Successful Air Cooled Coil!

[ScottishBoy]

For stripping this is a No-Go, but for the low and slow run of low wines, its damn near perfect...if I do say so myself.

Its just a substitute for the condenser using 1.5 foot of 1.5 to an elbow soldered into a piece of nipple pipe which connects to 20 feet of 3/8 inch copper wouund on a 4 inch dummy. The coil is spread out to about 1 inch between coils and actually is designed to support itself on one of the handles of my 7.5 gallon pot. I had saved up enough low wines for a good run and decided I wanted to try it out because I was sick to death of wasting so much water. So I brought her up and then dropped it down to 3.2 ( out of 10) and fiddled with it until no steam or vapor came out the end, but we still dripped. The adjustment took a while, but it worked out just fine as my little baby put out pint after pint of sweet, smooth corny goodness. This took about 8 hours. Then it was so late I shut her down. I waited until 11 the next day to fire her up again. Same procedure...same results.
Then something interesting happened...the output just dropped off like a shot. Suddenly it wasnt dripping but I could still hear the boiler working. The last half pint I tasted for the fun of it and it was watery tails. I thought "Aw crap I ran through the tails and didnt even know it." suspecting there was something wrong with my math, but knowing that my teaspoons, lighter and tounge very rarely lied.
But I dropped a teaspoon of the next to last jar and put fire to it...and it lit right up.
So I tasted it and it had a nice pure burn to it. Damn smooth too. Even my wife asked for more when I dropped it down to 80 proof with some spring water.

It reminded me of how the flutes seem to stop when the ethanol is done. Choley always said if you did it right he first time, there wouldnt be a need for a second. He never ran much beyond his boiler but once every week or so and he never redistilled, but he did add his tails back into the wash when he did it. He used a rather large passive cooling system so I suppose bit batches were not for him. He did have a system to cool it down if it needed it, but we only used it once or twice.
But I cant argue with the results. Even my wife used the word "flavorful". Maybe slowing it down that much was the thing. Not really sure. I think I was taking maybe a quart every hour and a half. I didnt keep any time tables because I was messin about in the cupbourds finding trash I hadnt seen years.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you all that I finally got a working prototype up that uses no water.

I'm thinking of trying this with a wash. Yes, it IS time consuming and not for those in a hurry, but I think it would work

[Dnderhead]

others have used air cooled condensers. as for it stopping before tales,i believe your boiler temperature was low enough that when the alcohol was low it did not produce,but this will not be dependable withe a different wash/mash as tales mite start in a different place.

[myles]

I have used an air cooled liebig product condenser before. However, that was with sub-zero air in mid winter when the water was frozen solid. It wouldnt work with warm air so it is of limited value. I imagine it would be hard to get reproduceable results, but it is interesting.

[ScottishBoy]

Thats the reason I posted this, as I was able to reproduce it three times so far ( did it again last night),and it was done in ambient conditions.
My kitchen is about 70 degrees. No moving air of any kind. Just a rather sizable coil of copper. Im begining to think thqat doubling the length of the coil would also yeild better results, but the 20 feet seems sufficient right now. Im pretty certain I couldnt run a keg off it, but its a start.

SB

[Barney Fife]

If you run it slow enough, you will be able to air cool with just about anything. But wow, 1-1/2 hours per quart on a pot still? You're trading the heat energy costs for water costs. Or viewed another way, you're wasting heat energy instead of water.

Get yourself a $20 pond pump, a garbage can filled with water, and you have a recirculation system that doesn't waste any water at all(re-use the same water every time; it doesn't wear out). Or hell, just put the worm into the garbage can...

If you're dead-set to go air cooled, add some fins to the worm. Just solder-on some copper pieces, even just random cuttings(get yourself some good tin snips, and cut up your scrap copper), and place a fan nearby to carry the heat away from the fins. It'll be a million times more efficient than what you're doing now.

And yes again with the cut-off observation. It's about power. We can separate the heads from the hearts the same way; once you find the power input needed to -just- barely keep the higher alcohols up in the column(or worm), once they're all used up, the drip will stop completely. Then add more power to force the hearts out, and if you're not using enough power to force the tails up into the column/worm, then it will, again, stop when the hearts are done. Problem is, who the hell has that much time and patience? So we build high-tech columns that allow us to do these separations at higher power inputs....

