1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

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NatiMatt
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1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

*Full disclosure I have never made a still before so I'm throing this together with the info I can gather from this site.

I have a 1/2 Barrel Sanke Keg I'm cutting the top out of. I'm going to weld a stainless 2" threaded coupling where the tap used to be. I don't want to buy a 4-6" sanitary flange and blank so I'm just going to work out the cleaning later. I plan to fire this deal with a 55000 BTU propane burner. I'll throw together a carbon steel rack to hold the weight.

My Still is going to be a Bokakob design. I have a 40" piece of 2" Type L copper pipe. With the 2" thread adapter added I should end up with about 45" of column, or 34" tot he bottom of my collection plate. 34" because I am going to make a 1/4 tube double helix condenser roughly 8" long. put the drip plate 1" below the condenser, and the catch plate 1" below the drip plate. I will make a sealed thermowell for temp directly under the drip plate across from the take off. I am nervous about the part of the design where the cap has a hole in it because I'm worried about the vapors creeping down to the burner out the top. In theory the condenser should knock everything down before it gets out, but I'm worried about it all the same. Do yall have a workaround for this fear?

Bok plates: I am going to make cuts for the plates at 30° 1.25" through my 2" column so there is a 1/2" overlap vertically. The drip plate is going to have a tooth to try to center the condensation. The catch plate will also have a tooth to center condensate before dropping it back in the column.

For the output I am considering a 3/8" tube @ 90° for 2" to a SS 90° compression fitting This would give me the future flexibility of adding a 3/8" distillate tube with a 1/2" jacket. I haven't seen anything about this yet on this site, but the idea here is to create a VM system for a running the thing as a pot still (replace internal condenser with solid cap and seal with paste, my only concern is vapor velocity though the 3/8" jacketed external condenser, but I suppose that could be solved with length and cooling water temp/flow). Anyway that's down the road I just want to put it in place now. At first this 3/8" 90° coupling would just go to a valve to control the reflux ratio and a takeoff tube AWAY FROM THE FIRE.

I have access to instrumentation so if there are other indications I may want please let me know, but for now I just plan to take the temp of the column before passing the plates to the condenser.

For the cooling water I plan to use a closed loop aquarium pump based system that could be controlled using ice as needed. This part I am not sure about. If it seems advisable I'm not opposed to running this with a valve and utility water I'm just worried about making a lake in the yard after 8 hours.

I know some of these questions may be posted elsewhere, but the site is honestly somewhat overwhelming. I will continue to read. Thanks for the help.
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Danespirit
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Danespirit »

Well, it should work the way you have thought about it.
Just to be sure...as for now, you are only constructing the Boka...no VM..?
Cause you might have stumbled across the diagrams and plans thread, if not please have a look at what Samohon has been up to: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=19711
The Boka/VM combostill is hard to beat for versatility and may be just what you are looking for.
Have a look at my coils here: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 0#p7262900
Each of them would allow for a single plated Boka or a LM solution with a reducer, due to the deflectorplate soldered on.
Maybe a idea you could use..?
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

I think for now I'm going to forget about the VM because it looks like all I would need to do later is cut it in half and add the section in the link you attached. For now pot still mode is just going to be no scrubbers. On the subject of scrubbers how many are we talking about. I saw one post about a guy putting 30 in his column! I was thinking like 3, but maybe I have the wrong idea. I am curious how it will run once I get it together. To be honest I am more affraid that I will rip out to much and produce to neutral a spirit than I am of under doing it. I looked at UJSM and I'm here to tell you that there is not a dimension in which my wife is going to allow some three month old mash fermenting in the garage. She barely tolerates the wine fermenters and that's pretty quiet after about 6-10 days. That plus the fact that most wines smell at least tolerable the whole way through. I think I am going to try some sugar stuff first and then straight to all grain full mash non-sense.
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Danespirit
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Danespirit »

Well, you won't get there with just 3 scrubbies.
It's hard to know how many you would need, but you have to pack them in so you can still breathe through the column without much effort.
There are several threads in here about material for packing, so maybe you should consider alternatives for scrubbies..?
I paid attention to your concerns about the ventilation in the top of the column, regarding escaping vapors and a possible firehazard.
If your condensercoil knocks down everything, there is no need to be worried. You might consider going electric..?
Regardless of that it IS essential to ventilate your column, so no pressurized conditions can occur..!
Failing to do so, will result in a explosion of the whole rig and could be fatal.

