Temperature of Cooling Water

[Beerlover88]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to the forum and distilling. After running a few batches through my pot still with a 3' leibig condenser, I was wondering what temperature do I need to keep the cooling water? The water gets hot quickly, since I am recirculating from a five gallon bucket. Is it OK that it gets hot, or do I need to ice it down or replace the cooling water frequently?

Thanks!

[rad14701]

The use of ice is not a good idea because it causes spotty shock cooling of the distillate vapor... If your worm bucket is bigger than your boiler you shouldn't even need to replace water... The water can actually be steaming on top but the bottom should remain relatively cool... Feel the end of the worm where it exits the bucket to see how warm or cool the bottom is...

If you do replace some of the water, however, you should have to cold water enter the bottom of the bucket, and there are several ways to achieve that, and the hot water should exit the top...

The simplest way to get the water into the bottom of the bucket is by using a funnel and a tube that reaches the bottom of the bucket... Another option is to connect a hose to the drain valve if your bucket has one...

[Dnderhead]

Also if you a mettle container for your worm it will give up more heat than plastic

[Beerlover88]

Sorry for the confusion. I've got a three foot liebig condenser, and I use a pump to recirculate water from a 5 gallon bucket. Do the same rules apply? Should I just recirculate and not add ice or replace the water, even though the water gets hot?

[Husker]

Exact same rules apply. You still have to remove exactly the same amount of power from the output (that is all a condenser is doing). Whatever power was put in to the boil, will have to be removed on the backend. Thus, if your water supply is large enough, it will handle full run. Yes, it may get pretty warm to the end, but it should handle the load.

H.

[Caprimulgus]

This is all good to hear. Someone was complaining that a big barrel wasn't enough. And we need to save water because we only have a dug out spring well. I guess my thought of using the bath tub and then taking a bath afterwards isn't silly after all. Recycling both water and the power for heating that bath

[kiwistiller]

heater cores are cheap... I'm chucking one of them inline with my cooling system today, should get my outgoing water back down to sensible levels for recirculation. Now, how to attach these hoses....

[Husker]

You can also cool the water, but having building a 'frame' (an A-frame works REALLY) well, and draping a towel over it, then leting the hot discharge flow onto the top of the towel, draining down, and then put a fan on that. It will drop the water temp 20 degrees or more.

This is often called a swamp cooler.

H.

[kiwistiller]

Hey - nice one. I've used that princple to cool my beer in the bush, but never thought to do it for stilling

Thanks for an awesome tip.

[Husker]

A 5 gallon reservoir of water, will likely not be large enough, even with a swamp cooler to do a 12 gallon run from a 1/2 barrel keg still. It will be close, and may do a strip run, but will likely overheat for a spirit run. However, I have done a 12 gallon spirit run just fine in a 9 gallon 'tub' using a swamp cooler to remove some of the heat. I think it likely effectively doubles the size of your water reservoir (but that depends on outside air temp, and humidity). On hot/humid day, you are not going to be able to remove too many BTU's from the cooling water. Thus the water reservoir is pretty much it.

But the mention of heating bath water, is certainly a GOOD usage. If you were planning on a bath anyway, this is 'free' power to heat that tub. I have also heard of people using their pool as coolant. There are 'many' ways to conserve the water. The easiest is to simply have a large enough reservoir, put just a touch of bleach in it (to keep algae and other nasties out of it), then use it to still, put a lid on it, and wait until next time you need to still. The water will still be there. Thus, this method, is a 'zero' use. And if you grab a couple gallons of rain water every once in a while, then this method (big enough barrel), can even be done if there is no water at all (say out in the boonies), away from a creek.

H.

[bencornish]

HI all,

Im curious about what was said with Cooling being too cold or the quote:

The use of ice is not a good idea because it causes spotty shock cooling of the distillate vapor.

Can someone elaborate more ?

[kiwistiller]

I believe that is really only for a worm in bucket situation, where you want a slow and gradual collapse of vapour - the naturally occuring temperature gradient in the bucket will sort that out, and ice being added will spoil it

[bencornish]

ok.. so what about the use of a Freezer to cool the water ?
and using a Boka ?

[kiwistiller]

Guess that would be fine, as long your flow rate is such that it is exiting the condenser warm.

[olddog]

I have a 50lt keg for my boiler, and use a 60ltr plastic garbage bin for my water storage, Even with the high temperatures we get in Australia, and having two condensers, the dephlagmater and the Graham condenser, the water return starts to steam a bit at the end of the run but still knocks down the vapour and I have never had to resort to ice. BTW the warm water in the garbage bin after the run is great to soak off the labels on wine bottles.


OD

[rad14701]

ok.. so what about the use of a Freezer to cool the water ?
and using a Boka ?

You could use the freezer to pre-cool your water but a freezer will never keep up with the heat produced during a run... This question has been brought up and answered many times... Stills produce heat rapidly while freezers cool down slowly in comparison... Don't over-complicate things more than you need to...

[Cornfield]

Well here is what I do. I use a pump like the original poster. I fill several 16/20 ounce plastic coke bottles with water then freeze them. I fill my big pot with water and put three of the frozen bottles in there. Once the ice in the bottle melts, I just change out with three new frozen bottles. Since the ice in the bottle has limited surface, its not a radical change in temp.

[rad14701]

Cornfield, that method works well with a pump in a bucket, but not for a worm in a bucket... With a worm in a bucket you want the coldest water at the bottom and the hottest water at the top... Frozen bottles can have a tendency to knock that equilibrium out of whack...

[RuffStuff]

I also use a liebig condenser. I usually only distill in the winter because I pump water out of the pool through the condenser and back into the pool when the water is usually 55-65 degrees F and works well. How warm can I let the pool water get and still have it still be effective through my liebig condenser? I live in Florida and the pool water gets warm quickly.

[Euphoria]

To my thinking, a 5 gallon bucket isn't going to cut it. You need a larger reservoir, (like a 50 gal. drum or rain barrel,) with the addition of a cooling coil, (aka radiator,) and a fan to blow through it to help dissipate the heat in your coolant return line. At least that would be a good place to start. I also recirculate my coolant like you do, and I found this setup to do a pretty good job of knocking some of the heat off the return line back to the reservoir. (Just some pics below to give you a visual of what I run with.) In addition to using it with my Pot Still with a 3" Lyne Arm/Leibieg setup I also use it with my 4" plated column as well. I usually run my 26 gallon boiler for both, (I also have a 13 gal. and an 8 gal. boiler too,) so having a cooling system that can keep up is important. To check your Liebig temp, just touch your inflow end which should be cool to just warm to the touch and run your hand down the length of the Liebig until it gets a bit uncomfortable to touch. This should be about halfway down the length of it. Towards the Liebieg outflow end, it will be a bit uncomfortable to keep your hand on it, but you should be able to touch it briefly without needing to pull your hand away in a second or less. At least that is how I "gauge" my Liebig for coolant heat transfer. If you can touch and hold the middle of it, you should be good to go.