Run procedure iStill One: finishing a clear wash

3 December 2014
Hi there, here's a run procedure for the iStill One. Required reading for iStill One owners or will-be iStill One owners. It's for the iStill One doing a one run finishing approach, to take a mash of 7 to 12% and turn it into a nice brandy, rum in whiskey in one go. For beer distillation, so without (many) solids in the liquid you are going to distill. One distillation approach on a clear wash:
  1. Add all cleaning sections as well as the catalyst with clean copper packing to the iStill One;
  2. Dial the cut points into the computer;
  3. The first cut point (for Fores and for reduced power input) is always 78.3 degrees C at the output temperature measuring rod, others (for Tails, may vary);
  4. Fill to boiler with a maximum of 1,250 liters of wash;
  5. Set the agitator at 5 revs per minute;
  6. Open up the water cooling;
  7. Fire up the heaters at full power;
  8. The boiler content will heat up in two hours;
  9. The column will be heated in the next hour, stacking Fores and Heads increadibly well;
  10. You will see drips of Fores coming off as soon as 30 degrees C Output Temperature - collect them in the Fores & Heads container;
  11. Keep on throwing 100% power at her until the 78.3 degrees C alarm goes off;
  12. Now, shut down the three outer burner rings, thus limiting power input to around 55%;
  13. The product will come out at a faster rate, but as long as it is no steady stream, it is still Heads, so collect in the Fores & Heads container;
  14. When there is a big and steady stream, you entered hearts - collect in the Hearts container;
  15. Hearts to tails transition can be defined by taste, by ABV, or by seeing that big, steady >30 liter per hour stream of product coming out starting to colapse;
  16. After a first try-out run, this (taste, ABV, stream) will teach you how to dial in the computer for the Tails cut on consecutive runs - you enter this end cut temperature in the computer under "Temperature In" - that's far enough away from the top of the column to prevent Tails smearing into your Hearts;
  17. When Tails are evident, remove the Hearts container, add the Tails container instead;
  18. Now stop the program on the computer;
  19. Then shut off the gas burners;
  20. Keep the cooling water flowing for at least another half hour, while the iStill One collects Tails automatically, even with the burners off.
This shut-down procedure, after Hearts are taken, is very important, because if you do not follow procedure, gasses that still rise up will not be cooled down to a liquid state, thus potentially causing pressure issues. So I will repeat it. Shut-down procedure:
  1. Press "Stop" on the computer in order to stop the agitator;
  2. Turn off the gas burners completely (preferably by killing the main leaver);
  3. Keep the cooling water flowing for at least half an hour after shut-down, while the iStill One is collecting Tails.
Since Fores and Heads are very well compacted, we advice you toss them. The same goes for Tails, even though on making a heavy whiskey, one may add them to a next mash for additional grain or peat taste to come over in the next run.

imgres

www.iStill.eu

Comments
This blog post does not have any comments yet. Be the first to comment!