Bain marie set up with a thumper?

[Alchemist75]

So usually I distill my liquor in a bain marie type set up (using water) but I've never attempted to use my thumper while distilling with the boiler in the bath. Would the thumper even work while running the rig bain marie style? It seems like the heat of the ethanol vapor wouldn't be quite enough to heat up the liquid in the thumper using this configuration but never having tried it I'm at a loss.
Anyone tried this? I'm curious but I don't want to waste my time with it if it just won't fly. Opinions? Experience?

[still_stirrin]

...It seems like the heat of the ethanol vapor wouldn't be quite enough to heat up the liquid in the thumper using this configuration...

Your statement is confused.

Heat input into the wash produces vapor at a mass flow rate depending on the saturation temperature of the mixture. The vapor comes off (bubbles up through) the wash at that temperature. So, regardless of the equipment "downstream" it has a mass flow and temperature properties. A thumper won't affect that.

Now, the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of the liquid in the thumper will vary depending on the mass of the liquid present in the thumper and the duration of time necessary to transfer that amout of energy (heat transfer is the rate the energy is transferred) enough to cause the liquids to once again reach saturation temperatures (of the thumper's mixture of contents) because of the vapor production rate. Your boiler's vapor production is the mechanism for the heat transfer to the thumper.

You simply can't turn up the temperature of the boiler to speed the time to bring the thumper to operational temperatures. You can, however, increase the heat input which will produce vapor faster in the boiler. But with the bain-marie type of boiler, you may be limited to the extent of your water jacket's heat transfer capability. You'll be boiling the water out of the water jacket more rapidly, requiring additional make up water to continue the boiler operations.

Tricky situation, but possible.
ss

[Alchemist75]

Thank you for clearly putting into words what I was struggling say there and thank you for a useful reply. I guess that confirms what my instincts were telling me. Perhaps it would work if there were oil, glycerine or other higher boiling point liquids? Not that it's super important but I guess I just want to know for sake of knowing it.....

[Kareltje]

The heat of vaporisation of water is 2,260 J/g and of alcohol 855 J/g.
The specific heats are resp. 4.2 J/(g.K) and 2.8 J/(g.K)
This implies that condensation of 1 gr of water releases enough heat to raise the temperature of 10 g of water with 50 dgr K.
Or condensation of 1 gr alcohol raises 10 gr of alcohol with 30 dgr K or 10 gr of water with 20 dgr K.
And later: the condensation of 1 gr of water releases enough energy to vaporize 1 gr of water.
Condensation of 1 gr of alcohol can vaporize 0.35 gr of water.
Of course: when there is no heat loss to the environment!!!!

So if you can distill au bain marie, you also can run a thumper. And if you are worried about the heat transfer, you can preheat the contents of the thumper.
After the thumper is heated up enough, it seems the mass going in it is almost equal to the mass going out.
But that assumes the thumper is isolated enough. When you have a large heat loss from the thumper, the mass flow out of it of course wil be accordingly lower.

As still stirring already pointed out: the thumper is not really interested in how your primary boiler is heated, just in the volume, temperature and composition of its inflow and of course its own contents.