"I have not personally operated a Pro Series High Capacity from Brewhaus, but the questions you have posed I don't believe need experience with the HC unit.
Q1: Why do you need to insulate the column and top of the still?
A1: Far as i know, insulating the column will protect it from any ""breezes"" that might affect the balance of the reflux in the column - cool spots, uneven column temps, etc... On a side note, I see some value in insulating the column in protecting yourself from getting burned (small chance, but still...).
Q2: Also can someone give us better directions on how to hook up the hoses to the column.
A1: I have to give credit here to Elricko for the link and the site about the most effective method of connecting the cooling hoses.
http://tvbeer.com/cool1.htmQ3: Got about 3/4 of a gallon out of a 24 liter wash, is that about normal.
A3: Depends on your wash... Did you happen to take any readings before and/or after fermentation? Regardless, the Brewhaus website has a series of great ""calculators"" for questions just like this, but I can put in a few guidelines/results from them here...
5kg initial sugar in wash, 24 total Liters of wash = 12.3% potential (a COMPLETE all the way fermentation of the sugars)
6kg, 24L = 14.7%
7kg, 24L = 17.2%
8kg, 24L = 19.6%
... most yeast, to my knowledge, cannot handle much more than this...
This would mean if you were able to extract EVERY drop of alcohol, you could expect to get anywhere from:
a = wash potential %abv
b = wash volume
c = collection %abv
d = expected MAXIMUM collected volume of ethanol at ""c"" abv
d = (a%/100)*(b/c)
... examples from above would then give:
6kg -> ~4.15L of 85% ethanol
8kg -> ~5.53L of 85% ethanol
My personal opinion: using the setup you have, you should be able to reach 90%+ with your setup. By the way, would you mind sharing a little more about your setup? i.e. - column packing? cooling water temperature? collection temperatures?
Other than that, I think you came away with a decent result... If you have not yet tossed out the rest of the wash, you can simply toss what you collected back into the wash and re-distill for better results!
Good Luck, and hope this helps!"
