Yellow Distillate - 2nd Dash 2 run.. wtf?

DistilliTraK

OK, I got the unit up, did the cleaning thing as recommended.. Ran a 5gal simple sugar as a sac run, pretty clean..

Broker her down, rinsed it all well, reassembled. I do not have any packing in the dephlegmator. I decided to run two 5 gal SF's through and set up to go that...

All looked like it was going well. I think I may hit it too hard with the warm up - 16a.. but the second I saw drops(Actually, a pretty good flow), I dropped it to around 7.1a.. Have my water flows both on high, and adjusted further to about 6.6a and it reached equilibrium. OK, I left it for about 45m.

My cooling system feeds both the Dash and the PS II HC, and yes, it was tooling along on a spirit run at the time, contributing it's heat as well, balanced at 179f, with EtOH take off at 71f in the 90-80% range.

I closed the dephlem a bit and waited.. Nothing....A little more. still nothing. .Took a visual on the top SG, saw there was very little liquid coming back down, and then saw vapor coming out of the bottom of the condenser eGADS...and then I knew why.. stupid brand new Pond Pump was taking heat thermals and shutting down during the 45 minute interval. The coolant was very warm, upper 48's C .

Since I wasn't sure I could rely on that pump to continue w/o enough cooling, I just shut it all down till I could refreeze my ice containers. I had close to 35 gals of coolant water in that can, and two 2.5 gal Ice blocks when I started. Water temp was 58f when I started the run on the PS II and about 68f when I fired up the Dash.

Obviously,

1. I misjudged how much heat the Dash throws during the compression stage, and I need a dedicated cooling setup for it as well... .. No problem, I like building stuff any how.

2. This ain't no Pot still

The take off I got before shutdown has a yellow tinge, and was hot to the palate.

Did I scorch the batch, or will it clear up when I have my cooling in order and re-run?

I was following the operations guide, and it stated it was OK to turn up the heat for warm up, and I do the same with my gas fired PS II - when I see drops, I cut it way back to just steerage (small blue dots of flame) on the Blichmann Burner. From what I had read in the operations guide, this seemed to be exactly the same, just that I am going to let the dephleg do the compression stage for a period of time...

Chalmer

All looked like it was going well. I think I may hit it too hard with the warm up -

Is that possible to have too much heat at warm up?

punkin

It won't produce coloured distillate. Worst you could get would be burnt tasting clear distllate.

RedDoorDistillery

I always get a yellow tinged in the 1st distillate as I pull off the 1st of the compressed heads/fores. It is only in the very 1st part and goes away very quickly and runs clear well before I am gone pulling off the heads.

DistilliTraK

Thanks folks, I thought I'd shot two ferments to hell and back.

I'm convinced I am going back for a bigger cooling tank now. I can get 338 gal palletized liquid tanks pretty cheap and they have a 6" port entry on the top, so I can pull and return water from a large cooling res, HWR line hooked to a swamp cooler. I bet that'll handle the heat :)

Moonshine

Reminds me on that Moonshiner's episode in which Josh & Bill had that blue colored strawberry brandy coming out of the still and nobody could explain why it was blue...

Lloyd

Just glad to hear that someone hadn't peed in your boiler.

DistilliTraK

@Moonshine - I musta missed that 'un....

@Lloyd _ fek, if spiders can pee that much...wait, we are talking about Texas spiders... I say that 'cause I just had the pest guys come last Thursday and treat the buildin' and I'll be damned, there was a spider tooling across the floor of the plant last night... I am out in the rural area where the wildlife rules more than the people.

Umm.. the spider said fores are not drinkable..even two drops ;) Now, I'll have some damn environmental group after me...

DistilliTraK

@RedDoorDistillery had it spot on - It cleared before I got into the heads. Overall it ran exceptionally well. I may not use as cold of coolant in the future, it was a challenge getting it to start after the hour of compression. I ended up closing the dephlegmator valve fully and then I added back some flow once I got through the some flow. Kept a pencil lead stream the rest of the run . Magnificent taste in the hearts...

RedDoorDistillery

Bingo. It is really only in the very first bit that is collected. But it will taint the color of everything you collect in the 1st container. I let all my Fores and Heads go into 1 collection container so it all has this yellow tint. But the moment I switch to hearts with a new bucket it is all clear.

I am running a 250 gallon wash... And it really only has this yellow tint in the first 100ml collected. But it does not take much to tint gallons.

I think it is from some part of the fores but there is such a small amount that is goes away very quick. I had the same issue in my all copper 2" column on a 15 gallon keg boiler. But it was only about the first 10ml collected.

DistilliTraK

Yes, that's why I posted the first several containers to show the difference..

My "dumb ass country boy" logic thinks it's due to the compression?

I never saw this when I did reflux runs with the Brewhaus PSIIC unit in my early times.

So I was postulating that by holding it at balance for an hour before takeoff, that tint must be some molecular combination that occurs in the compression phase. I'm prolly dead wrong, but I'm always wanting to know the reason for stuff...

One thing is for damn sure... I am flat out in love with that Dash. It runs so damn well. I feel like I got a Mil-Spec Humvee to go along with my Impala (BH PS IIC) :)

I have a very special fire (red) ant mound that will be the recipient of the tinted container.. It's so entertaining to "treat" a mound, wait thirty seconds and then drop a lit blue tip match onto it... whosh - In Texas, we try to get them before they get large enough to carry off a canine or a small child.. ;)

Thanks all.. Back to researching, and, tinkerin...

jbierling

Immersed electric elements?

DistilliTraK

yes, by several inches. This was a 10 gallon wash.

jbierling

How many watts per element?

My unproven theory? Yellow=burning=smoke. Foreshots clean out the smoke which is where the color comes from, but the off taste remains even if very subtle.

DistilliTraK

Single element, 5500W on a 30 Amp feed - 13 gal stainless milk jug can from SD.. That element is like 2:" off the bottom in the one I have. Takes about 3-4 gallons to cover nicely.

jbierling

I'd try running that 5500w on 120v and use 1300w instead. Heat up time will suffer but I'd bet yellow would disappear.

CothermanDistilling

which is the same as setting a DIY controller to 25%....

DistilliTraK

When I reran with a new pump, and ice jug cooling, I used 75% power on my controller for heat up versus on the first run, I juked it up to 100%. During reflux and take off it was about 20% (6.9a-7.2a). I never adjusted the power setting and used dephl flow to control the takeoff.

From that wash I got 11 pints (3/4 full) before it went to tails at about 45 observed ABV when I shut it down. It's pretty obvious as the ABV drops pretty quickly from hearts to tails as noted in the operations guide.