Earth based condensing theory question

[Honest_Liberty]

Hello everyone I was trying to solve a problem of water usage when I'm at my cabin. I have a very awesome piece of highly secluded property in the middle of nowhere, where I can probably bring a batch to run during the weekend. I'm very interested in doing a spirit run while I'm there in my 16-gallon still at 40% low wines.

I have a ton of one and a half inch copper that was left over in the house I bought plus I run an irrigation business so I can get it fairly reasonably priced.

If I was going to go bury that copper into the hillside, how many linear feet do you think you would take to condense that properly under 18 in of soil, so that I never have to worry about water condensing.
100'?
It's this even realistic or possible?
I have five acres and plenty of land and hillside to work with. It's high mountain desert mainly sand and decomposing granite soil. Easy to dig.

My thoughts were to have 20' exposed at a slight fitness angle from the peak of the column, so I could attach the still with tri clamps. Then run it through the ground and have it come out the other side with about 10' air exposed. I'd only run it on days where it's below freezing and I'd run it with all the free firewood I got. It's essentially endless. I've always wanted to burn a batch down there but water...I ain't got

The view from my master, upstairs:

Is there a calculation I could find?

[zed255]

Go air cooled with a hydronic heater tube Liebig and use no water at all, pot stillin' assumed?

Look for hydronic fin clamp. Basically heat exchanger fins that clamp around standard pipe. Also available in pre-manufactured sections.

Might be easier than trying to dump the heat into dirt.

[The Baker]

Go air cooled with a hydronic heater tube Liebig and use no water at all, pot stillin' assumed?

What's that look like, zed?

A tube with a lot of fins??

Or is that something else?

Geoff

[zed255]

Similar has been discussed in the forums before.

https://www.amazon.ca/Fin-Clamp-CLR-2-B ... 399&sr=8-2

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 87&t=54596

[The Baker]

Go air cooled with a hydronic heater tube Liebig and use no water at all, pot stillin' assumed?

What's that look like, zed?

A tube with a lot of fins??

Or is that something else?

Geoff

Thanks, thought that was it. These heaters are not that common in our country, so far as I know.

Geoff

[cob]

Geoff; Bunny posted some pictures, https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 2#p7652639

you could make your own with copper pipe and aluminum roll flashing, or thin copper sheet.

Bunny's post is not the only one on that type of air cooling, but I knew where It was.

[The Baker]

Thanks, cob.
I looked it up and 1/6 barrel (his 'small one') is 20 litres, the same as my stock pot.
So I can relate to it.
Geoff

[Honest_Liberty]

Similar has been discussed in the forums before.

https://www.amazon.ca/Fin-Clamp-CLR-2-B ... 399&sr=8-2

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 87&t=54596

How does that compare to being in frozen ground though, you know? I read those articles and since I use water at home, no biggie. But out in the sticks, I was thinking about using the Earth

[Demy]

Yours is a good idea. I don't know if that's what you are looking for but you could consider using a coil immersed in a bucket (in the old way in short) but instead of using water .... I see a lot of snow there!

[zach]

I think you can look at designs people use for snow melting systems.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/snow ... _1082.html

https://www.hydronics.com/2018/12/24/si ... ng-system/

When I lived in the mountains in Colorado the last thing I would want is to reject the heat to atmosphere. I'd try to use it in the house.

[Honest_Liberty]

I think you can look at designs people use for snow melting systems.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/snow ... _1082.html

https://www.hydronics.com/2018/12/24/si ... ng-system/

When I lived in the mountains in Colorado the last thing I would want is to reject the heat to atmosphere. I'd try to use it in the house.

ahh, meaning, if its that cold out, the cold would penetrate far better than the ground? which is why folks suggested I go read the aircooled method?
I read it, but I didn't want to invest in that. However, if I made one of those maybe 25 to 30' long and ran it on windy days...with only the condenser going outside of a built shack, and then returning inside where the boiler is... timing would be tough but its quite windy at my property in south central CO

[NZChris]

I've heard that dry earth can be used for insulation. I don't know how well damp earth would wick away heat, but I suggest you find out before you go burying heap of pipe in soil.

