DistillingSA

http://www.kelleybarts.com/PhotoXfer/ReadMeFirst/UnderstandingPredictingPotstillRun.html Although it's perfectly possible to do a still run with no idea of what will happen, when it will boil at what temperature, what the percentage of alcohol by volume (%ABV) will come out of the still, and how long distillation will take, it's good insight to use your knowledge of distillation to predict some of these things. With that in mind, let's look at what we know, and how that will allow us to predict the still run. The first two inputs are the amount of wash, and whether it will be a stripping run or a spirit run. Very generally, a stripping run will take far less time than a spirit run, and the more wash, the more time it takes to distill it. Knowing the %ABV of the wash is a big predictor of the numbers a still run will produce. Let's say, for example, that we know the wash %ABV to be 10%. Using the graph in Figure 1, locate 10% on the bottom line of the graph. ...

Grainfather pot still When a potstill is used to distill alcoholic beverages, an alcoholic wash is put in a boiler and brought to a boil. The vapor produced by that boiling is directed to a condenser, which cools the vapor, causing it to condense to a liquid. That liquid is the distillate, the end product of distillation. Distillation has two major effects on the original wash. First, everything in that wash that cannot be vaporized is left in the boiler, and will not be present in the distillate. Second, because the wash is really a mixture of many liquids that can be vaporized (a property called "volatility"), such as water, ethanol and many flavoring compounds, distillation changes the concentrations of those volatile liquids in the distillate, continuously, and throughout the entire distilling run. It's not really important, or even helpful, to the hobby potstiller, to understand the physical laws that control this sequential distillate change in any grea...

Heat, fire in this example, is applied to the boiler, which contains an alcoholic wash, some mixture of ethanol (drinking alcohol), water, and frequently other substances, both solids and liquids. Usually this is created by the action of yeast on sugars, a process called fermentation. When the wash is heated to boiling, some of the wash becomes vapor, which expands and leaves the boiler by way of the lyne arm. When the vapor travels through the lyne arm it comes to the condenser, which is cooled by some external means, often by circulating cooling water. When the vapor is cooled, it condenses back to a liquid, called the condensate, which is then collected as distillate. While this illustration is greatly simplified for instruction, it is also a pretty accurate description of a potstill, the oldest and potentially simplest type of liquor still. Although the potstill's design is ancient, many of the world's finest liquors, including Cognac, arguably the  best...