[ScottishBoy]

Barney,
I know you probably mean well ( and chances are something got lost in translation) but Im pretty certain I have the alternatives figured out pretty well. I have a reasonable amount of experience with thermodynamics. Your tone sounds to me as if you are talking down to me, which I really dont like. I posted this here as a example of there being more than one way to thread a needle.
What Im saying is that not only can it be done, but it can be done well. Some folks dont have the water rich resources that some others do. What I was specifically after was two things.
1. A way to utilize the stove WITHOUT taking up a bunch of kitchen space.
2. A way do the job by using the very least amount of resources available. Once this thing was up to temp, Im pretty sure I could have kept it rolling with a medium size alcohol lamp. This thing was on a very low simmer. Depending on the efficience of the pump, it may have eaten more in the long run than this process.

I also have the distinct advantage of being able to see my stove from 3/4's of my house, so I can be occupied with other things and still be watching, so time is not an issue. Its entirely possible I got my times wrong too, as I wasnt really expecting this to go so well.

If I wanted to Im pretty certain I could throw all kinds of energy into it and a bunch of resources and make lots of alcohol fairly quickly. I could build a big flute and use propane monster burners to force the balance one way or the other. Thats not what I was trying to do.

I apologize if Im taking you post wrong but it really sounds like Foghorn Legghorn trying to show the Chicken Hawk how to do things.
( and Yes, I know I left myself open with that comment. I was going to use Edna's ( AKA Miss Prissy ) Son, but that would have been vain... )

"I Say, I say,, Whatcha got there boy? Looks Like Sody Pop! Hehe! Watch it fizz!"

SB

[rad14701]

Not sure if I still have it kicking around here but I used to have a spreadsheet kicking around that would calculate air cooled worms or other configurations of air cooling distillate vapor... And as I recall, after running several scenarios through the calculations, it takes between 2x - 3x as much air cooled copper as a worm in a bucket requires... Those figures are for running hard rather than slow and easy as you have been doing, ScottishBoy...

I have an idea for an overgrown air still that I'd like to try tossing together that would use an internal heating element and controller, plus a fan cooled condenser coil mounted in a shroud... Another item on my bucket list...

[ScottishBoy]

I have often toyed with the idea of a capillary action based coolant sleeve. It would use very little water.

[ArkyJ]

You thinking of a water drip hose. The type used in a garden?
ArkyJ

[ScottishBoy]

Just cheesecloth wrapped around the outside with a drip at the top, gravity fed. I would be looking for the evap qualities rather than the cooler water.

[ArkyJ]

With a fan blowing on the wet cheese cloth would improve your evaporation and thus; heat tranfer away from your coil.
Water cost wise. Test it and find out.
I think in our rush to make the mostest bestest still, we forget the old proven ways.
For a small outfit, what your thinking might well work and work well.
ArkyJ

[rtalbigr]

SB- Your evaporative cooling is an interesting idea. When I was a kid living in the Western US they had "canteens" called desert bags. They were made of flax linen which allowed water to "weep" through and cool the liquid inside. We'd hang them on the front of vehicles during the HOT summers and always have nice cool water to drink. I would think a worm sleeved with a high wicking fabric would be very workable allowing you to increase the heat in your still and reduce your overall time, and the water cumsumption would also be significantly low. I don't think you'd have to gravity feed but could drop the end of the wick in a water source at the bottom, be easier to rig that way plus you'd get the most cooling at the lower end of the worm where you need it. Anyway, those are my thots.

Big R

[Barney Fife]

SB, no, I wasn't cutting you down. I was trying to help you get your rig to run more efficiently. No, you don't have a solid grasp of thermodynamics and heat transfer, yet. Pipe has heat loss(Google "copper pipe heat loss" for exact specs and charts), therefore even a straight length of pipe would, if matched with the right(low...) power input, perfectly condense the vapor. But add fins to the pipe, and the heat loss goes straight up! Again, Google be your friend, and search for "baseboard finned radiator", or even "SlantFin radiator specs" for exact specs. Just off hand and roughly remembered, a 3/4' tube has a heat loss of around 25 BTU/inch, where a finned tube of the same diameter and length has a heat loss of over 600 BTU. Huge increase. So, using some simple additions to your coil, or re-doing it completely for more efficiency, you can get very close to to power inputs we can use with water cooled systems, without any water.

The rest of my post explained why you saw the excellent "cut" separation. So, if you can lose the "they're out to get me" attitude and accept a little advice, you can truly make your rig work very well.

