"I have done 2 runs of gerber wash in the last couple weeks and have had prety good results with my PS2. My first run I ended up with a little under a gallon of 89% ABV. My second run was a gallon of 91% ABV after blending all the jars together. I'm seeing and smelling where my cuts are, pretty easy to do with 1/2 pint jars. My next run will be with pint and quart jars, gets a little crowded with 20+ little jars sitting in a row. I proofed down a jar with spring water to 90 proof and made some drinks for the evening, we were quite impressed with the results and woke up fresh and clear headed this morning. All in all I'm pretty happy with the start of my new hobby.

I have insulated the column with hot water foam pipe covers, changed the ball valve with a 1/2"" needle valve & have 10' of 5/8"" copper pipe coiled into a collection tube with it ending 4' away from my pot and flame. I also have a dozen copper elbow connectors in the bottom of the pot for boiling chips. My needle valve is maybe a half turn out at most, probaly more like 1/3 turn out. Any more and it drops the column temp. I am using a 100,000 BTU propane burner to heat up my pot. I am running slow and low on the burner flame, running it at medium heat for the first 45 minutes till the column temp starts to rise, then backing off to a very low flame, what I would call a simmer flame on a stove top. I am getting good heat exchange as I had to change out half my 25 gallon cooler water ever hour to keep it under 85 degrees.

A couple questions. After I took off 250cc of fore/heads and I turned up the reflux water, It settled at 155 and I held it there for a little over an hour for reflux. I started to back off on the reflux water and the column settled nicely at 173.5-174 for about 3 hours till the tempatures started to rise. I let it go to 190 so I could get lots of tails and learn when they smell/taste like and what to avoid. What I noticed is when I had the reflux water turned back, I wasn't getting constant water flow through the clear cooling tubes. I have the inlet on the bottom, as instructed, and the bottom tube would fill up with water, around the bend, then spill upwards to the next tube, then start to refill again. I never had the tubes completely filled with water or a constant flow through. Is this a problem? Will the water in the bottom warm up so much by the time it get us to the top its too hot?

With such little water flowing through the cooling tubes would I be better off having the inlet in the top so the cooling water will trickle faster through the tubes and keep moving?

My next run I have brewing 10 gallons of sweet feed wash. I know I have to detune my column and leave only one or two copper packing in there, but can I leave my column at full height and just not use the reflux? I have it built in perfectly to an outside workbench and don't want to have to keep rising and lowering all my equipment each time I switch back and forth from neutrals. Also for flavored runs where should I put the copper packing? In the top of the column near the collection or the bottom nearer to the wash? I also have raushing rings available from another project that I never used, would these be better for flavored runs?

Any other suggestions or comments to help me get better through my learning curve? I want to run 2 flavored spirt runs so I have a supply to last me, then start working on refining my neutrals to get the 95+% pie in the sky & refining flavors to my taste.

I want to thank all of you and this board for such a wealth of information. There is no was I could've done what I did on my first two runs with all the reading and info you have on here.

Peace,
Opihi"

"Both my runs were off a 9-10 gallon charge. Both washes were 12-13% ABV using the turbo yeast I received with my order and adding sugar in 3 different increments, 15#, 3#, 3#, 3 days apart.

I think I'm going to change the routing of my refux water to go into the top and loop it back up like you have for my next neutral run and see what happens.

Opihi"