hey all, im still farely new to the distilling, and i have some issues. if you dont mind ill start from the biggining so you know what i have going on. i built a valved reflux still with a 2' main column 36' till. i have my condensor coil in a 3' column that i feed with a pond pump i put in a utility sink of ice water. for my first atempt i did a corn mash,,7lbs cracked corn, 7lbs sugar, 5 gal water, and 6kg prestige 48hr turbo yeast,, let ferment for 3days, put 15liters, into the 1/4 barrel keg, and started cooking of the turkey frier. temp was 20c for the first hour, and sat good at 76-78c for the next hour. it produced a cloudy 80% product for that hour, and from thier it dropped % over the next 5 hours with temp stikes to 100c, till i shut it down when it was producing 10%. i didnt try vaving anything, as i figured i would try to get the stripping run down before i complicate things. so, i made a couple changes, i made a s.s. boiling tank, wraped my coils with copper wool, and got a 1500w hot plate to try and make it more consistant. this time i did a plain suger wash to try and simplify things even more,13lbs suger, 5.5gal water, and 4oz 'the original prestige' 8kg turbo yeast,, let if ferment for 7 days
68-70F. ph meter said -9,if im even reading it right,and the wash was a light peach color. i put 15 liters into the pot, turned the hot-plate to 1500w and waited for the temp to come up. when temp got to 70c i started backing hot-plate down till a had a good 77-78c at the top of the column. the temp stayed right at 77-80c for the entire run,i love the hot-plate,. as for the product, it started out producing 90%, but it was VERY blue and smelled real bad, like amonia. i let it run for a while to see what would happen. it stayed right at 90% for the enitire run, and the blue cleared to a simi-blue milky color, and it smelled i little better. i figured something was wrong so i shut it down, and came in and started this post.
i would GREATLY appritiate any help with this to try and figure it out. if i left out any imortant info let me know.
please help
ray
