Congrat's Curt!!!!! I am pretty new at this too but these are questions I am sure BigWheel or Texaswhitewolf can answer, those guy's can help you out!!!!! Happy stilling!

Great yield. I would take a pint per gallon any old day.

Hmmm..maybe its the difference on pot vs reflux. On a good typical run I normally get 2 quarts..2.5 on a real good run out of five six gallon wash. The pot run I got the same amount out of the same sized wash..not counting a quart of stinky tails..cept it check only 120 when the refluxer normally come out around 170. Are yall counting tails?

Ok gotcha. Running the hot weather..over stressed..over sugared cornmeal and tomater paste wash I have been over stressed about too..lol. Through the fores and bound to be most of the heads. Whew they putting out some exotic smells..sorta like Gulf Light or something. Heat is staying real low..just barely giving it water and still hovering at 173 last I looked. Not sure if that is a good or bad sign. Any predictions? Thanks.

Thank you Sir. It still drippin and hanging around 170 give or take one or two. Still not getting hardly any water. Havent had one act like that before. Must be some kinda clue..lol

Been running a gallon at a time, as I said, small still. How much of the backset should I use when I make the next mash? Same for the sourmash. The way I'm doing things is quite a pain. I realize now I shoulda built the still to accommodate my whole wash. And no, not keeping much tails. Bigger still coming soon!

big if you need math help try this http://homedistiller.org/calcs

lol i suck at math thank god people mad it easy lol

Big and Tex, listening to you two I think I am solving some issue's. I don't have a Therm on my pot I have one at the top of my column. I have noticed that I don't get anything started until about 155 d on my Therm and my good stuff shows up around 182. I was thinking it may be because of my Therm, but now I am thinking that I am actually running it too hot. Whats you guys thoughts on this? I am in the Mt.'s at 6600 ft elevation do you think that has anything to do with it. Any advice appreciated.:)

"Once together, a mixture of several of them will be slightly different however. You no longer get them coming off seperately, but always as a mixture. Fortunately for us though, each of the species will tend to dominate around its boiling point temperature, thus we know whats ""mostly"" coming off at that point. By tracking the temperature of the vapour, you have a fairly good idea when you're collecting the Ethanol your after (78-82 °C), vs when it is starting to get lean and you're into the higher alcohols.

Note that you may also need to adjust the temperature if you are distilling at altitude - the higher above sea level you are, the lower boiling temperatures become because of the reduced air pressure.

Mark writes
Here is what I found. I'm at 7000 foot, i did a test run and water boils at 199 here. Thats 93% of 212. so i cut my tables by that. Maybe this will help others. http://www.hi-tm.com/Documents/Calib-boil.html
Jack adds though ..
Actually, % of alcohol is a more reliable method of measuring cutoff points than temperature is. Thermometer placement in a still can cause a major difference in how the temp is read. Everyone's still is different- the % is more likely to give predictable results, where the temp can be off by more than 10F either high or low- giving the wrong results when duplication of anothers' run is being tried.
Sometimes with the tails though, even the % isn't accurate enough, with smelly tails sneaking through with little apparent notice. This is when you should also let your nose guide you - collect a few drops on the back of a spoon every so often, and check what they smell like, on a regular basis.

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http://homedistiller.org"