Newbie Dephlegmator Question

[StonesRyan]

I plan to do my first spirit run tomorrow and am curious how others who have multiple dephlegmators use them.

I have a 20 plate column that is separated, for height restrictions, into three sections: four above the pot, and two additional columns of eight plates each. Each column has a dephlegmator on the top.

My question is, do I open up the dephlegmator above the pot with cold water until the plates stack, then once reflux is achieved do I slow the flow to the pot dephlegmator so that vapor can pass and then do the same on the next two columns, etc?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

[captnKB]

what kind of spirit are you trying to produce?

[rtshfd]

I'm in a similar situation. I have 4 plate Whiskey column and a 16 plate vodka column. I'm running through the 4 plates till flooded then opening up the dephlegmator completely and stacking the vodka column. My problem is that the Whiskey column is drying up as there's zero condensate from the Whiskey deph.

I'm still playing with my setup but I would imagine you'll get to a place where the first/pot column is set very high (200 deg f?), letting everything but the most watery vapors through. The second column would be set lower...maybe 180-185? This would sequester most of the tails laden vapor in this column. Finally I would set the third deph very low (100-130) to fully reflux the last column and stack the heads. Let it sit in this state for 30 mins to equalize and reflux. Then slowly raise the temp on the last column till you get condensate flow and collect the potent heads.

I'm guessing here, and im still new to deph control myself. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. More experienced minds than I will probably chime in.