StillSmart

As I've only been doing small 30lt ferments recently - the T500 boiler has been back on stripping duty.
Got a chance this afternoon to rinse out the new boiler with a cleaning product got a few burned flakes of weld out - boiled up some water and tasted the output.

Output tastes okay - not like pure pure water - but not got any hint of a "bad" taste - will be fine to start using and will only improve with a couple of washes through it.
When doing the cleaning run the other week I went into auto pilot and tasted the output off the condenser - I was nearly sick
This is much better.

Stripper got it's first proper run today. Boiler charged with 40L molasses beer

- 1 hour 20 mins warm up
- First 5L was done in 45mins
- finished at 15% after 2 hours dead and 12L of low wines collected.

its still a bit warm so reading have been estimated as reading on the high side
5L - around 60%
5L - 40-45%
2L - 20%

I haven't Insulated the boiler yet as I have another 70L of the same beer to strip - so I wanted a baseline to see what difference the insulation makes.

12 Litres in two hours - now we know why you upgraded from an Airstill.

Did you get a new controller or were you running at 3kw?

What do you intend to do with the 30 Litres of Low Wines when you have finished the other batches? (I really wish I had decisions like that to make)

Never had an air still Brian - it's on a par with my old stripper - maybe a tad faster, the element draws a rock solid 2962w according to my meter, where as the last element was 2850ish.

Not running any controller as blew my phase angle controller the other week - I'm currently building a battery powered PWM-SSR to replace it.

I will put 25L low wines plus 3L wash plus 2L of aged dunder and a few tins of treacle, I'll run it off on the VM running a quite a bit faster that I would do neutral at - maybe 2- 2.5L/h for hearts.

I'll age it for a nice light rum, and keep a bottle or 2 as white for mojitos.

Sorry about the confusion - too much wine with the yorkshire puddings.

OK I give up - a battery powered PWM-SSR? - I have just got my head around Triacs.

I tried to order a controller from China but couldn't because of the Chinese New Year holidays. In the meantime I have been reading up on triacs but I can't see anywhere to stick a battery in it, what else should I be reading about?

Th SSR is a solid state relay, using this PCB http://uk.farnell.com/texas-instruments/msp-exp430g2/kit-dev-msp430-launchpad/dp/1853793?Ntt=texas+launch+pad I'll program it up to switch the power to the relay on and off around 280 times per second, by changing length of the on pulse compared to the off pulse you adjust how much power the element draws.

PWM = pulse wave modulation.

Yes you can do this with a few capacitors, resistors and a diode all at 240v, but where is the fun in that.

aidanmac wrote:It will be interesting to see the difference insulation of the boiler makes. What are you planning to use to insulate it?

I missed your post Adian, had been in aboot the grenache I've just insulated it this evening, I used a double layer of the silver bubble wrap sheeting - as I had enough left.
2 layers top bottom and sides, then covered in black electrical insulting tape - looks quite mean - I like it.

Click on the thumbs to get the full size image





BTW - I only ran with 40L as molasses beer is a foamy bastard and prone to puking, so you need the head space.
When I run a nice clear neutral wash I'll happily charge with 46Lts a time.

aidanmac wrote:How'd you get her to agree to have the still in the house.

I have a large cutting mat in the study that I was using to cut the circles for the top and bottom - its on its way back out to the garage, the troosers was also out playing badminton

aidanmac wrote:Why you have a digi thermo half way up the column

The thermometer in a VM is really only for the detection of tails, by placing the thermo down the column when I creep above the 0.2oC range where the hearts are, I shut the valve down a bit, collect another 250mls or so and shut down - preventing any tails stinking up the condenser.
It's more of an early warning system before the tails reach the top of the column, or if you run too fast and destabilise the column.

On the pot I collect tails as its a nice light transition and these can be recycled - when running the VM the tails are so concentrated, in a few short minutes the temp will quickly sky rocket, the AVB will plummet and the place will stink strongly of spearmint tailsy yukiness - So I just leave them in the boiler - I do need to rinse them out of the column when I'm done, so it doesn't stink the place up when being stored.

The Stealth Still – It’s looking really cool. Is this a statement cocking a snoop at the shiny copper establishment or is it the fact that you only had black tape?

