water pumps

Anything cooling/condenser related.

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Virginia Gentleman
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water pumps

Post by Virginia Gentleman »

What do ya'll prefer for a water pump to recirculate water through a cooling jacket? I searched past messages, and seems like bilge pumps, "water feature" pumps and the like are used. Seems like an aquarium pump wouldn't have enough power. I'll be working with a 10 gal. copper pot still with a gooseneck and cooling jacket. Probably use a 30 gal. tub as a resevoir.

One other option is to bag the cooling jacket, and have the Col. put a copper coil on it instead, then just use a coil cooling bucket that's larger than the boiler, throw in some bottles full of ice when needed.

On the 1.5 gal. pot still I made, the coil bucket is 2 gallons, and I rarely have to add ice or water to it. Water gets warmish at the end of a run, but product never gets above luke warm, which is good.
Lord preserve and protect us, we've been drinkin' whiskey 'fore breakfast.
DBM

pump

Post by DBM »

I use a bilge pump (12 volt). I have a 55 gal drum of water and just let it recirculate. When the water starts to warm up i stick the garden hose down by the bilge pickup and turn the garden hose on so just a small trickle is coming out, perty soon the water will be cooled off, I usually just leave the garden hose running. My reflux tower is 2X32 and the pot is 20 gal. My water barrel is about 30 ft from my still and I use some old copper tubing (got it out of an old junkedout moble home) as a return line, this helps with the cooling also.
LeftLaneCruiser
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Post by LeftLaneCruiser »

I use an aquariumpump in a drum of water (200 ltr). It's just a cheap little pump wich doesn't have a lot capacity to get water up, max height about 45 centimeters. But since the condenser is at about the same level as the pump is that is no problem.

This is a picture of the pump i use:

http://www.conrad.de/xl/5000_5999/5700/ ... FB.EPS.jpg

KJH
Last edited by LeftLaneCruiser on Fri Apr 22, 2005 2:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
booger
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Best deal on a pump I found....

Post by booger »

This is what I use, and it works very well for what I use it for - whcih is a worm coil in the top of a column. Keep in mind that there is a whole lot of friction in my conensor because it's small pipe going a fairly long distance - I do have my pump close to the same height as my condensor to save in wasted pumping power (pumping uphill is difficult). My guess is that for a cooling jacket you could probably go with something smaller...

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/D ... mber=46208
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Virginia Gentleman
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Post by Virginia Gentleman »

Sweet, ya'll that helps a lot. Time to go shopping.

Considering having him put a 1/2" line and compression fitting off the top of the boiler so I can run it with a worm or through the jacket. Hmmm.
Lord preserve and protect us, we've been drinkin' whiskey 'fore breakfast.
hotshotharry

Post by hotshotharry »

just a peice of information for you guys, if you have a loop of water, the pump only has to pump uphill the first time to fill the loop, then the will will free flow, think of it as a siphon. so essentially a closed loop has no head pressure cept for the resistance in the line. now the problem is if you get a small air leak your pump will not be able to pump the water high anough and then the still doesnt get enough cooling and therefore it must be supervised very well

In myopnion, the cost of a pump and all the BS that goes along with that is not worth it. The cost of the pump will pay for a lot of cold tap water haha :) and it is far less complex, as neat as a closed loop sounds, it is a pain int he but..

I was using a 1000gph pump, and built a cooler out of car heater cores for it and had a furnace fan coolling it haha. It was loud, and annoying and i had to watch it constantly. I hooked up a garden hose fitting, and now all it takes is a trickle of water to cool 6kw, youd be surprised lol. and the other end either goes out to water the grass or wahtever. too easy.

:) good luck though :)
Virginia Gentleman
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Post by Virginia Gentleman »

Food for thought, Harry. I have debated changing the design to use a coil instead of a jacket as well. I've got a 1.5 gal pot still, and all I do is fill the 3 gal. cooling bucket once with cold water. Very simple.
Lord preserve and protect us, we've been drinkin' whiskey 'fore breakfast.
Guest

Post by Guest »

You don't need a lot with a pot stilll. You could go with a 55 gallon drum and a coil. I did a 10 gallon pot a couple of years back and the water was warm in the top 6 inches of the drum, the rest of it had not changed.
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Tater
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Post by Tater »

i use a 15 gallon keg as a still and another to hold worm.by the end of run waters just right to use to start another ferment or use to wash up still and fermenter with
I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
Johnwalkingfox

water supply

Post by Johnwalkingfox »

I use a one gpm bilge pump I picked up at Tractor supply for around 12 dollars (years ago). I have a rain barrel at the corner of my garage I use that as my water supply. I got some 1/2 inch copper pipe from a junked out mobil home that I use for the return line. My still is 22 1/2 gal copper and I take off the good stuff slow so it takes me a little over eight hours from startup to shutdown. About two hours into the run the water barrel temp will reach 100*, I then stick the garden hose in with a small trickle of water coming out, I put this right by the suck tube screen so the cool water is being sucked up with a little of the warm water. The water temp will usually stabilize at about 90* and stay there for the rest of the run.
I run the pump with the deepcycle battery from my boat. I charge the battery with a solar panel made to charge the batterys for an electric fence. After making an eight hour run it usually takes between two and three days for the pannel to have the battery back to full charge. I plan to quit using the garden hose. I was at a friends still yesterday and he was using two barrels. He was pumping from one and had the return line returning water to the other barrel. He had a piece of old garden hose about six feet long sifling the water from the return barrel to the suck barrel. He had been running about seven hours when I got there and his water just was good'n warm.
AkCoyote
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Post by AkCoyote »

I use a pond pump, like the kind you use in a fish pond with a waterfall down in a 5 gallon bucket of water. In a 5 hour run I use 2 frozen 1 gallon milk jugs to keep it cool. In the winter I just sit it outside the garage door and hope it doesn't freeze.

AkCoyote
Virginia Gentleman
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Post by Virginia Gentleman »

Good stuff, ya'll, thanks for the details. Think I'm gonna stick with the condensor jacket, use a 30 gal. barrel and a bilge pump, maybe a few frozen soda bottles when needed. It's a 10 gal boiler, so I'd guess runs will take 6 hours or so.
Lord preserve and protect us, we've been drinkin' whiskey 'fore breakfast.
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