newbie advice required for 800w distiller

[johnykappa]

hi guys,

done my 1st distillation

sugar wash 6x1kg granulated with triple distilled turbo yeast, carbon and turbo clear.
Sugar never fully disolved so i added another litre of water to make a 26litre wash to dissolve the sugar. finishing grav was .996 so not a great fermentation

I had a water distiller handy so decided to use it but its probably too powerful at 800watts but wanted to give it a whirl anyway...

done stripping run and collected
250ml fores + 750ml + approx 600ml =1.6L

i liked chills appraoch so gave it a go.... heres his info

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Re: Air Still and cuts
Postby chill » Thu May 31, 2012 6:35 pm

I've slightly modified how I do this.
1. Discard 50ml as fores
2. Collect 250ml and keep for heads run
3. Collect 3x100ml as "pre-hearts"
4. Collect 500ml as hearts
5. Collect 5-7x100ml as "post-hearts"

I often find that I can detect heads in the first 100-200ml pre-hearts after the usual 250ml. If I do, those jars go in the heads jar, if not into the hearts jug.

Usually the first couple of post-hearts also go in the hearts jug and the rest into the tails collection.

Posts: 1576
Joined: Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:46 am
Location: We(s)t Coast of Canada
Stills: Easy Still
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so i embarked on my spirit run
collected 50ml clear liquid as fores nail varnish plenty of acetone alcometer reading of 77%
collected 250ml clear liquid as heads very strong smelling, acetone nail varnish like alcometer reads 72%
collected 100ml clear liquid as pre heads stronger vodka smell alcometer reads 57% - has a kick burns the mouth like vodka but like bought vodka
collected 100ml cloudy liquid as pre heads smells like weak vodka alcometer 30% - tastes like vodka but slightly sweet
collected 100ml cloudier liquid as pre heads sweet corn like smell alcometer shows 10% -tastes sweet unlike vodka
collected 500ml clear liquid as hearts sweet corn like smell alcometer shows .5%!!! beer meter sinks to .996 the finishing gravity
collected 200ml clear liquid then hearts as tails very weak smelling, sweet again 0%

mixed all the pre heads together and ended up with 300mls of 33% ok smelling vodka - tastes like vodka still with a corn taste and cloudy

now id love some advice...

1. why are the so called pre heads cloudy when the fores,heads & hearts crystal clear?

2. Should i be making different types of cuts with a machine this powerful? like ditch 50ml fores and reduce heads to 150ml/200ml

3. why did i not end up with 700mls of 60% to dilute? (machine i guess)

4. Is there a recommended better receipe for vodka/gin/rum? ive read since i bought the triple distilled yeast that its not very good and a 13% wash is not a good idea.

5. anyone have any success with an 800w water distiller?

Thanks in advance and apologies if im asking a repeat question! johny

[Easydrinker]

Welcome to you indeed, but I am struggling with your numbers here.

You do not state the volume of charge of your still.

You may well be in need of a power controller for your still, well done, you seem to have figured that.
Although I have to admit that I do not know the water distiller that you refer to.

Trying to help here,

Robert.

[johnykappa]

Hi Robert thanks for the welcome & reply

it's a eco water distiller, not really made for moonshine @ 800watts.

also should I have maybe collected all pre hearts and hearts I 100ml batches the 4th 400ml may have been stronger than collecting 500ml hearts at 10%

[Easydrinker]

I am still struggling!
The volume of your beastie may help me,or others.
What is it's capacity?

Robert.

[chill]

Welcome! Like Robert, I too am struggling to make sense of your numbers. You used 6Kg of sugar in a 26L wash and ended up with a FG of 0.996. That should have resulted in quite a lot of alcohol. But then for stripping you report "250ml fores + 750ml + approx 600ml =1.6L" was that for the whole 26L? I don't worry about fores when stripping. I would expect that 26L to have stripped down to about 8L @ roughly 40%. At this point, I am throughly confused.

Your spirit run sounds like you had very little alcohol in the still. Fores should be well above 80%, I have never measured them. As they are mostly not ethanol the alchometer may give a false reading. Heads, pre-heads, and the start of hearts should be well above 80%. 57% is the start of tails, give or take, and the cloudiness you noted is from the fusel oils / lower alcohols that come out in the tails.

I don't know what to make of these results. One thought that occurred to me is that water distillers have a choline vent, and your still may have vented most of the ethanol. With an ignition source nearby that could be quite dangerous. Here are some links that are worth reading related to this:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 60&t=17245
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=13536
It is also possible that with the high wattage and lower fan speeds of water distiller, that the ethanol was not condensing and again was vented to the room as gas.

Chuck aka chill

[johnykappa]

hi chill! again sorry for being a complete newbie!!! I think I spotted with your advice what went wrong. .
I ran 4l from the 26l through and kept 1.6l I considered that's stripping run (newb taught)

so I distilled the 1.6l and expected to get 700ml of vodka. I know realise I need 4 litres of a stripping run..... thanks

OK I now now heads,pre heads & hearts should be 80% which I can watch for in the next round! I'll do a stripping run of the remaining 22litres, then do 4l runs and see how I go! I'll watch for cloudyness and consider it tails!

so when I have enough stripped to do a second run I'll post results, if it's still low% it's either not working or too dangerous and I'll look at another still!

thanks a million gents

[chill]

Ah! Now that makes sense! The purpose of the stripping runs is to quickly get rid of most of the water in the washes and some of the less pleasant tastes. This lets you concentrate on a spirit run of a higher, cleaner ABV load in the still.

