Controlling condenser temperature

[Tennessee_Spirits]

For me this is an unsolved problem with various possibilities. The condenser removes the heat of evaporation of the alcohol and water mixture and recovers the liquor from the vapor. Sounds simple, but condensing that vapor reduces the pressure slightly and increases the flow of vapor from the column, regardless of how complex the column is. It directly impacts quality of the product. What I want is a constant temperature heat sink in the condenser so the column will be in a near equilibrium state.
I've been running my condenser using a small pump and recirculating water from my 17 gallon boil kettle. It works well for pot distilling and poorly for reflux distilling where more heat is involved. The temperature rises during the reflux run from about 60F (depends on season) to about 110F when I switch to water from my mash tun. (yes, I am trying to reuse the kettles when distilling and on the whole it works well)
I've seen clever radiator setups and George Duncan used a window air conditioner for this condenser control. The issue I have with these solutions is that they take up too much space and consume additional power.
What I'd like to do is to use my 17 gal boil kettle and make or buy or repurpose something small that would add the right amount of water from my cold water supply to keep the condenser water temperature constant without wasting water. I consider a water output temp of about 20F above the intake acceptable.

[Corsaire]

Soooo get yourself a bigger reservoir?
I'm recirculating in an underground rainwater storage tank.
Or just collect your waste water for future use. When I ran in the kitchen my waste water filled that same rain tank so the water got reused to flush toilets etc.

[Saltbush Bill]

Youve been Georged

[Tummydoc]

17 gallon reservoir is too small for refluxing. Get a 55 gallon plastic drum and leave it filled. I use a 40 gallon drum repurposed from a water softener I replaced. Its a little undersized for a reflux run with a keg boiler.

[seabass]

You'll need some serious heat removal to use that small a reservoir. I doubt it can be done without a pretty big heat exchanger and fan. Maybe a transmission fluid cooler and automotive fan would do the trick.

[bluefish_dist]

Problem with normal radiators is they dump heat, but the temperature drop from input to output is only 5-10 deg. I found a large reservoir is the best fix.

I have wanted to try a heat exchanger instead of a radiator as they are a single tube with fins vs a standard radiator with tanks. That may allow enough temperature drop to make it work.

[Twisted Brick]

Ever consider a swamp cooler? Depending on the time of year and the ambient temp, it may do the trick and the footprint is manageable.

[Yummyrum]

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I use a 2000 liter tank . Normally I would strip 200 liters wash over a week or so then run the reflex still the following weekend allowing time for tank to cool down .

This weekend , I stripped on the Saturday and run reflux on Sunday . Alas , before the run was finished , I realised I had vapour coming out the top .

Coolant tank just couldn’t do the job .
4” x 2 Metres packed on gas .I have been using a combination of my deflag and PC inverted but it nit good enough . Time for a better condenser .

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