Help regarding Liebig design

[SenileToo]

My initial Liebig condenser will service a foot high 2" pot still initially atop an 8 gallon electric powered (5,500W) milk can boiler from Mile High. I also have a brand new keg awaiting ferrules and welding. The Liebig will be a 3/4" shell with a 1/2" condensate tube wrapped with a spiral of 12 gauge copper wire. Length will be determined by how long I can make it with the pothead mounted on the keg at a 45 deg. angle and the keg on its stand - as long as possible but short enough to hide if needed!

The question: what to put inside the 1/2" condensate tube to promote flow disturbance? I think I've read all the relevant forum threads (great stuff!) - i.e. nothing, counter-wound copper wire spiral, snipped and twisted copper sheet strip, copper mesh, nubs, crimps, etc. Seems a wire spiral touching the bottom of a tube at ~45 deg. would suffer from pooling. If the Liebig with such a spiral was mounted vertically it would seem that following vapor collapse all those nice little distillate molecules would line up and trickle down the spiral wire hugging the nice cool tube walls, arriving in good order in the parrot mouth. Copper mesh in a 45 deg. mount and ideally placed only in the top area where vapor collapse would occur would seem to result in good vapor disturbance, promoting collapse, then distillate rushing down the void to arrive at the parrot a lot warmer for the hurried journey. The copper strip, maybe in combination with some mesh at the top, appears to promote vapor and distillate disturbance without pooling. Has anyone confirmed this? Lacking copper sheet and staring at 100' of spare Romex I'm thinking about inserting some mesh and a 12 gauge wire crimped in a zig-zag pattern and always oriented vertically in a 45 deg. mounted Liebig to avoid pooling. Would this be a good compromise? I'd rather not mount vertically in my setup for a number of reasons you all I'm sure understand. Are there any other good alternatives for efficiently disturbing vapor and distillate flow in a 45 deg. mounted simple Liebig?

Thanks a bunch for your help and thanks to everyone who has contributed such a wealth of knowledge and imagination to this and other topics us new guys have come to value.

[S-Cackalacky]

You might also consider crimping the vapor tube. That will promote turbulence in both the water jacket and the vapor path. You can use vice-grip pliers to control the depth of the crimp. Crimp it along the length of the vapor pipe with every other crimp at a right angle to the previous - spaced about 1.5 inches apart. If you decide to do it, I would suggest crimping a scrap piece of tube first and make sure it fits into the water jacket. Be sure to leave enough uncrimped pipe at the two ends to accommodate whatever fittings you use.

[SenileToo]

Thanks Cackalacky. I'll give that a try on some scrap to test how the outside wind would fit (still want to do that as I think that would be significantly better than just crimps along the water side) and how it fits in the shell - no problematic obstruction. I'll report back anyway with pictures for other's benefit. Still scratching my head for additional ideas. I was also thinking of modifying my decades old pipe cutter's wheel to be able to crimp and not cut rings or a spiral (it already walks up pipe anyway!).

Not trying to split hairs but anything to avoid a really long > 3' condenser or a much heavier 1" shell and expensive 1" X 3/4" X 1/2" tees. I don't mind making them at all but I'm a believer in using fittings made for the task and minimizing points of failure.

Thanks again!

[NZChris]

Unless you want to throw a lot of Watts at it, a 3' condenser should be enough without a spiral in the vapor path. Design so that a coil can easily be retrofitted if needed.

Today, I'm running a Liebig made out of what happened to be in my steel rack, 2' of 1/2" OD, forgot to put a spiral in the water jacket , has a coil of copper wire in the vapor path and its knocking down 1500W no trouble. The coil can be removed for cleaning.

[Brutal]

I have a 3 foot 1/2" tube liebig with no wire wrap in the jacket. A friend built it and then didn't use it so he gave it to me. I've been using it the last couple years. Last summer I stuffed about 9-10 inches of copper mesh in the end of it with some thick copper wire in it so I could get it back out. I then proceeded to run the unit at a very shallow angle. It was only going downward by a couple inches from the still to the collection point. Everything I made tasted off.. After a feints run one time I turned off the heat and jumped up to tear the whole rig down and when I took the condenser off kind of a lot of fluid came out. Then I shook it and more came out. Not only was it pooling in the mesh I had near the output, but there is a 1" to 1/2" reducer at the top and I'm sure it was pooling too. Now I run it empty. On strip runs the output gets pretty hot and I can't run my electric as fast as I want to.

I am going to build a variation on this soon that I hope will solve all the problems. Keep an eye out for a thread about it.

[SenileToo]

NZChris, thanks for your comment. If I read your remarks correctly you have a 24" X ??" condenser jacket around a 1/2" core with a spiral of wire in the vapor path but no spiral around the core tube and you're using 1.500 watts power. I'd like to be able to use the 3/4" jacket around a 1/2" core option at least 24" long but less than 36" if possible. That's why I'm wondering what options there are for creating good turbulence in the vapor path and what people's experience has been. You're saying you're seeing good results at 1500w with 24" and spiral in the core but nothing around the jacket. No pooling. That's encouraging! I'll be pushing 5500w at start-up but certainly less than that during a run. I'm leaning toward the 24" length with spiral inside and around the core. If that huffs and puffs there's plan B!

[SenileToo]

Brutal, not a fun experience for you! If I were to use mesh it would be half that much loosely inserted into the input end of the condenser tube where there should only be (mostly) vapor. The objective would be to induce turbulence and slow the vapor down so it condenses as far up the tube as possible, hopefully allowing for a shorter shell than 3'. That's the theory anyway. I think I read where Rad or someone had success with this. I was wondering if anyone else had. Sounds like we now know what happens when you stick it in the outlet end!

Sorry you had the experience buts it helped me avoid a goof...