[ScottishBoy]

Barney,
You are missing the point. This exercise was to run an simple coil and get condensation at just below the vapor point of the ethyl alcohol. I didnt want to put fins in or muck around with it because I wanted the coil to run at a very high temperature...just below the condensing point of alcohol. I knew that the llength I had chosen was going to be sufficient for what I wanted to do. Looking back on it, I would have done 40 if I had the chance.

I replicated it last night with a wash of Sour Wheat Germ. Same thing, as soon as the alcohol was done, so was the stream. It took about four hours to drop out all the alcohol from a 6 gallon wash.

I appreciate the help but increasing the efficiency is not really what Im after...at this point.
With every design comes either a front load or an end load on effort and pure calories expended to make the alcohol. Im not just talking calories in terms of brewing temps. Im also including labor, energy, and raw materials that have been processed to be used in the still itself. Like I said, Im pretty certain my thermodynamics are up to par. Its like hybrid vehicles. Some people fool themselves into thinking they are being "green" when actually all they have done is endorsed the illusion that they are. The electricity still has to be generated and each time a phase switch happens, energy is lost in transition. Not to mention the strip mining and environmental devastation needed to get the precious metals for the batteries.
So instead of thinking outside the box, they just flip it over.

The same goes for distillation. Some people front load their calories and some dont. What makes this attractive for me is that ANYONE can do it with little or no effort. Its very basic but it does the job quite well if you have limited resources for cooling. Another reason for this was that I wanted to keep the thermal energy in the house, rather than letting it go down the drain.

If or when I decide I want to pursue making this more efficient, I will do so, but please dont assume that that because I'm not doing something, it means I dont know how.

PS. I know that nobody is out to get me. I just make it a rule to act the same way online as I would face to face. I ( mistakenly) expect the same out of others.

[Dnderhead]

Id say this is happening not because of the condenser,but because of the amount of
heat/energy in your boiler,if you increase the efficiency of the condenser and ran it the same
it would do the same.

[ScottishBoy]

Id say this is happening not because of the condenser,but because of the amount of
heat/energy in your boiler,if you increase the efficiency of the condenser and ran it the same
it would do the same.

Thats my thought too. There really isnt any point cooling it beyond a few degrees below the condensate point. It was also my theory that fairly hot ethanol might be more willing to give up any trace heads that came along for the ride. Although at this rate of takeoff, the chances of smearing though seem to be rather low. No matter how much I knock down, the boiler control is the key. All I would get for knocking it down with water would be a cooler distillate, and I wont be cutting this up for at least a day so it will be ambient temp.
I just thought it was interesting how it behaved at the very edge of the temp zone.

[rad14701]

I can definitely see the benefits of the low and slow technique you are striving to achieve, ScottishBoy...

Just like sex, it doesn't always have to be hard and fast...

Your idea of producing quality spirits while leaving the smallest carbon footprint is a worthy cause in these modern times when the average human has a "damn the consequences" attitude... And while the "set it and forget it" method of distilling may not be the best course of action from a safety standpoint I can see where it could be a plausible alternative under a narrow set of circumstances... Honing in on the least amount of air cooled condenser, or optimal amount, should not be all that difficult to determine...

I have to say that I do like following any attempts at taking a safe and reliable minimalist approach to just about anything...

Keep us posted, ScottishBoy...

[ScottishBoy]

I CANNOT endorse a set and forget method with any flammable or dangerous substance. It just wont happen. The ease of this (for me) is that I can see the stove from nearly every place in my home. Its an open floor plan. Thus it is very possible for me to read, watch TV or play on a computer while doing it. My preference would be for the placement of USB thermometers ( just to be safe) but I actually figure I have more chance of the cats knocking over a bottle than a fire. The stove is sealed glass, electrically based heat. Since it is running so slow, the chances of a puke are pretty slim, especially since I use boil breaks and brew in batches of six gallons with a seven and a half gallon boiler.
I do have a fill alarm which is a natural cork placed vertically on the end of a spoon stem that has a brass bell attached. I balance it on the edge of my jar (if I know its going to be a long one..or I'm playing Civilization...). When the alcohol reaches a spot about an inch and half below the rim of the jar, it starts to float the cork and the spoon handle drops onto the floor. Ting-ting-ting-ning ningning. I havent had it go off yet except for testing because I usually cruise by the stove every ten minutes or so for a nose check and looking for any leaks.