Good luck on your next runs. Let us know how you get on.

[johnykappa]

will do chill thanks, I reakon I'll do 3 stripping runs to get 4l then try a spirit run!

[Easydrinker]

johnykappa, best of luck with that, let us know how it goes.

chill, excellent responses by yourself, award yourself a gold star!
You have just saved me some tapping time, and probably done a better job of responding than I would have.

Robert.

[johnykappa]

hey guys, so I done 3 strip runs to get 4.5l to do a real run this time! my distiller has a max of 3.5l if it matters????

I ditched the 1st 100mls as fores(extra 50ml to be safe)

collected the next 200ml in a heads jar
collected 3 by 100ml as pre hearts all very clear...
1st 76%
2nd 75%
3rd 73%

collected next 500ml as hearts again clear and smelled good. 62% may have got some post hearts in this as next 100ml was cloudy....

collected the next 100ml as post hearts at 32% started getting cloudy here so stopped...

my measurements appear a bit off coz I added the 3rd pre hearts 100ml to the hearts 500ml and the slightly cloudy post hearts 100ml to give me 700ml... but my jug read 800ml... I took a reading after a stir and it's 57% which was close to the target, just have to work out how much to dilute now to get 35-40%. oh and carbon filter also....

I put the 1st&2nd pre hearts in the heads run jar.

does this sound right to the experience distillers? does that sound like the eco water is releasing vapour into the air??

the 800watt beast seems to have advantages in that it can do a stripping run taking the first 1.5l of a 3.5l batch in 1hr 20minutes.


thanks for all your help guys it's really appreciated oh and big thanks for the method chill!!! johny

[chill]

What was the ABV of the strip that you put into the still. The ABV and volume numbers of what you are getting out still seem really low to me. So either your strip was too low of an ABV, or your still is venting alcohol.

I will guess, based on "the 800watt beast seems to have advantages in that it can do a stripping run taking the first 1.5l of a 3.5l batch in 1hr 20minutes" that the ABV of the stripped run was low. I usually take a maximum of 1.3L from a 4L batch, so I hint you were running yours too long and getting a very diluted strip. But that is just a guess. My will is 325W and it takes 4:15 to get 1.3L from a 4L batch.

I am far from an expert on still design, but 800W of power into a 3.5L charge seems like you will have a "runaway" still -- it will be going so fast that it will be hard to get good separation of the heads, hearts, and tails. If it is not venting alcohol that could be fantastic for stripping, but might want to consider a power controller for your spirit runs where quality is king. Search this forum for "power controller"

Chuck

[johnykappa]

Hi chuck thanks for the great advice!

I actually didn't even measure the strip beforehand. will do on the next for sure!!! The diluted Batch sounds right to me alright but I wanted to follow the guide as close as possible hence the 1.5l strip. I guess a 1.5l from 3.5l wash would benefit from a smaller strip

I know this still isn't ideal for product runs it was just something I came accross so kicked off a little life project really. I'd read about the difficulties with separation already so great tip on the power controller!

what do you aim for ercentage wise and size wise from your alcohol runs?

how can I tell when to stop collecting from my strip runs?

does the first 100 pre hearts sound low @76%? that would deffo indicate venting I suppose..

thanks again for all the help!!!

[johnykappa]

just re-read the previous advice that pre hearts & hearts should be above 80%, wonder if a 1.3l strip would help that or maybe it is just the still. with a wash of 14% or so what should be the percentage of a striped run?

[hampk]

Ok, here's my tuppence on this one.

800W is going to boil your wash very rapidly - most of us AirStillers have units that run around 300W. You need to get yourself some sort of power controller to slow it down a bit I think.

Second, an AirStill/SmartStill/whatever you've got (!) is a pot still, and a compromised pot still at that. You are absolutely not going to be able to distinguish heads, hearts and tails by ABV. This is because it's the nature of a pot that what you get out is always going to be a combination of all elements of what's in it (including water!) - it's called smearing. An AirStill smears in spades.

The only way you are going to get decent results is to forget ABV - it's not going to help you other than to know when to stop collecting. Slow down a bit!

Get yourself a load of jamjars or something similar.

Load your still with as much low wines at around 30% ABV as it'll take. Warm it up. Slowly

Chuck the first 50mls or so - that's the stuff that smells like nail polish remover.

Then collect in 100ml volumes until your take drops to around 35% to 40% ABV. Some of this will stink too.

Turn the still off!

Leave your jars overnight to breathe, covered with a tea towel or something similar.

Now follow the cuts guide that you can find on here somewhere - been a long day and I can't remember where it is. Taste, smell, etc. Blend what you want, recycle what you don't. Basically if it smells and tastes ok, chuck it in, if it reminds you of pear drops or wet dog, it's out. Check the AirStill best practice guide as well - that document is worth it's weight in platinum.

Things will then start to make sense eventually

Cheers

Hampk

[Mash]

Good call.. Turn it down.

Here is a link

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3904&p=32062&hilit=Power+controller#p32062