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Newb Question - How small a batch can I do with the 3" HC extractor/15 gal kettle?
 Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 3/6/2012(UTC)
Posts: 26
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"I just getting started and I went ahead and jumped in with both feet, I got the 3"" HC extractor with 15 gallon kettle.
I put the thing together, charged the kettle with 2 gal. of water (approx) and lit up the Blichman burner and in less than 10 minutes I had steam shooting out the condenser.
So my first general question is: How SMALL a batch can I do with this setup? My first try is going to be the Birdwatcher's Tomato Paste recipe and I have 50L (13 gallons) fermenting right now. I assume I can rack it all into the 15 gallon kettle and pot still a strip run. My calcs show I'll get maybe 2.81 gallons
40%abv, so how many of these batches should I do before a final spirit run with the full column?
Basically, can I get away running two batches (2.81g x 2 = 5.62 gallons) or do I need three (8.43 gallons)?
The speed at which that boiling water took off on me has me concerned."
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 Rank: Advanced Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/4/2012(UTC)
Posts: 303
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I've only heard that you should leave 1/4 of the boiler empty so you have some room for foaming, if it occurs. So I wouldn't fill it past 11 gallons or so.
Since you are using propane, I think you could do as small as a batch as you wanted to. The smaller you go tho, the harder it will be to maintain the temperature for the batch (smaller batch size means larger temp fluctuations).
On a side note, where did you purchase the Blichmann burner and how long did it take to receive it?
Muadib
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Rank: Senior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 1/27/2012(UTC)
Posts: 526
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After your Pot Run if you have 2 1/2 gallons of product then add 2 1/2 gallons of water for a total of 5 gallons. then you can run it and not worry about running dry and burning the pot on your reflux run.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 4/6/2012(UTC)
Posts: 133
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You won't run dry but a 50/50 mix is pretty hot. You don't want a bomb. Maybe 25/75 max. depending on the abv. Must have a pretty big pot to get 2 1/2 gal out of a run?
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Rank: Senior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 1/27/2012(UTC)
Posts: 526
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If your first run is a pot run the likelyhood of having more than a 50%,(100 proof) product is not not very likely. A 50-50 mix with water makes it a 25%, (50 proof) liquid. Not even close to a bomb. If you were to try and reflux just the product from your Pot run without adding water to it then you would be running a hot mix and you could very easily run your pot low enough to burn it.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 3/6/2012(UTC)
Posts: 26
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I believe I understand that I'll need to check the ABV of my pot-still low wines and add water to get it to below 40% abv to keep it from being ignitable.
I didn't consider just adding water to get the VOLUME of the wash up so as not to run the kettle dry. Duh.
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Rank: Guest
Groups: Guests
Joined: 2/10/2002(UTC)
Posts: 5,254
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Well guess the Space Aliens or list poleece decided not to post my response to this stuff. Run it once on the reflux cycle and start drinking. Will knock all the redundancy in the head. On my pot still run with 4th Gen SF it come out at 120 proof..little splash of crick water it was ready to drink..lol.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2012(UTC)
Posts: 25
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"Rasher,
I saved up 4.5 Gal of low wines from several runs and then set out to reflux it after adding additional water to the pot. I figured 10 to 12 hours. I was wrong....it took 15 hours from start to finish but what a sweet product and it was real easy to make the cuts. The Temp stayed right at 173 degrees for 13 hours until the tails arrived and the temp began to clime just a bit at first and then a little more. You will have a more steady temp rise with a wash compared to the low wines. The time was a surprise though.
JGRAM"
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Rank: Guest
Groups: Guests
Joined: 2/10/2002(UTC)
Posts: 5,254
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Thanks for the report. I was curious how long mine would take to do a full load in the big milk bucket..if it had some propane under it. Dont think that hotplate could pull off a full load. Anyway judging how long it take to run six gallons was speculating it take about 20 hrs or so on a big load. Not too far off. Course with propane a person could knock a bunch of the warmup time I suspect. Might save an hour or two there.
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Newb Question - How small a batch can I do with the 3" HC extractor/15 gal kettle?
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