The only thing I havent figured out is how much energy it uses on cruise control. I find the really sweet spot at 3.2 on a scale of 1-10. Its a ten inch halogen burner.

I replicated it again last night with some sour wheat germ, which I recommend if you get the chance. I let this one sit too long and it was a bit more sour than I would have liked. I may run this one through the reflux....

SB

[rad14701]

ScottishBoy, your spoon alarm method falls within the "set it and forget it" I was referring to... Everyone here should know me well enough by now that I wasn't implying it to mean to head off to work or to go to bed... Taking a step back from playing still jockey, like playing on the computer, is more what I had in mind... Or catching up on reading and replying to posts here in the forums and drooling over still porn...

[emptyglass]

I like the idea of an air cooled condenser. It has that "I'm wasting nothing" feel to it.
I like that.

While it me be philosophicly splendid, I struggle to find a time window to run my still. It sounds like I would need something in the order of 60 or so feet I guess, to compete with what I have, which strips 40L of wash in 3.5 hours.

Maybe its not for everyone. I cant take 8 hours, it just wont happen. I would end up back at the bottle shop if thats how I had to run.
I disagree with Rad, sometimes you just want a quick "hard and fast" one. No point having it long and romantic, if you have to stop half way.

My current set up is a worm in a bucket, with cool water added to the bottom and hot water taken off the top. This makes the bucket work like a hot water storage heater. The first 3 winds of the worm are in very hot water, knocks down nicely to room(ish) temp by the outlet. I use 40-50 litres to do a run and I collect this in 3 plastic buckets. I then have 50 odd liters of 60c water. I use this for cleaning, label removal of collection jars, blah, blah. My nett cooling water usage is about the same volume of wash I charge the boiler with, or very close to, depending on exaclty how each run goes.

Any hot water left over, I put it in the fridge for later- we all know hot water is handy.

By the way, SB, I enjoy reading your posts, I enjoy them even more if I read them with a scottish accent

I don't know about Foghorn, I'm thinking more Groundskeeper Willy.

[aqua vitae]

You can do it like this too.

Convector pipes are used as radiators in caravan trailers so can be bought at caravan retailers.

[ScottishBoy]

Rats. Lost my post.

Well I ran another one last night with a slightly different wash. Same thing. About three hours to extract all the alcohol. Slow and steady. Seems more concentrated than what I would get out of a strip run. All this while playing with the kids, watching a movie and being within 20 feet of the stove at all times...and within eyeshot.

Might not be for everyone, but I apprpeciate how much less intrusive it is in the kitchen..so does the wife.
the Wife Approval Factor ( WAF) is very high. Found out that the stove burner appears to be a standard industry part. so once I figure out the watts, I can calculate how much power it really needs. Would love to try this with an immersed heater.

SB

For the record, one of the reasons this developed this way was the fact that the garage is too cold and has no running water. -20 is no fun.
Its a comprimise for me and the wife. The open floor plan of our house also enables this. I know many people who this would not work for, because they have traditional kitchens that are cut off from the rest of the house...and you can only clean so many drawers before there is nothing to do.

[emptyglass]

You can do it like this too.

Convector pipes are used as radiators in caravan trailers so can be bought at caravan retailers.

My shed is 20c too. Only mine is plus not minus. I think that this is not a good advantage for air cooling.

Even though we've had good rain, water is very precious here. And expensive. Water utilitys seem to have forgotton to reduce our bills after all that rain.

I am running a 50L keg boiler on gas. I don't know exactly my heat energy in watts, but a lot of guys here using elements seem to go about 5500w for a keg.

I'm guessing I'd need to double the length for high amient temp, and double it again for larger capacity.
I reckon I'd need a heat exchanger about 4 meters long to knock down all the vapor.

It would be a challenge, but it could be made as a worm. You could then force some air through the centre maximising heat transfer. And you could use a very small fan to achive this, in my imagination. 4 meters probably isn't that long, since I have 6m coiled in the bucket.

This has got me thinking (yes, it hurts). I'd be off to the workshop if I wasn't so lazy.

[ScottishBoy]

I like the idea of an air cooled condenser. It has that "I'm wasting nothing" feel to it.
I like that....I then have 50 odd liters of 60c water. I use this for cleaning, label removal of collection jars, blah, blah. My nett cooling water usage is about the same volume of wash I charge the boiler with, or very close to, depending on exaclty how each run goes.

Any hot water left over, I put it in the fridge for later- we all know hot water is handy.