When I run off grid, I always use an oversized Liebig and control the condensate temperature with a cheap 12V solenoid and controller. The outlet water is hot enough to wash the dishes. The cooling water is bucketed into a 2 gallon header tank, then gravity fed through the Liebig into another bucket, so is not lost.

[Demy]

I meant something like this since you said you will use it in very cold periods. The container could be very large and placed outside. At a certain point the snow melts but in any case it will give a lot of time and then it can be easily topped up.

[jonnys_spirit]

How about. Recirculating water system where the hot wayer goes outside to be cooled then back inside to feed your condenser.

Water seems to be pretty good at transferring the heat and it’s easy enough to move especially if you can implement a pump and some valves to control the speed.

I’m thinking about the earth and once that bit is heated up where (and how fast) does the heat go?

A couple reservoirs a passive heat exchanger and a pump (solar/battery) and wood fired pot.

I’d prefer driving to the site with sacks of grain over low wines though in case jonny-law wants to take a peek.

[Windswept]

I meant something like this since you said you will use it in very cold periods. The container could be very large and placed outside. At a certain point the snow melts but in any case it will give a lot of time and then it can be easily topped up.Immagine.png

If you're going to do this, you'll need to add some water to the mix. Snow is actually quite a good insulator, so if you pack a pot with snow and throw it on the stove to melt, you'll ruin your pot before you melt a lot of snow. I've used snow to cool down a flake stand before and you have to add snow to the water, not the other way around.

[Expat]

Seems like a complicated way to work things, easiest and likely best thing you could do is just have a 50g barrel reservoir and a recirculation pump.
Easier to install, easier to maintain.

[Honest_Liberty]

Ok I understand now. I'm not a physics kinda guy so my theory is typically way off

[HDNB]

oldest moonshiner i (knew) buried a 1/2" x 10' worm off a wood fired milk can on the side of hill and made booze for decades with it.

summer earth is a constant temp of about 4* C around here. you cannot build a fire big enough to change that. i'd suppose some moisture in the dirt would help with the heat transfer. guess it depends on the composition in your area. here it's clay and dirt and a 2' trench would be plenty of cool.
if there is grass on top in the shade of trees, there will be lots of moisture down a little bit.

[The Baker]

Geoff; Bunny posted some pictures, https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... 2#p7652639

you could make your own with copper pipe and aluminum roll flashing, or thin copper sheet.

Bunny's post is not the only one on that type of air cooling, but I knew where It was.

I am sure I have seen similar apparatus in scrap from commercial refrigeration equipment.
Copper tube with lots of fins.
Might be food for thought.
(And I have relatives who work with computers. Probably have discarded fans!)
Geoff

[Birrofilo]

I presume that a long copper tube would do the work very well, based on this "calculation".

When you are outside in the cold (below freezing temperature) and you breathe, you see your breathe condense into a "cloud" instantly. That means that the humidity in your air instantly lost 37 °C.

Vapour comes out of your still at a little less than 100 °C. That's less than three times the temperature differential. The higher the temperature differential, the faster the exchange of heat between the vapour and the surrounding air.

Those monks in the middle ages who distilled in their labs did not have recirculating water mostly, but they did have a lot of cold available to them, even indoors... I think it's fair to think they just used long air condensers.

I am pretty confident that, without many calculations, if you have a 2-metre long copper condenser exposed to freezing-cold air, it will know down easily the vapours of a small-medium still. If it freezes your hands being outside in the colds without gloves, then it will knock down your spirit. Unscientific but presumably working.

You could make a coil with a standard copper pipe and have the condenser get out of your cabin, and then re-enter the cabin.

