Goofy things I do

[likker liker]

Now that's what I've been waiting to see!!! Looks great now I need to go back and see what you said about it

[likker liker]

Very cool cranky, your by far the most creative still builder I've ever seen

[cranky]

Very cool cranky, your by far the most creative still builder I've ever seen

Thank you but I do have to say there were many who came before me who did amazing things. Mash Rookie put everything I do to shame but I do my best on the limited budget I have. I hope to have all the cleaning runs done within the next few days and see how it handles.

[frodo]

amazing, a fine tribute to Mash Rookie..

[cranky]

It's been a few days now since I've posted and you guys are probably wondering about my progress. Well I'm happy to report that Muggles Too the magic muggles flute is now complete. except for one nut I misplaced while doing the final assembly. Here are the pictures.

Monday I managed to finish assembling and did the vinegar and water runs.

Tuesday I did the sacrificial run

Wednesday afternoon I managed to get in the inaugural run of a modified Birdwatchers-All-Bran sugar head that came off at 92% on a single run and has good flavor. I just finished blending and will be bringing a bottle along to the Bearriver BBQ Sunday.

This morning I decided, what the hell, I have a bunch of cider ready and waiting, so I chucked 11-12 gallons in it and did an apple brandy run. The apple brandy ran a bit differently than the Sugar head and it is way too early to make any comments on it but the entire run from the time I flipped the switch on to the time I flipped it off took 2Hr, 20Min and produced what I believe will turn out to be a very nice brandy if I can get the blend figured out. The outcome is much different than anything I've done before so the blend might be a bit of a problem problem but we'll see.

Now for the really exciting part.
Thanks to Skow69 I have a video of the Magic Muggles Flute in action during the sacrificial run.

[frodo]

That is so cool!!!!

[likker liker]

Your a genius with repurposing

[cranky]

My wife walked out into the garage while I was sitting on a bucket of wheat watching it run. She says she is changing it's name to Bubblelicious "because it is just some pasties and a G-string away from being a home wrecker"

[MichiganCornhusker]

Beautiful mad work of art, cranky, congrats! Puts on one hell of a show.

[cranky]

Beautiful mad work of art, cranky, congrats! Puts on one hell of a show.

Thank you MCH, and everyone. I still have a few minor cosmetic things I want to do and some day will make the visible shotgraham but I'm very pleased with it. I don't think it will completely take the place of the pot still but it put's out a nice product on a single run. Not sure how the apple brandy is going to work out through it though. When it first came out the smells were as concentrated as the product. 2 days of airing have brought it back to what I expected so I can try the blend tonight and see if only a simple pot will work for apple brandy or if it can be done on a flute.

[likker liker]

being a home wrecker"

will Bubblelicious can be a home wrecker here when ever she wants

[cranky]

being a home wrecker"

will Bubblelicious can be a home wrecker here when ever she wants

She's a fun thing to watch perform that's for sure.

[frodo]

http://www.dailymotion.com/us dailymotion. sign up and use them

[cranky]

One of the things I noticed is I can run this thing without any thermometer. You might notice there are 2 thermometer ports, one at the top of the dephleg and the other at the bend just before turning down to the product condenser. I didn't even turn on either of them on. They are just there to fill holes. I ran the whole thing using takeoff speed, ABV measurements and visual observations. I didn't even really pay any attention to the amp meter. I noticed that depending on the input energy and the amount of reflux, I could load up plates differently. I could get just the very top completely flooded with a shallow bed of liquid on the others even with a full stream returning down the column, or just load up the bottom plate or even one or two of the middle plates. When everything was dialed in I got what you see in the video. Once input energy, reflux water flow and takeoff rate was dialed in it was just a matter of sitting there and changing out jars. I tried cleaning at the garage but I found myself having to change jars too frequently. Due to the relatively small charges (7.5 & 11.5 Gal.) I collected in just over 1/4 pint increments. This was the smallest amount I could collect to get a measurement. I wanted to use my parrot but it turned out to be an inch too tall. My janitors cart has a recessed area that holds a plastic tray or a trash can and it was my intention to set the parrot down in that but the base I made turned out to be about a half inch too long for that so I will have to modify it before I can use it. The other problem is if you do a single run the flute compresses everything so much that the amount you get is pretty small so I think the parrot would only smear things pretty badly.