What I would really like to do is use the hot water and route it directly to my washing machine. I have been bucketing it ( before I learned how easy air cooling fit into my life..), but that gets to be a real pain. My experiment tonight will revolve around water cooling versus air cooling and the VERY subjective test of how the airing out goes. Common sense tells me it should air better if it is rather warm when it comes out of the coil. Especially the lighter compounds that may tag along.
We'll see.

[Thorn_veritas]

Whenever I see anything about a air cooled still i always thonk of the tv show MASH. I loved that show. Loved it so much that I downloaded every episode and the finale. It was 100 gig though ha h a ha it took a while

[aqua vitae]

But you didn't love it enough to buy it on DVD?

[Rum Bum]

SB,

So there is no electricity going into this air cooling system of yours am I correct? It's only dependent on the air temperature around the still? No wind chill factor?

I would be really fascinated if you did something like Barney was saying and incorporate a fan to blow hot air away, I'm not condoning his attitude toward you, which surprised me as much as it surprised you. I try my best to convey my posts, as if I was speaking face-to-face though it is much more difficult to interpret emotion and attitude with writing. The face's help a lot. Barney, maybe it would be better to use some of these once in a while.

Here is what I was thinking: if you cut out doughnut shaped pieces from sheet copper and slide them up the coil and then individually soldered them, I bet that would work wonders to draw the heat away. With a fan blowing lightly at it you might be able to eliminate some serious heat.

Another idea just came to me, it could help reduce the amount of water you would need to run through your condenser. If you let the coil air cool first, then go into a water condenser, it could possibly help keep the water temperature down! It may even be a significant decrease in water output temp allowing for a smaller water tub. It could be an Air/Water Hybrid Condenser.

RB

[blanikdog]

... Even though we've had good rain, water is very precious here. And expensive. Water utilitys seem to have forgotton to reduce our bills after all that rain.
...

Yairsss, water is expensive here and should remain so to discourage wastage after a bit of rain for the first time in twelve years. Where I live the government spent a lot of money putting a pipeline into Melbourne taking irrigation water from farmers to allow three million city voters to wash their cars. It didn't help as they got the arse anyway.

I run a potstill with a coil in bucket very slowly and a forty litre run uses about two or three litres of water. I reuse the water to wash the car windows or onto the garden. It seems almost the same as air cooling.

[ScottishBoy]

SB,

So there is no electricity going into this air cooling system of yours am I correct? It's only dependent on the air temperature around the still? No wind chill factor?

Exactly, I am looking to use the absolute minimum of energy to do this and balnce the equation very close to the edge.

I would be really fascinated if you did something like Barney was saying and incorporate a fan to blow hot air away, I'm not condoning his attitude toward you, which surprised me as much as it surprised you. I try my best to convey my posts, as if I was speaking face-to-face though it is much more difficult to interpret emotion and attitude with writing. The face's help a lot. Barney, maybe it would be better to use some of these once in a while.

Things get lost in translation. He proabably thought I was trying to do a basic air cooled. Im not. Barneys not a bad guy, he just didnt read th post close enough and I didnt fully explain what I was doing,

Here is what I was thinking: if you cut out doughnut shaped pieces from sheet copper and slide them up the coil and then individually soldered them, I bet that would work wonders to draw the heat away. With a fan blowing lightly at it you might be able to eliminate some serious heat.

An exclelent idea and one I have already thought of, but Im not looking to put more claories into the system, Im looking to drop the energy factor to the lowest denominator I can first...then maybe I will modify.

Another idea just came to me, it could help reduce the amount of water you would need to run through your condenser. If you let the coil air cool first, then go into a water condenser, it could possibly help keep the water temperature down! It may even be a significant decrease in water output temp allowing for a smaller water tub. It could be an Air/Water Hybrid Condenser.

Doner the hybrid route when I was about 12. Had a water cooling system that cooled the shine then was pushed over slat windows to cool it off, then back to the resoivoir (sp?)

RB

[short bus]

Kudos to you for your work! I am truly amazed more people do not use air cooled stills! I live in a place with plentiful amounts of cheap water. However I think air cooled condensors not only save water but are much easier to use, especially in home/kitchen setting. I am no tree hugger either! But I often wonder if my grandchildren will see the day when drinking water costs more than oil. I have also brought up this topic on other forum and felt bashed for it. I am proud of my simplicity, don't really know crap about thermo dynamics. But an air cooled still is very is easy to build!

SB