My 4" Crystal Dragon

punkin

Modular is pretty good eh Sadi? You are King of Modular. \m/

Sadi

Definately mate, it adds a lot to our hobby. :-bd

Sadi

I did a neutral strip with three plates today.

I was able to get 91% abv from a 10% wash. You can see the plates are fully loaded and it was fun to watch.

A perf plate under a bubble plate works nicely. I did not reduce the flow at the bigbaby dephlag throughout the run and was using minimal power.

Induction heating is interesting. I have not been able to get a measuring device yet, but I am guessing I was using less than 1000W.

My induction stove has two inputs on it. Heat (1 to 10) and Temp (60 to 240 with 20 increments). it says its max power is 2000 W. When turned on, its default is heat 5 and temp 120. I am assuming this translates to 1000 W.

I was running at heat 3 and Temp 100. Any ideas how much power I was using?

I came to this point while experimenting with it. I saw that the flow rate at the parrot does not change much even I use heat 10 and temp 240. I kind of settled at heat 3 and temp 120. If I am using less than 1000W that would be something, cause depending on the abv of the wash I usually get more than 2.5L/h.

Cheers.

Sadi

I did a sprit run of apple low wines at 27% abv with one perforated plate.

I started with the valve at the baby dephlag full open, producing a lot of reflux, it took a while to load the plate for it to function properly with a dripping output and the heads were out of the way.

When hearts started, I closed the valve at the dephlag. The plate drained and I was actually running a pot still to collect hearts. The abv started at high 70's going down gradually.

The parrot takes about 180-190ml to fill with the alcometer in it and it took about 3 mins. That translates into something close to 3.7lt/h output. Which went down gradually, but it was nice considering that I don't have much power.

When close to tails,

I opened the valve, forcing some reflux, loaded the plate and took a couple of 150ml tails incase I would like to blend them in when cutting.

Once more I closed the valve at the dephlag and finished off.

It was interesting to be able to run the still in alternative modes. Using the plate when I want and without using the plate for more flavour like a pot still.

Does that count as modularity as well? :)

Cheers.

Moonshine

@Sadi said: Does that count as modularity as well? :)

Sounds like an extraordinary Crystal Perf Pot Still Reflux Hybrid to me. :-bd

FullySilenced

Of course your a glass man from the start Sadi.... but isn't it nice to actually see when things start to happen in your column... and how they change with the smallest of adjustments...

Keep Up The Good Work!

FS

brewsmith

Any reason for using the perf as your single plate instead of a bubble?

Lloyd

Always such excellent information from you @Sadi.
Its great to see the onset of tails just by seeing the glass fog, huh? And 3.7 liters per hour at low boiler power is about as good as it gets!

@brewsmith I doubt he could have disabled the plate if it was bubble caps. At least I can't seem to do it. A bubble cap plate wants to hold just enough fluid to bubble even with the dephlegmator water shut completely off. But a perf plate? They want to dump the fluid if just slightly underpowered.

Sadi

Thanks mates. :)

@brewsmith it is as @Lloyd described. However, one can always try and see if the CIP solution of having a small hole at the downcomer might work. Another workaround can be to screw a bit loose at one or more of the bubble caps and that may drain the plate, but as you know, we might have to apply less power to run in potstill mode which would produce higher abv probably.

Yes @Fullysilenced and Llyod, seeing what is going on inside the column makes a big difference, and I have learned a lot right from the start. Thanks again to our StillDragon friends for making it possible in such an easy way. :-bd

Cheers

Myles

Sadi because you have both sets of plates have you thought of splitting a wash or low wines charge to do a side by side test? Run 1/2 the batch through a couple of perforated plates and the other half through the same number of cap plates.

Then compare the 2 products?

Sadi

Sure, @Myles I would love to.

I have some feints (about 15Lt) that is waiting to be neutralized. I also have some all grain fermenting which we can use but this will take some time for the ferment to be completed.

Maybe we should define a procedure to get the best results for the sake of comparison.

I will use same abv and same amount of power.

Do you have any specific number of plates in mind? It may be a good idea to try 3 or 4 plates if that is what most of our friends are using?

We can Compare,

the abv of the output, how much the different fractions are compressed, the taste? any other that we can think of?

Cheers.

Smaug

Hi Sadi,

Perhaps a taste test by some unknowing participants/judges,, so that they are not passing judgements on a preconceived level of expectation based on plate count and so forth?

If you see my meaning?

Sadi

That is a good idea Smaug.

