation and common understanding, but please note that the science underlying this art is well understood and your comments are leading to an unacceptable misunderstanding of what is happening in the still.

Bottom line: using a water distiller to distill EtOH will work with no ill effects.

[Almanac]

Firstly, welcome aboard. New members are always welcome and on our humble little forum you'll find a wealth of knowledge about fermentation and distillation of fine spirits here that comes from long practical experience of members who have a passion for what we do here.

I think the bit you missed was that we're all capable of having a laugh, mostly at ourselves but we all take our hobby seriously. That said, what's known as 'taking the piss' is just a bit of fun.

Capt C is one of our most respected techies but we're all about the end product here and we don't take ourselves too seriously.

AM

[lawnerd]

My bad for not being in on the joke.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I've read so e of your write ups and they are extremely helpful.

I hope to learn a lot from you all and to share in my mistakes and siccesses

[Almanac]

No problems, none of us are total experts here but learning how to keep improving is great fun.

AM

[Easydrinker]

Yes,indeed welcome lawnerd.
After my short time spent on this pastime/passion I cannot claim that we have the science to a "t",but this is a friendly site,where we learn from each others mistakes and successes.

Robert.