Does the probe on your mid column thermo-well have a drip shield or is it just pushed into the packing?

I thought I would let you know that I have just wasted 24 hours of my life researching programmable solid state relays and power wave modulation, I did try but nothing sunk in – I will stick to Structural Engineering I understand Girders. If I ask you again how your power controller works please do not tell me.

YHB wrote: Is this a statement cocking a snoop at the shiny copper establishment or is it the fact that you only had black tape?

The tape was bought specially for redoing the column - I got rid of the cable tie look I had previously, the boiler was an after thought, certainly no snoop cocking here
I also like black as is doesn't look like a big shiny thing that would grab someones attention if they caught a sneaky peek at it in the corner of a dark garage.

I do have a 30gal copper tank in the garage right now which will hopefully survive my metal butchery and become a big rum still sometime in the spring - not sure if it will be shiny or not but rum needs the copper, I forget about 1 in every 3 strips to add the copper bits to the boiler and in the strip head, and it come off with a real sulfur pong.

Its probably going to be 2 weekends before I get a chance to strip the rest of the run - life stuff getting in the way - its cold enough just now I'm not worried about the wash sitting there for that length of time.

Well got a chance to strip another 40L of molasses wash - got up to temp in 1 hour 5 mins - so a good 15mins off the heat up time.

Can't give accurate data on take off speeds, as I recently changed the connections on my condenser to pneumatic style quick connect fittings - looks the biz - but managed to plumb the condenser round the wrong way.

half an hour of stop/start, hot distillate and steam before I clicked what was wrong - I've now colour coded the fittings. the rest of the run seemed to be in line with the un-insulated run.
I finished covering the keg to the very top and bottom in the black tape - its looking pretty cool now, had ran out hence the wonky looking finish in my earlier pics.

Been busy building a new controller, decided to go another way - built a 240ac-12dc transformer \regulator - and just finishing a 555 timer circuit which will be a PWM controller - just waiting on the SSR from china and I'm good to go, if this works well, then you can buy the individual parts pre made for sub £30. would just need an enclosure to put them in.
My build is dearer, but I'm having fun doing it. I'll post a how to for both the pre built components and the home build sometime in the future - if all goes well that is.

Capt'n

Co-incidence.

I too am waiting for bits to arrive from China to build a power controller.

8 pounds with free shipping for a 25Amp SSR it's no wonder the British shops cannot compete. I ordered the parts one night got up the next morning to find an e-mail saying the parts had been shipped, very impressive.

I ordered SSR, Heat Sink, V & A Meters, Potentiometer, a couple of 12v Fans, Emergency Stop Button for 31 Pounds including the "free" (nothing is free) delivery, the company is quoting up to 2 weeks for delivery, If I wanted delivery in 48 hours it was an extra 20+ pounds.

I am building a box with 240 Volt, 0-240 Volt and 12 Volt DC outputs,with variable speed control to a couple of cooling fans all of which I am confident about building. However I would like to add some form of relay that I can connect to a pressure switch in the boiler. This last bit I am not so confident about, can any one point me in the right direction?

YHB wrote:I would like to add some form of relay that I can connect to a pressure switch in the boiler.

I would look for a SPDT timer relay, you could configure it so when the pressure switch activates it cuts the power to the boiler, and powers a buzzer or lamp. I suggested a timer relay so this can be set for a minimum of say 30 secs so it doesn't pulse on and off (maybe, not even sure that would happen is there was a blockage)

I was looking at adjustable pressure switches from GEMS - they look to have some in lots of low pressure ranges, the PS41 range caught my eye. They do stainless and EPDM diaphragm options too.

It all sounds very logical when you say it. Thanks for the advice.

Lots of relays in the type that you describe from the same place that I ordered my other bits from and many more from other similar suppliers in HK/PRC - all about a tenner. But they all appear to be limited to 5Amps.

The only ones that I have tracked down in the 10A/15A range are 10 times the cost from non-Chinese speaking countries. I am sure that I will find what I need, but have run out of time tonight.

But before I go, did your SPP arrive?

Thanks again.

not yet - hopefully in the next week. I paid extra 30 zlotys for the "express" shipment