We do that all the time with my friends. :)) I am sure I can have many eager participants.

Unsensibel

@ Sadi - I think Smaug was subtlety looking for an invitation...

Sadi

All of you are invited aswell. :)

rossco

I am sure I can have many eager participants.

I wish

Sadi

@rossco said: I wish

I wish too. :)

Sadi

I started comparing plates test today.

I decided to go for 3 plates. Perf plates this time, and bubble caps next.

Low wines were made up of some feints diluted below 30%

I used the 4" dephlagmator instead of the big baby.

Ran it at full reflux for about 15 mins.

Reduced water flow at the dephlag to collect heads.

For some time, I was trying to figure out how to decide on the amount of water flow at the dephlag. I think, looking at the flow at the downcomer of the second plate from the bottom gives a good indication. I closed the valve to see a broken stream there and increased flow just a little bit more. At that flow, all plates were working, and I could decide on the level of product flow by increasing power without disturbing the plates.

I was collecting hearts, abv was around 94-95% not temperature corrected. After about 1.5 hrs the bubbles at the bottom plate started to get fewer, and I emptied the parrot to check and see tails were started. I closed the dephlag valve and collected around 500ml tails, abv dropping fast down to 50% and I shut down.

Temperatures almost stayed fixed during hearts.

I will try the same with bubble caps soon and we can compare.

Cheers

Smaug

Very good. Thank you for doing this Sadi.

Sadi

If I can be part of something good, I am at your service. :)

grim

@Sadi - do you always run that top plate sandwiched right up against the dephlegmator? Wondering how that works out.

CothermanDistilling

I just did that in my 8", and it worked OK, the 4" does not have as much room though...

rossco

I recon it restricts flow on the bottom plate unless the downcommer is in the middle.

rossco

and I could decide on the level of product flow by increasing power without disturbing the plates.

Interesting comment Sadi. I vary water flow to the RC to do this and generally leave power input contsant unless I want to increase ABV at the back end of the run to keep the tails in the column.

TheMechWarrior

I do the same as sadi as my RC control is crap.

Sadi

Yes @grim . When I am running for neutral, I use all pieces that I have and I did not want to sacrifice a plate to have some space there. Alhough we don't have a visual feedback, as I could get high abv from 3 plates for this run, I assume it does not have much bad influence. I try to align the dowcomer between the holes of the dephlag though.

Well @rossco , I was doing like you, but somehow I was not satisfied. I was not sure if I was inducing too much reflux thus sacrificing output, ending with not using optimum power, or less reflux, which sometimes disturbed the balance of the plates, which I tried to overcome by increasing power and the plates did not respond well.

This time, I started with lower power (around 1200W) to load the plates and looking at the downcomer I reduced the flow at the dephlag. When the downcomer was sending down just enough liquid to keep the bottom plate working I increased power to 1450, 1550, 1750 and 1900W (those are what is available) to see that there was not any noticable change at the plates and naturally I was getting more output.

This method seems to be promising to achive a better balance of reflux, power and output. Or it may be only because I ride my vessel/donkey the otherway. :)) I will try it some more to have a better idea.

Recently I got an "Energy meter" to measure power and it helped me to control my induction stove properly. It also shows the total Kw that I use for the run. I am learning to use that indication to optimize my power usage.

CothermanDistilling

IMHO- I recently converted to the 'leave the power set and use RC temp control via water flow'.. I was sold after the first run. yes, you have to back off flow until it drops ABV, then increase it back a bit... maybe get a flowmeter off ebay, search 'digiflow'...

Myles

The conventional method with a packed column is to run at no more than 80% of the power it would take to flood the column. Not sure if that applies to cap plates though.

In practice can you "flood" a plated column?

Myles

That was a badly phrased question.

Has anyone calculated the amount of power you would need to use (in full reflux) to overload the capacity of the ProCap or conventional downcommer.

It might be possible that this power level is so high it just wouldn't be practical to use it.

Has anyone using SD gear ever got into this situation? Possibly one of the Pro users running at full power?

Smaug

Smokey Quartz ran his original bubble caps on the verge of a flooded condition. He established his product with this running style and now really throws a bunch of pressure at his kettle to replicate plate behavior with his ProCaps.

His out put is so fast that he had to order the big ass parrot to cope with the volume / production speed.

Kevin has a high pressure steam generator so he has a shit ton of capacity to throw at the kettle. He steps down with an added regulator to keep things within the rated capacity of his kettle.

I'll see if I can get him to chime.