• Equipment

  Temperature Control Plate, Onion Head, and Dephlegmator

  Posted by nogoodoutlaw1 on July 27, 2020 at 8:52 pm

  Looking for advice from our more experienced crew. We have a 4 plate bubbler column with a copper onion & dephlegmator. When running I believe we are getting our mash to hot in the boiler. 

  1. What should be the onion temperature above the boiler? Does it even matter? 

  – Why do we ask a dumb question… We are running hot maybe 200’ish in the onion.

  2. What happens if your boiling hot and using you depphelgmator to control the vapor temp before the condenser?

  3. The vapor temp above the dephlegmator is controlled by our water flow in the dephlegmator. Essentially everything is getting knocked down from the Dephlegmator. Is this correct?

  Any advice is much appreciated!

  As the vapor travels up it follows onion, 4 plate bubbler column, dephlegmator, condenser.

   

  steelb replied 4 years, 4 months ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  justandy

  Member

  July 27, 2020 at 9:24 pm

  This sounds snarky and I apologize for that, but the best way to answer these questions is to hire someone who knows how to operate a still. 

• 

  nogoodoutlaw1

  Member

  July 27, 2020 at 10:41 pm

  Thanks for the reply..? Question. Does knocking vapor down from the dephlegmator and keeping head temp within temp compensate for boiler that is higher? Asking because we are going from 90% down to 60% and am trying to ensure we are not getting any negative congners through the cuts.

   

• 

  silk city distillers

  Member

  July 28, 2020 at 11:36 am

  You can’t control the temperature in the kettle, the boiling point is a function of how much alcohol is in the wash, or remaining in the wash.  Turning up the steam only increases the rate of boiling, not the temperature.  Turning down the steam will slow the boil, until it eventually stops.  Either way, wash temperature will slowly increase through the run.  The more alcohol in the wash, the lower the temperature at the start of boiling.  Run long enough and you’ll eventually hit 212f on the kettle, that’s because all the alcohol is gone and you are simply boiling water now.

  Vapor temperature at the head is a function of alcohol concentration in the vapor.  Just like the wash.  Less alcohol, higher the temp, more alcohol, lower the temp. 

  Increasing the flow to your reflux condenser will generate more reflux down to the plates.  The higher the ratio of reflux returned down to the plates vs distillate collected out of the parrot is called the reflux ratio.  The higher the reflux ratio  the higher the alcohol concentration in the vapor, and a lower temperature at the head.

  You can run so fast (high steam input) that you begin to overrun your reflux condenser – because the vapor starts to move faster than the condenser can knock down.  You would see this as lower proof output.

  Typical run times on a still are 4-5 hours for a single pass distillation with plates.

  Temperature in the onion is largely useless at this point, ignore it for now.

• 

  nogoodoutlaw1

  Member

  July 30, 2020 at 1:10 am

  Thank you for this information. A few runs with this set up and now we are G2G. You answer is great. Thanks for teaching!!!

   

• 

  steelb

  Member

  July 31, 2020 at 1:01 am

  So if say 12lbs is full throttle on the steam.  If ran at say 8 or 9 lbs.keep the dephleg  cool until all the plates in the column are in reflux. Then adjusting the temp up in the dephleg until you get enough concentration of alcohol to pass through the dephlag to reach the main condenser,  and you have product flow. Is this correct? If so is there a recommended temp at which to balance this . Let’s say dephleg temp 173 and column temp 185? Then kettle temp will naturally rise through the run.  I’m guessing  the cooler the dephleg the higher the proof in the parrot?  So adjusting dephleg to keep that in line through the run?

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