Yep...you always have the option to add a VM afterwards. Plan ahead in the buildingphase to make a modification in the future easy.
If your wife ain't happy about the fermentation, you could try with some simple birdwatchers.
I can tell you i ferment in a seperate room i got in spare and there is absolutly no off odors coming from that room, when i do a BW ferment.
A sour mash will of course give off some odors, but with a decent airlock on it should be tolerable in a ventilated space like a garage.
Besides the cleaning procedures and a sacrifial run, the first real spiritrun could be dedicated to produce a nice drop for your wife.
It may give you "mitigating cirumstances"... :wink:
NatiMatt
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

In addition to the copper I had planned on using I was given an old piece of 2" copper that's in bad shape. Is it advisable to clean this up and use it as part of a modular head? I'm not in love with the idea, but it does clean up pretty easily with scotch bright. Let me know if you think it's worth a go.
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Danespirit
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Danespirit »

Sure...give it a try..!
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

Update: going to give the condenser coil winding a shot tonight. Should be able to update with pictures later this week. Hopefully all goes well.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

Condensor_opt.jpg
It was my first time so i guess it came out ok. The inner coil is longer on the top and bottom than the outer coil by about two rounds on each side. no kinks though and it seem to flow good.

My method was to slowly put the first bend in then just roll it around a piece of 1/2" EMT conduit. Then I just took a piece of cardboard and wrapped it around the inner coil a couple times and just kept winding. Initially I couldn't get the cardboard out, but my wife suggested letting it soak for a while, The cardboard basically disintegrated and all is well now. It fits inside a 2" pide with about 1/8"-3/16" clearance all around. Overall I think it went well. Next time I will try to be more diligent about the inner coil length. I read a 10' coil should end up about 6" long to have the inner and outer coils match up correctly. My inner coil was a little long ergo prollems...
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Danespirit
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Danespirit »

Looks awesome... :thumbup:
NatiMatt
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

Quick update: cleaned an additional section of pipe today for a modular head. I made the slant plate cuts with a dremel which turned out to be more difficult than I would have liked. Honestly I should have just used a regular full sized cut off wheel. The dremel was just too small for 2" material. All in all it came out pretty good I guess. I would have soldered tonight but when I got out the solder I had it didn't say "lead free" on it and is clearly very old so while I might use it for general purpose plumbing I wouldn't use it for this. Tomorrow I will get everything soldered together.

Just for shits I took a 3/8 NPT tap I had and tried a brass fitting. The copper pipe holds the fitting really well and if I solder it in I think it will be perfect for a temp port with a 3/8 NPT to 1/4 compression on a 1/4" rtd. I suppose I could go down to a 1/4 NPT but I like the extra stability of the 3/8.

Anyway that's the progress today. Once it's soldered together I'll send some pics.

Final note I applied for a fuel alcohol permit with the TTB. I'll post one here any communication I get form them, or how the process goes.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by sungazer »

I paid attention to your concerns about the ventilation in the top of the column, regarding escaping vapors and a possible firehazard.
If your condenser coil knocks down everything, there is no need to be worried. You might consider going electric..?
I am sure there will be people that will disagree with me however in my experience this is what happens if I don't run the still correctly.

To set the scene I have a condenser coil that is overly long and runs water that is overly cold so it has the capacity to knock down everything. With one very important factor once the still has equalized.

When I am starting the still (I use a propane burner) I have it set to max to get the boil happening quicker I have already started the flow of cooling water about 15 min earlier however at the very first moment when the vapor rises up the column it will escape out the vent. Just a small amount and I am in a well ventilated area so no problems.

At this point I turn the power down for 5 min this is normally enough to pass this first stage of equalization. I can then turn the power back up with no escaping Vapors.

PS Those first few vapors normally register a much higher temp than when the still is operating correctly under equalization.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

Spent some time soldering yesterday. I attached the coil to the cap, got the plates in the head, and got fittings on both ends of the column piece for connection. It was a pain using a regular blue bottle propane torch to sweat 2". I ended up having more luck just holding he thing over my still burner. Anyways it's together.

All I have left is a temp port and a take off port and I'm done I think. From a finish standpoint I'm not sure how I'm going to trim the plates. I was using a disc on a dremel, but I was going through them pretty fast. I might grab a regular cut off wheel from the shop and try that. Also I would like to soak the whole thing in some type of cleaning solution just to get off any internal flux or spots I missed. Do yall have a solution you use for this?
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Oldvine Zin
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Oldvine Zin »

NatiMatt wrote: Also I would like to soak the whole thing in some type of cleaning solution just to get off any internal flux or spots I missed. Do yall have a solution you use for this?
Some of your sacrificial alcohol or denatured alcohol will work - and you still have to do your cleaning runs

Be safe
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Danespirit
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Danespirit »

The normal procedure would be a vinegarrun , followed by a sacrifial alcoholrun.
I always clean as the build progress, it benefits the final cleaningprocess a lot.
So clean everything you have within reach, before doing the mandatory cleaningrun/s.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

A friend of mine came over this weekend to watch the wildcard games. He works at a pretty big distillery and suggested I install a temp port in the bottom 1/4 of the boiler to control wash temp while I'm cooking it. He said that the big boys control stills off of cooling water temp and wash temp, and don't even worry about the vapor temp. They have temp indication everywhere on their equipment but only use a few values to actually control whats happening. Anyway I'm curious if any of you have tried to measure the wash temp during a run? If you have done this please share your experience and if it was valuable.

