StillSmart

I have been double distilling since half way through my first wash.

This means I have been stripping my wash 6 x 4hrs25mins per wash.

I had to make sure I would be in, to flick that switch, until I had a brain wave (fart?).

A digital plug timer with countdown function.



Mine was about £5 at B&Q.

Its a god send. I can now press a button and leave it. After 4hrs25mins my 1500mls has been collected, and the timer switches the still off. So I can put it on at night, when I leave for work etc. It means my strip run now takes me two days, where once it took me a week.

I always clear my wash up, and use ceramic beads/ distillers conditioning, so am not to worried about over boiling. I also use a collecting vessel large enough to hold more than 4 litres if the worst come to the worst the still would collect until the cut off kicked in.

Am I a genius, or a fire risk? You decide!

I used to do similar, it's true that you should never leave a still unattended... but you have to evaluate your own risks and make choices. For me, I had a circuit breaker in place, the still was placed into a large plastic container which meant that if it did overboil (unlikely) it would spill the liquid into the container rather than on the floor or near any electrical sockets. I didn't go so far as to leave the house or go to bed, but I was happy to put it on and leave it going while I was round and about the house.

A few timers if anyone is interested:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Timer ... 2a02394e72

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_nos ... er&x=0&y=0

Hi MOZR,

I am doing exactly the same with my SmartStill, the striprun does not need much attention (no cuts) so I clear the wash, few drops of conditioner and the ceramic beads, timer on 4.5 hours and off I go! I also let it run at night. (What I daredevil I am )
Done it on 2 x 6 stripruns, again next week, no sweat.
(Although putting the still in a container in case of overboiling might be not a bad idea)

My problem has not been with overboiling, but forgetting to put the container under the spout! I think I am finally trained now.

Chuck

As I'm used to low power runs, I've started doing 160w strip runs, no spirit run as yet.

At 160w it takes about 10 hours to get 1350ml of strip. lol

Hmm, as we IMHO make no cuts with the striprun, what's the point in doing a striprun at 160W
I do the spiritrun at 200W though, I'm still a bit too impatient to run it slower

Strips are usually done as fast as the equipment can knock down the vapour. You are just concentrating the ethanol and removing some of the less desirable tastes. I see no value in a slow strip.

Chuck

+1 on what chuck said, on the strip where everything is collected to be rerun, there is no benefit to running slow.
I put 3Kw into my strip, if I had 5Kw then I use that.

Well said Capt. I use 3500 on my strip runs and I agree if I could run it faster I would.
Regards
RM

I do room temp ferments, (nicer product) but even after 6 weeks the wash isn't clear, so I'm worried about puking. Would probably need 20 fermenters to leave them until clear.

I've been doing low power single runs for so long it's second nature to me now, no worries at all about leaving it unattended on a timer but I'll try a couple of full power strip runs and see what difference there is when given a low power spirit run.

John51,
can you or anyone expand on your comments about the wash making you sick and any basics on the conditioner/butter that I see people talking about? I'm on day four of my first (very first ever!) 2 gallon all bran wash for my 1 gallon air distiller. I'm curious to know if you can just simply siphon off the clear stuff then pour it through some sort of rough filter to limit the bits and pieces. Thanks for any thoughts.

John, disregard my rookie question on puking:) I get it - let me know any tips for the first run. I gotta lot to learn.