[cranky]

I have now had the Muggles Too up and running for 2 weeks now and in that two weeks have managed to run it five times, each time I've run it a little differently. The first was a flavored sort of thrown together recipe consisting of what started out as a typical 10 gallons birdwatchers but a few days before it was finished I added 2 boxes of cheerios and a box of organic wheat cereal. The reason for the choice of 2 different cereals is that I wanted a lot of flavor and a little complexity to see what the flute could do. 4 days after running it I took a bottle of the finished product to the Bearriver BBQ. I like to call anything that is a sort of bastardization "Unicorn Sweat" and some time back I had some labels printed so I stuck one on the bottle and took it to the BBQ. For some reason I thought I got 3 bottles out of the batch so when one of the few people who knows about my hobby asked me if I had a bottle, I handed him one of the Unicorn Sweat bottles only later to realize the 3rd bottle was actually a rejected feints bottle. The other bottle was taken to the BBQ. I got a taste of that bottle Sunday and have to say even though it is the first keeper run off a brand new flute and it came off at 92% it is probably the best I've ever made.

The second running was the day after the first and was cider. I figured why not, I have 25 gallons of cider finished and waiting to be run so I ran some, I took this off at about 80% which went very fast and I think resulted in a very nice apple brandy that will age very well. The next two runs were essentially stripping runs since I just didn't want to take the flute down and set up the pot column so I just stripped with the flute. This went very well, maybe a little slower than the pot can strip at but at a much higher ABV which should give a nice neutral and it is just so cool to watch. The last run before putting the magic muggles flute away was today and another apple brandy run. I still had the first 10 gallons of apple cider from last year and need to make room for this years fruits so I ran 12 gallons leaving me with somewhere around 8 gallons of hard cider to bottle and give away at Christmas.

Today's run took 3hr 23min from switch on to switch off and my garage smells like wonderful fresh apple brandy airing out. This batch I used a fairly conventional method of running a flute but still played around a bit. Takeoff speed was a 1/2 pint every 5 minutes or so and for the most part it came off at 92% which is a little higher than I really wanted but any faster and I couldn't clean at the garage while I ran. As the heads began to kick in I increased reflux to full and again and kicked the heat up a bit, let the column load back up then began taking off very slowly at a rate of a pint every 15 minutes or so. This kicked the ABV back up above 90% and produced another 2 pints of very nice flavored brandy before the ABV rapidly dropped to around 40% at which point I shut down the reflux and took one more pint before shutting down.

All in all I got 11 pints from roughly 11-12 gallons of cider. One thing I learned from the first apple run was don't make any decisions on anything before it has had time to air out so we will see in a few days how things turn out.

Now it is time to put Muggles Too to bed, maybe make a nice storage box for it and break out The Neutralizer and make the wife enough vodka to hold her for the next 6 months. I plan on getting a video of the neutralizer posted when I do so stay tuned.

[frodo]

your a damn artist Cranky.


Hats off to you!!!!!!!

[cranky]

your a damn artist Cranky.


Hats off to you!!!!!!!

Thank you Frodo, you are quite the artist yourself.

[frodo]

Cranky,,,what in the hell can i make out of a 12'' round SS ball??

got my eye on an ss float that was in a cooling tower

its pretty..

[cranky]

Cranky,,,what in the hell can i make out of a 12'' round SS ball??

got my eye on an ss float that was in a cooling tower

its pretty..

This is the first thing that comes to my mind
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 17&t=29940

[pfshine]

Yep a bubble ball is the way to go. If you give it a real deep fluid bed it will be like an inline thumper. That way your not dumping hard made booze back into the boiler to be boiled off again and again.

[Hound Dog]

Fu Man bubble ball all the way!

[Danespirit]

Yup..!

[frodo]

i am trying to get my head around it

[bearriver]

i am trying to get my head around it

Not the first time those words have been uttered in reverence to the great bubble ball.

[frodo]

it is funky,,,i need more detail if i am going to copy it

trying to figure out home it works
got some reading to do i guess.

[Danespirit]

Frodo..i am not saying the Fu man is a easy build, especially in stainless..but it is very simple tech.
Imagine a giant bubblecap with a sphere around it. Put some sightglasses in the sphere and voila..
Don't know how thick your ball is, but i would imagine rather thin material, so watch out with the TIG welder..!
Might even be beneficial to solder it around the sightglass..

[cranky]

I have a bunch of SS bowls I bought at goodwill cheap and considered making bubble balls out of them or replicating Mash Rookies rendition of Manneken Pis but I'm really very happy with my current setup and have so much else to do.

Another thing to do is use it as a thumper. Some distilleries use balls like that as thumpers and run water on the outside to cool them. Then there is using it as an expansion chamber on top of the still, like an onion top. The theory being the distillate contracts to squeeze through the opening then expands to fill the chamber and cools slightly when it expands giving a bit of reflux. At least that's my understanding.

Then there is doing something just because it looks cool even though there may be no real gain.

[frodo]

this is Hugh, can you tell me what Hugh does?

[bearriver]

this is Hugh, can you tell me what Hugh does?

hugh 001.JPG

Inspire an unnerving emotion that borderlines anxiety and fear...

That about right?

[likker liker]

I really like the bubble ball the only thing better is many bubble balls stacked together. WOW!