On another note I lucked out because when they converted to spectrum analyzers for proofing 20 years ago he ended up with a whole box of floats which are being donated to the cause.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by still_stirrin »

NatiMatt wrote:...Anyway I'm curious if any of you have tried to measure the wash temp during a run? If you have done this please share your experience and if it was valuable...
Boiler (wash) temperature will indicate the %ABV of the wash because it will indicate the saturation temperature of the mixture at boiling. I don't personally have a gage in the boiler, but it is "good to know" data. Not mandatory for a run, but helpful to see how far through the run you are.

The vapor temperature in the column would indicate similar data except the vapor temperature can be complicated by column packing and/or reflux. So the %ABV can be misleading if reading the chart for the vapor line at temperature.

As your buddy suggested, many temperature measurement locations provide monitoring data, but are not necessary to run the still. And the boiler gage is a great example & starting point.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by rad14701 »

NatiMatt wrote:He works at a pretty big distillery and suggested I install a temp port in the bottom 1/4 of the boiler to control wash temp while I'm cooking it. He said that the big boys control stills off of cooling water temp and wash temp, and don't even worry about the vapor temp. They have temp indication everywhere on their equipment but only use a few values to actually control whats happening. Anyway I'm curious if any of you have tried to measure the wash temp during a run?
Either your friend spoke in error or you misinterpreted what he was saying... You cannot control the temperature in the boiler, just how fast it comes to temperature and how much vapor it produces - but not the temperature itself... This is a fundamental which you should get your head wrapped around before proceeding... There is much research into the fundamentals and theories that many skip, carrying false notions into the still room with them...

Also remember that the commercial distilleries allow a lot more inferior alcohol into their final product, which equates to hangovers... We, as artisan distillers, use more exacting methods than merely monitoring temperatures for making cuts because that practice is inferior and inaccurate... We strive to do better than the big commercial guys...
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

I double checked with him, and he verified that it is a control point. I think it's different because they run a continuous process instead of batch process, that's why I was asking if it's beneficial to have this point of measurement in a batch still. While I understand what we are doing is different I still feel like there is wisdom in experience and I'm not going to turn my nose up at anyone who's been doing this a long time (whether for a commercial operation or not).
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by rad14701 »

Again, you can't control the temperature in the boiler...!!! Maybe your friend can with a continuous still but you can't with a batch based boiler... The only way a continuous still can control wash temperature is by the flow rate through the boiling chamber... With a Bokakob on top of a batch boiler a thermometer in the boiler is virtually useless because you monitor the top end and make all adjustments based on vapor temperature at or near the head and optionally monitoring %ABV of collected spirits...

I don't need a thermometer in the boiler to tell me when the alcohol is almost gone because the top end tells me that...

Perhaps your friend should register here and share his wealth of knowledge... Or maybe he'd learn a little something instead... Just sayin...
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

So I've finished the thing at last. Here are the upgrades and modifications I've made to date:

1. I made a stand from 2" angle steel to support the keg. It came out great and snuggly holds the keg so it's pretty much impossible to tip it over. I was worried about the flimsy grate that came with my king kooker burner, but this is well resolved now.

2. Originally I had run 1/4" poly tubing to the top of my condenser with compression fittings. During my initial vinegar cleaning run I found out the poly gets pretty playable when it gets warm and while dialing in my condenser I blew some steam on the lines and they folded over and kinked off. 2 things of note here. First Vinegar boils at 241 F or something so that was some hot ass steam, and 2 I was going to need forced vs siphon cooling to get any decent rate out of the condenser. I added some elbows out of 1/4" copper to get the poly connections about 18" off to the side of the vent hole and tied the supply into the hose with a ball valve to regulate flow. I can get about 1/2 gal/min through with the ball valve wide open so I think I'm in business on that.

3. I moved my needle valve on my take off out away from and down about 30"s in order to get some head on my take off line. I feel like this provides some overall process elasticity at the take off point and eliminates the sputtering. Then I added a 1'4 tube off the valve over to my collection container. I think the CV on the needle valve is a little big, but more or less I can control it ok.

