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Hello,
what do you think of this design? it would be either a pot still or a reflux still, just by adding water in the grey place! To change the amount of reflux, simply change the amount of cooling water that goes each minute.



What do you think of that?
Best regards,
Pierre

1. No vent hole to prevent pressure build-up (pretty serious problem).

2. Top heavy, with all that condenser water.

3. How do you switch on water flow into the centre section to induce reflux?

4. Practically it is looks a pain to build.

The slanted plate Bokabob, and the Nixon/McCaw Vapour Management designs are hard to improve on for simplicity, ease of construction, and effectiveness.

But several points for originality.

1. No vent hole to prevent pressure build-up (pretty serious problem).
-> there is one: the exit hole. There is no liquid alcohol that remains in it

2. Top heavy, with all that condenser water.
-> well the measures aren't like in the pictures... 2mm between two copper parts is enough. Sure quite heavy, but not that much.

3. How do you switch on water flow into the centre section to induce reflux?
-> you don't. The water in grey is simply poured before the beginning, and all the alcohol that gets cool is removed.

4. Practically it is looks a pain to build.
-> obviously, yes

Pierre L'Ivrogne wrote: 3. How do you switch on water flow into the centre section to induce reflux?
-> you don't. The water in grey is simply poured before the beginning, and all the alcohol that gets cool is removed.

But that water will heat up very quickly and refluxing will stop very quickly and you're back to a potstill.

My advice, if you want a reflux still and you can find 2" copper pipe, etc. then go ahead and make a good reflux still, you could remove the packing if you wanted it to function like a potstill.

If you want something easier to build, just make a potstill, they're pretty simple.

But that water will heat up very quickly and refluxing will stop very quickly and you're back to a potstill.

-> it's heated by the vapor, and cooled by the cooling water

The goal is also to have something with a funny design

Pierre L'Ivrogne wrote:1. No vent hole to prevent pressure build-up (pretty serious problem).
-> there is one: the exit hole. There is no liquid alcohol that remains in it

Depends on the size of the exit (liquid take-off) tube. Most are 1/4". Might not be big enough.

2. Top heavy, with all that condenser water.
-> well the measures aren't like in the pictures... 2mm between two copper parts is enough. Sure quite heavy, but not that much.

Not only is there additonal water, but you are adding another 3 layers of copper, which is pretty heavy on it own.

Plus what defcon4 said.

the exit will be at least 1cm large...

It's not heavier than a portuguese still

PS: a total of 5 copper layers

Yeah, 1cm is probably safe, as long as it is never blocked off with a valve.

That Portugese copper still is also quite top heavy when filled with cooling water.

And your design has 3 extra layers of copper on top of a standard Liebig reflux condenser (2 + 3 = 5).

Cheers

OK. We agree that it would be hard to build and heavy.
But would it work?

I imagine it would be a fairly difficult undertaking to balance the heat input and flow rate of the cooling water. How will you be able to tell what temp your grey area is? If it gets too hot, how will you be able to tell if it's refluxing or not? Because there is no valve (or rather no reflux overflow) the refluxed alcohol will not travel down the centre of the packing, thus reducing the effectiveness. So, I think it might work to a point, but it will not be the most effective reflux....you are not going to get a consistent 90+%.

Bear in mind....this is only my opinion.

I imagine it would be a fairly difficult undertaking to balance the heat input and flow rate of the cooling water. How will you be able to tell what temp your grey area is? If it gets too hot, how will you be able to tell if it's refluxing or not?

-> the heat at its maximum, and reflux is known by the amount that gets out of the still, not a problem

Because there is no valve (or rather no reflux overflow) the refluxed alcohol will not travel down the centre of the packing, thus reducing the effectiveness.

-> this is actually a problem. I'm gonna think about it.

Thanks for this last suggestion
Pierre

This looks like the Stillmaker design with two condensers -

http://homedistiller.org/theory/refluxdesign/rr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow



The comments about this design on the main page, is the reflux ratio is harder to control - it basically depends on the first condenser - which would be your gray area in the diagram.

Pierre L'Ivrogne
Your design could work for both a pot still and reflux still. How well it works as a refluxing still depends on how well you engineer and build it. You would be using vapor control which will raise the %, but is a lot harder to get above 90% using vapor control. You don't have any packing drawn in your drawing, you have to have packing to have reflux.

dog1976 wrote:You would be using vapor control which will raise the %, but is a lot harder to get above 90% using vapor control.

The lowest I have got with my standard design VM still is 94%. (It has 1500 mm of packing, which helps a lot.)

Pierre L'Ivrogne wrote:If it gets too hot, how will you be able to tell if it's refluxing or not?
-> the heat at its maximum, and reflux is known by the amount that gets out of the still, not a problem

Am I missing something? Surely the cooling water (in the grey area) will change temp, this will change the reflux ratio. You will have to constantly balance heat input and cooling flow IOT maintain consistency. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. I still think a bokakob with removable head is the way to go.....screw on the long packed column for reflux, screw directly to the boiler (and open the valve) for a pot.

Looks to me like an Internal reflux LM still just an asspain way of doing it?
I think it would be very difficult to control the reflux ratio
although I have been wrong before

The goal is also to have something with a funny design

Yep funny design.
but sometimes thats how things get discoverd


Dog could you tell me how that is VM I thought there would have to be a valve before the product condensor to control how much vapour is condensed and how much is sent to reflux?

Dog could you tell me how that is VM I thought there would have to be a valve before the product condensor to control how much vapour is condensed and how much is sent to reflux?




With VM you use 2 condensers. When he adds water to the gray area, this turns the upper part of his column into a condenser. Vapors would condense on the column wall and run down to the packing (reflux) and some would go past this condenser to the second condenser and be collected. He talked about controlling the water to the condensers.
This would be VM.

Yep got it vapour to reflux controlled by coolant flow/temp thanks