[SmokyMtn]

I have mined underground for quite sometime. The earth, "dirt" at a certain depth is a constant temperature mid 50's° F in my region. Your specific region will dictate depth.

Also the dirt has much more thermal mass (stored energy ), than your condenser can produce. It would be difficult to heat the dirt to a point that the surrounding dirt couldn't keep up.

The hard part I think, would be the excavation. Root cellars around here are 8'-10' deep into a bank. For a condenser to work it would have to be a similar depth.

Then you would rely on gravity. Tending a still on the side or peak of a bank would not be fun. Then collecting at the bottom. If you were serious about this, 36" x 8' copper coil 10"-12" spacing would be what I would bury. There is a real good chance it could work. But labor intensive and monitoring both ends of the still could be a challenge.

Personally I would collect rain water in a 300+ gallon tank. Use a 12v bilge pump and recirculate.

[Honest_Liberty]

I have mined underground for quite sometime. The earth, "dirt" at a certain depth is a constant temperature mid 50's° F in my region. Your specific region will dictate depth.

Also the dirt has much more thermal mass (stored energy ), than your condenser can produce. It would be difficult to heat the dirt to a point that the surrounding dirt couldn't keep up.

The hard part I think, would be the excavation. Root cellars around here are 8'-10' deep into a bank. For a condenser to work it would have to be a similar depth.

Then you would rely on gravity. Tending a still on the side or peak of a bank would not be fun. Then collecting at the bottom. If you were serious about this, 36" x 8' copper coil 10"-12" spacing would be what I would bury. There is a real good chance it could work. But labor intensive and monitoring both ends of the still could be a challenge.

Personally I would collect rain water in a 300+ gallon tank. Use a 12v bilge pump and recirculate.

well, we get about 9-11" of precipitation annually at the cabin. Its 80% complete: needs trim, gutters, finishing the inside. I will be installing rain buckets for sure but I also might sell it to purchase 100 acres out east somewhere next to friends to weather the coming decade. Trying to go back to little house on the prairie type life. Anywho... Water is scarce. I could go fix the hand powered "community pump" that's maybe 1/4 mile away, and truck it back. logistics would suck.
I'm not sure yet what approach to take, but excavation down there is no biggie. I dug the pylons with an industrial tow behind auger and it was basically mostly sandy gravel/sand/some decomposed granite. went through like butter. I dig for a living so I can run a shovel very efficiently and quickly. I'll be taking into consideration all of your input and I'll post photos from my next trip. It's such a beautiful place I'd love to burn a small spirit run batch down there looking at the Sangres

[NZChris]

If you leave a couple of containers of water outside, what temperature could you expect them to be in the morning.

It's been a hot summer here and the water isn't all that cold so I've had to refill my header tank at least once during a run, which is a PITA. The last time I ran, I put the header tank in the fridge overnight. I was amazed by how little water got used. I should have measured it for interests sake. It might have only been twice the volume of the charge.

A clever bugger could work out how much water would be used for any given temperature. If your water is particularly cold, it might not be as much as you think, plus, using my system, the water isn't wasted.

[SmokyMtn]

So with your annual rainfall that is 5.58-6.82 gallons per square foot of roof or tarp per year. The more roof sq ft the more collection. Sounds like you need water storage anyway.

Edit: I have used poly tanks for my short off grid experience. Poly tanks are great but the water tastes terrible.

A viable and predictable option would be to direct grey water (showers, sinks, and washer) to a separate underground poly tank. Use that water to recirculate.

[The Baker]

So with your annual rainfall that is 5.58-6.82 gallons per square foot of roof or tarp per year. The more roof sq ft the more collection. Sounds like you need water storage anyway.

Edit: I have used poly tanks for my short off grid experience. Poly tanks are great but the water tastes terrible.

A viable and predictable option would be to direct grey water (showers, sinks, and washer) to a separate underground poly tank. Use that water to recirculate.

If it works for you, direct the grey water through a reed bed (need details) to
clean it up a lot before storing it.

Geoff