4. I loosely packed the column with about 20 chore boy scrubbers. They where pretty small. basically I just stuffed in 2 or 3 at a time them rodded them down until they touched. I didn't try to squish anything together. My packed height is about 40".

For my second cleaning test run I only had about 1 gallon of vinegar left so I watered it down with about 8 gallons of water. Mostly I wanted to see how long it took to warm up and how the upgraded cooling would work without actually having alcohol in the still. Overall I was pretty happy with everything. It took about an hour to get up to temp then I was able to go full reflux with a decent heat. I tried to run it with my valves wide open just to see where I would end up heat wise to max out the system. I think it will be different with alcohol, but the water vinegar mix was controllable at about 1 gal/hr max takeoff. The latent heat of water is about 3 times that of alcohol so I could probably run it much faster with alcohol if I wanted too (I should say the same heat load will produce a much faster takeoff rate). I will cut down the takeoff to get more reflux once I'm actually cooking wash, but for now I just wanted to see what it could handle. One note here, it wasn't nearly full strength, but I would have expected all of the vinegar to have been distilled out of the water in my test run, but I could definitely still smell vinegar in my product. I was not expecting this to happen because vinegar has a much higher boiling point. Any ideas here?

So now I'm to the last prep step right? I planned on making a small batch birdwatchers, maybe 6 gallons or so, and running that as my alcohol cleaning run, then making a full 12 gal birdwatchers batch immediately following that. Please advise if anyone disagrees with this process.

Thanks,
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by NatiMatt »

Success. Friday night I ran my first actual spirit run. I made 10 gallons of birdwatchers. It took about 40 minutes to bring the boiler up to temp, then I let it sit in reflux for about half an hour and started taking off heads at about 1-2 drops per second. I collected a lot more heads than I was expecting. I got about 30 ounces of what I would call paint thinner. I'm not sure, but one of my buddies suggested I let the ferment set on the lees too long and aldehydes started to build up from the stressed out yeasties. After than it turned into smooth perfectly clean liquor. another 4 hours later I had 9 1/2 pints of the good stuff. Really I probably could have gotten a little more I think my proof dropped to about 100 and it was late so I bailed.

All told I really couldn't be happier with how it turned out. Proof of function is 100%. Now I just need to land on a recipe for some apple pie and I'll be able to wrap up some handouts to everyone who helped me along the way. One thing I learned running the still the few times I have; the temp seems silly now. I can tell what's going on from the sound of the boiler, the temp gradient of the head when you touch it, and the smell of the product what's going on. I guess it's nice to know, but its pretty much straight from the book. ie I made birdwatchers which starts at about 12% potential, so in my 10 gallons I have about 10 pints of pure alcohol. I can't get it out as pure (at least not at a rate I can wait on) so it stands to reason I should end up with a little more volume. Anyway, every time I checked my temp is was pretty much what I thought it should be (starting around 165 ending in the low 190s).

One aspect of my design that turned out to be a huge winner is how I connected my takeoff valve. I extended the valve out and down from the head about 3'. This lets the tube going down tot he valve fill up with spirit and creates an elasticity in the control of the process. It seems to really help maintaining equilibrium in the still. Anyway thought I'd let yall know it went well.
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Hound Dog »

Glad your run went well and you are seeing your cuts. This can be the hardest part for many people. I would suggest two things to try. One, if you just put scrubbies in your column to where they are touching, add a bunch more and pack them in there fairly tight. Even better use small lava rock or marbles. You will get much better reflux. You should hold your temp right at 172 throughout the run and you will be at 94+ percent. Lowering your valve does not help equalibrium. Your takeoff needs to be slower than your condenser is filling the slant plate so the condensed product spills back over and creates reflux. Using tighter packing and putting more heat to the boiler will achieve this. Moving the valve further down gives more volume for liquid to mix encouraging smearing between your cuts. If you are using exceptionally small takeoff this may not be a problem.
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Danespirit
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Re: 1/2 Barrel Sanke Bokakob

Post by Danespirit »

+1 Hound Dog

Moving the valve has a potential for smearing.
If my memory serves me right read a member in here had made an experiment with moving the valve to the other side of the Liebig (can't remember who wrote about it).
The distillate would have a little more time in contact with the walls of the Liebig, aiding the cooling of the product.
That could have it's eligibility if the Liebig is relatively small, further the short distance would minimize smearing.
However, the longer tube the more product it can hold...which again means more response time to your adjustments.
I saw a Boka build in here where the member had attached a copper coil on the takeoff.
Intentions have sure been good, but he ended up with a very long response time, making adjustments more difficult than they have to be.
You learned some valuable experience in the process of building and running your still..now it's time to hone your skills..
Congrats to your successful run.
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