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Brand new still and the plates won't stay full...


mikeg

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So, we are doing our very first spirit run on the new still. It's been a long road but we're finally here! And now I'm stumped..

We charged our 250 gallon Vendome whiskey still with 80 gallons of 45% abv stripped beer. We let in the steam so she could warm up slowly, ~3 psi in the kettle. The distillate came over pretty high ~89. Playing around with it to get a feel for the power input, distillate flows, distillate abvs and all that I finally looked inside the column and saw that the plates had barely any liquid on them. After double checking that the ball valves were closed, i tried cranking up the power but even at almost 1/2 gal/min (1.7 l/min) of distillate flow we couldn't get them full...

So, i turned off the still, connected up the deflagmator (refluxer), and started cooling the top of the still. Then we turned the steam back on and waited. Finally the plates filled and all the bubbling looked great. After a while we turned off the cooling at the top of the still and ran the still at about 0.4 gal/min (1.5 l/min) . All the bubble plates were working but a while later I went up there to take a look again and noticed that all of them were empty again..

Now I'm running it with cooling at the top of the still just to keep them full... I shouldn't have to do that. Seems like I'm not getting enough reflux in the column top to keep the plates full..

What am I doing wrong here? Am I just not running it fast and hard enough to keep them full? Do I need to really crank up the power? Do I have to run with the defl running all the time? What am I missing?

Thanks for any and all input.

Oh, and btw the hearts taste great! I just want to make sure we're getting the full efficiency from the plates on the still. I'll probably pour the run back in and do it all again tomorrow.

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Without the dephlegmator provided cooling at the column top you're essentially running a simple pot still. It's the dephlegmator that makes the system work and it will need to be run in order to keep the plates loaded. Otherwise there is no liquid returning down the column.

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Awesome, thanks for the response!

I was thinking that was the case. Although, I was guessing that maybe if I ran it harder, I would get more reflux.. more going up, more heat, more ambient cooling from the walls, more reflux, and so possibly the plate would fill. But it sounds like I won't be able to achieve enough reflux without the dephlegmator running. Interesting...

Thanks again.

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My two cents would be if you ran it harder you would get less reflux. Your basically blasting a ton of heat up it and there is no reflux because you have your column so hot there is nothing to cause cooling.

If you ran it cooler (lots cooler) the top of your column would never come to fully heat and would cool the vapor and give you some reflux. Not that i am saying to so this at all but cooler i think would cause more "ambient" reflux

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Ditto to what bluestone said, the dephleg is needed to fill the plates. It's not necessary to load the plates though, especially on a spirit run if you are already getting the abv you desire. Whiskey needs to be distilled under 160 proof. We have a 4 plate german brandy still, and on spirit runs the charge needs to be diluted to about 22% ABV and the dephelg not engaged until midway through the run to keep the proof low enough.

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Lots of good thoughts here!

For full disclosure, I've been doing recipe development on a 5 gal, 2" still that I welded together to have 4 plates & defleg to model the big still as closely as possible (I know the recipe will change from still to still a ton but I still want to get the best handle on it as possible). I didn't put sight glass ports on the little still and I haven't been using the defleg so I guess I probably haven't been really using the plates there either. News to me!

And to be clear, this whiskey spirit run was entirely just an experiment to get to know the new still. So, basically I messed with the power and cooling setting for the whole run to watch what it would do. But I did do the second half of the run with the defleg running just enough to keep the plates full and I was able to get below 80% for the whiskey... But maybe it wouldn't if it was the first half of the run.

I'm with Whisykeytabog, running it harder will mean less reflux since you will be driving the alcohol out at a faster rate.

If you are getting the proof you want, why use the plates?

I was thinking that I'd want to use the plates for efficiency reasons... meaning, with plates running I could run this still harder & faster and produce that much more spirit in less time. But from the comments here, maybe I should rethink using the plates at all for spirit runs.

Ditto to what bluestone said, the dephleg is needed to fill the plates. It's not necessary to load the plates though, especially on a spirit run if you are already getting the abv you desire. Whiskey needs to be distilled under 160 proof. We have a 4 plate german brandy still, and on spirit runs the charge needs to be diluted to about 22% ABV and the dephelg not engaged until midway through the run to keep the proof low enough.

Why dilute to 22%, why not run without plates and run the still harder to get the abv down throughout the run? Are you worried about the flavor imparted by heating up charge too much? Maybe running it that fast would make the transitions too fast?

So, if I can get the proof I want as the heads first come over, then why would I ever use the plates? From the discussion here, it sounds like there's only one time: when I am running through the hearts and want to bring it back up to the middle of the hearts. Is that right? Are there other times? Do you use them on stripping runs by running super hard with minimal cooling just to keep the plates full? And, yeah, I realize that we all run our stills & recipes different from each other. Just trying to get a feel for what people are doing.

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RE "turning plates off" - The mechanism by which the plates function is that the vapor must bubble through the condensed liquid. The control or engagement of the plate is limited to setting the fluid depth (from total drain to about an inch depth), with more fluid depth yielding more rectification and a higher proof, less flavorful spirit. If the dephleg is not running, after the initial heat-up no fluid collects on the plates regardless of the settings of fluid height as there is nothing to condense the vapor back to liquid. So when the dephleg is off, the plates are as far off as they can be (obviously they are still in the column, and will always provide some form of obstruction to the vapor).

On our still, even with the heat on full if you put in a charge that is too strong, you won't get hearts weak enough to meet 160.

As to your question "why would i ever use the plates" - The 4 plate/hybrid still isn't designed to do stripping & spirit runs, it's designed to produce single-distillation hearts from 5% abv fruit mash where you need the rectification the plates & dephelg provide.

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Do I have to run with the defl running all the time? What am I missing?

Without the top condenser running you will not get enough reflux to fill the plates.

So, if I can get the proof I want as the heads first come over, then why would I ever use the plates? From the discussion here, it sounds like there's only one time: when I am running through the hearts and want to bring it back up to the middle of the hearts. Is that right? Are there other times? Do you use them on stripping runs by running super hard with minimal cooling just to keep the plates full? And, yeah, I realize that we all run our stills & recipes different from each other. Just trying to get a feel for what people are doing.

Just cause you have them does not mean you have to use them. I built/run a still that has 4 plates and a dephlag and ended up with a process I like that does not fully utilize the plates.

And yeah, you might want to use your plates/top condenser to push back the start of tails collection and maximize your hearts. With no plates your collected distillate is basically coming over at the kettle boil temp, but with plates you are getting collected vapors that are a lower temp than the kettle boil tempt.

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The components which give the flavor (particularly the higher alcohols) tend to be less volatile in a high strength spirit than in water. As you get higher ethanol concentrations as you go up the column these flavor components are "squeezed" downwards.

This is why manufacturers of neutral spirit try to get the top strength as close to the azeotrope as possible. It doesn't make sense to distill to such a high strength if you are going to dilute back to 80 Proof anyway, except that it helps greatly in removing the flavors and smells. The problem experienced in neutral spirit columns is that at the top of the column the flavors are pushed downwards, while at the bottom of the column (which will be close to pure water in a continuous column) the flavors become volatile and are pushed up the column and the flavors become trapped. A continuous neutral spirit column has several bleed-off points in the lower half of the column to get these trapped components out, or they would evetually build up to the point where they would break out into the product.

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