First Baby Dragon Run Questions

bodhammer

My Baby Dragon plates arrive tomorrow. I have about a gallon of heads and tales from a Sour Mash run. I have 14 gallons of sugar wash that went on to the sour mash yeast cake.

Questions:

1. Should I strip the sugar wash or just throw it all together and try and compress the nasties for a time? 30-60 Minutes?
2. It it OK to just soak the baby dragon parts in vinegar or do I really need to do a cleaning run?
3. I also have heads and tales from a Panela rum run, would that be gross to throw in as well? I'm going to do another rum batch so I could wait with those.

punkin

I'd just give it all a good wash with some soapy water to remove the machine oils and handling grime and then rinse well if it was mine.

urbn

Definitely go though and hand clean the parts. Machine parts like these are machine washed so there is always a chance some machine oils, welding grime, etc. will make it though, especially in hard to reach areas (parrot, surge breaker, etc.). I picked up some parts that were visibly clean and generally clean, but you'll still find gunk in your tri-clamp threads, sanitary connection flanges, etc. etc. CLean everything with at least soap, and use q-tips or like pipe cleaners and really get into the hard to reach spots (the surge breaker was the dirtiest).

jacksonbrown

Not sure on SD policy but I'd definitely get some food safe grease in those threaded parts if your cleaning them that well.
Galling stainless is surprisingly easy. Especially where the nut contacts the the other half of the clamp.

bodhammer

Thanks all. I have some plumbing silicone grease iI will use on threads. Do most people take the stack apart or just flush?

punkin

Most of the SD threads are pretty coarse and galling is not too much of a problem The main exception is the pot to ferrule adapters with the fine threads where it's absolutely recommended to use food safe grease before assy.

bodhammer

I have read the "Plated Column Mode and Hybrid Mode" section of the StillDragon manual here.

I have been able to reflex with my delph alone and with the baby dragon. To get the "pencil lead" stream, my water flow to the delph is almost non-existent and at one point I think it was empty as I had to turn off the condenser to get the delph reflowing. I have a tee on my inlet and a single pump. I'm able to get about 3 US Quarts an hour in all my configs.

My fores started at 90% and once in the heads dropped to 70%. In the hearts I was at 55-60%. On my system, I are recirculating water through a small swamp cooler and my temp rose from 23° to about 42° over the course of the run.

Questions: How much should I be refluxing when taking off of a 4 plate system? Should I run slower in reflux/plate mode and/or get higher ABV? How important is a constant coolant temp during plate operations? Any suggestions for better, but still cheap cooling other than fresh inlet?

As always TIA,

Bod

jacksonbrown

What are you trying to make?

Smaug

@jacksonbrown said:

What are you trying to make?

+1.

On the other hand, there are no hard and fast rules about correctness. I would run that system as many ways as you can think of and keep good notes. See how many pony tricks you can make it do. See how many clowns you can stuff into the clown car so to speak.

Then refer back to your notes and adjust to your running style according to your favorite out come.

You have to learn some of this on your own because you are making for you.

There is a 150 ways (or more) to make a lovely chicken soup.

jacksonbrown

Very roughly, higher RR equals better separation.
Low RR = more flavorful.
There's a lot more going on than just that but it's not a bad concept to start your tests from.
Judging the RR from the take off rate might not be very consistent though.
Dephl outlet temp is slightly better but changes in the power or cooling water supply will effect it.

FullySilenced

@bodhammer i got a baby ... what rate were you taking product off at?

i find that i will run in the 90's all day long.... however it is a small rig... just stay in it's working range...

bodhammer

@FullySilenced said: bodhammer i got a baby ... what rate were you taking product off at?

About 1 quart every 20 minutes.

FullySilenced

Way to fast son!!! its supposed to make about 2 to 3 liters an hour of high test

Slow it down and learn to drive it then you can apply more power and figure out how to maneuver the distilling curves that will come your way

punkin

Try it around 1-1.5litres/quarts an hour.

grim

Nice to see you can really blow through the little rig that hard though.

Smaug

@punkin said: Try it around 1-1.5litres/quarts an hour.

+1.

1.7 max

bodhammer

Thanks all!

FullySilenced

1 to 1.5L is correct I doubled the numbers in the conversion.

CothermanDistilling

Which is still 10x faster than the 2" copper pipe thing I started with.... amazing...

bodhammer

@Smaug said: 1.7 max

Is that at 94% or highest possible proof neutral or for all runs? It also seems like I should strip the neutrals in pot still mode and run in reflux much slower. This run was for neutrals on a very lightly flavored yeast cake from a sour mash.

For flavoreds, I'm making UJSM and Panela rum. I think what I'm hearing is for me to learn to modulate the push or reflux to get the flavors I want and I could possibly skip striping runs.

I know I'm repeating my self, if there is something else I should be reading, please point me to it.

BTW, I saw an 8" still dragon system in operation on a molasses rum yesterday and it was pretty impressive.

Smaug

Hi Bodhammer, you can strip as fast as the product condenser will allow.

My reference was geared toward the more optimal separation associated a clean spirit run and preferable plate behavior.