I have questions for anyone using reflux stills.

Do you re-distill your original product? And if you do, how many gallons do you generally do at a time? Will you do 3 runs at 6.5 gallons of mash, combine the output ,2-3 gallons, and redistill the whole thing? Is there a danger in combining several runs? Anyone redistiling twice?

The beauty of the reflux still is that you don't redistil, that is what the reflux is doing as you go along. It dependends upon how far open you have the return valve as to the amount of redistillation. I open mine two and one half turns and at that point I get a drip, drip drip rate of product. How I judged how much I was redistilling was to run it wide open ,water of course, and measure the amount of product being made. Opening the reflux valve to a position and then measuring the amount coming out. This was you get a very accurate method of measuring just how much refluxing you are doing. The whole point is, you are returning part of your product back down the tower for redistilling, hence 'reflux' still. If you want to use it as a 'pot' still, just open the reflux valve all the way and nothing goes back for redistillation. Yes, do use the carbon filter, you will be much happier with the final product. Also remember, using a sugar wash, there is no pectin in sugar, hence no methonal produced, so your heads are very small volumn wise, tails are a different story, thats where ,temp wise above 85'C, is where the iso's and byutal's, terrible speller, come out so don't go above 82-85' C for you best product. Test the pruity of the product as you go along by just dropping one drop on concrete and light it. Look at the color of the flame and the time it burns and you 'll see what I mean. As you progress,m and the temp in the tower starts going up, the flame gets bluer and bluer, the iso's are coming..time to quit. Hope this helps a little....Jimbull

It's easy, run the still with nothing connected to the two pipes that go through the column. Count the drip rate of product comming out of the condenser. Then flow some water through the two pipes. This will cause condensing at the top of the column before it can get to the condenser. Naturally, this will lower the drip rate...

Ajust the flow through these pipes untill the desired rate is reached.

It will almost cirtainly be possible to simply run cold water into the bottom of the condenser and use the warmer coolent to go through these pipes. Thus allowing you to use just one tap.

Jim, I use Brewhause's stone carbon for the filtering. Get a piece of 2' white pvc 36' long, put a cap on one end and drill sever small, like 1/32 holes in the middle of it. The cap will be slightly convex so it will be rounded, do not glue the cap on leave it so you can get it off for cleaning. Next get a 2 to 4' adapter and put it on the other end of the 2' pipe. Make it about 8' to ten inches long and your done. This will hold one package of stone carbon. Run about three gallons of boiling water thru the filter before each use. I take mine out after about three runs and boil it for about fifteen minutes or until the smell goes away. The carbon catches all the nasteys oils etc that are in the product and this is how you get the carbon clean again. This simple system removes ALL taste and smell from the product. Now if you are using a pot still you are defeating the purpose of the wonderful mash you concock. OK?

Scott, I saw your picture and I'm sorry about the confusing, I made my reflux and it is the valved type where I can control the refluxing via a valve in the condensing tower. Your type of reflux you control with the water control and its temperature. There was a good answer to figure this and try to count the drops coming out. Thats the way your still works. Sorry about the confussion ,mostly on my part, Jimbull