3 foot tall 2" copper collumn hybrid pot still

[azcz10]

I'm building a 3 foot tall 2" copper collumn hybrid pot still coming off of a 15 gallon SS boiler. I'm thinking of putting a length of single coil 1/4" copper tube in the top (or bottom?) of my collum with a valve to control the flow of coolant and a leibig type condenser coming off of the collum at a 45 degree angle. My goal is to get a flavorfull whiskey with sufficient proof in one run. I'm not really interested in a flavorless spirit at this time but would like to have the versatility for that at a later date. I have all of the pieces but they're not assembled yet. My questions: How long should the coil be and where should it be placed? Or is there a better alternative?

[NcHooch]

are you planning on using some packing in this design?
To (partially) answer your question, I'd think a refluxing coil would be more appropriate at the top versus the bottom of the tower, but a picture of your plan would be helpful.

[Prairiepiss]

What you are describing would be a CM still. Not liked much for making a great neutral. But I think it can make a nice whiskey if you build it right. And learn to run it.

Do some research on CM stills. And check out the cm mod link in my signature. You also mite go check out my cm build in the my stuff link.

[azcz10]

Apparently the attachment did not go thru. I'm trying to figure out how to put in the drawing.

[rad14701]

Apparently the attachment did not go thru. I'm trying to figure out how to put in the drawing.

Either the wrong image file type or, more likely, the image size is too large... See the Forum Rules, Notifications and Helpful Hints forum for more information...

[azcz10]

http://s1145.photobucket.com/albums/o507/azcz10/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Here's a drawing. I'd like to be able to get a sufficient ABV in 1 run and avoid having to re-distill. Keeping in mind that I want a flavorful distillate (like traditional moonshine whiskey), should I put the "Reflux Condensing Coil" in the top, middle, or bottom of the collumn? How long should the coilt be? Should it be double wound? Should it have a "Cold Finger"? My plan is to control the amount of reflux by controlling the coolant flow rate with a valve on the input side. Should I put some copper scrub pad packing in the lower part of the collum? If so, how much? Will this design be versatile enough so that I can run a flavorless spirit with a higher ABV later?

I know that the guys (and gals) on here are serious, have a lot of great ideas, and are really helpful. I hope to benefit from your experience and trial & error.

Thanks!

[davidwh]

Hi,

I've been running a pot hyrid for a few years now. Single run for flavour, lower costs and time use, good flow rate about 2lt/hr with starting abv's in 90's temp corrected.
I tried several coils and setups before settling on a very basic design which like most simple things, works best.

All coils where mounted at the top just before 90 degree elbow to a normal position lyne arm, then off to a 1.5m leibig ( hot summers here) with pond pump into 240lt garbage bin.
Just on that make sure your pump if used has a good lift height as i got caught wih accepting the guides for lift heights on the packs and found once you add the restistance due to 1/4" copper your out of luck.

Tried a cold finger about 25cm long but found it refluxed too much even with low flow rate of cooling water. Basically was searching for good abv's and best prodn flow i could get.
The cold finger was wrapped in SS scrubers to take up a column diamater and an addtional 2 scrubbers threaded between down tube and coils but loosely packed. This puppy pulled well into the 90's but flow was ok but not what i'd call brilliant.

Eventually settled on a double wound coil in 1/4" also with hollow core and gap between outer coil and pot colum loosely packed with SS scrubbers. Slightly longer at about 32cm in lenght. This puppy will also start in the low 90's abv but can better regulate flow I've found so run between the start at 90's abv and run down to 75% abv worst case.

Ruthless with only two general cuts i make as a single run offers no chance to "correct" this truly is a case of take the best hearts, don't be greedy, throw a good heads cut out and finish up ealry to avoid tails. I make no other cuts and collect just on about 4.2lt per run on a 50Lt SS keg boiler.

On flow rate of cooling water, get a half reasonable precise ball valve don't invest mega bucks but a good progressive one as flow rate is more critical to controlling abv for single runners. I tried those plastic irrgation in line types and they are not linear and you end up trying to make fractions of a mm changes which is just too hard to be acurate.

As a general guide the run looks like this....
Let her fire up, on first trickles start up pump. reduce 3 ring burner back to 2 rings at about 3/4 open and allow parrot and heads jar to fill... .5lt for comfort...i know it sounds generous but being tight arsed about cuts on a single run is counter productive imho.

Let her settle to an initial 91 - 2 ish abv then reduce cooling flow rate until sitting in low 80's abv. This significantly increases flow rate and pulls great flavours you won't find in double runs.
Run at low 80's abv until your done collecting, or alco meter starts bobbing about and heading down towards 75 abv. call it quits in the knowledge your done no more work to do other than airing, adjusting abv for timber and looking at the cute 5lt jars lined up!

I'm don't beleieve this would suit neaturals in all honesty the majority of the run will sit in the mid 80's abv...not clean enough imho. It's really ideal for whiskies and Old Dog's gin is a cracker and well accepted.
If it has to be one head to do both jobs perhaps consider a joiner, a larger coil and more scrubbers. I reckon here your better off going to a boka etc to get more precision on cuts etc.



cheers
dave

[Prairiepiss]

I will disagree with the fact it won't make a neutral. With mine I can pull 95% off and its a pretty damn good neutral. Not the fastest still in the Midwest! Yet! But it does the job. Does a real good job if you do a stripping run first. Like I said go check my stuff link. You can see how I built mine.

[azcz10]

Thanks a bunch for the info. This is what I'm looking for. Still, could you answer some of my questions about the length of the coil, position, and scrubbers etc?

Thanks!

[davidwh]

Bloke,

have another rwad...it cover coil position lenght and scrubbers

cheers
dave

[Usge]

Excellent, informative post david! Indeed, many have found luck with hybrids doing single runs using somekind of simple coil, etc..for refluxing at the top. Uncle Jessie himself is a proponent of single run whiskey using moderated reflux. You've given lots of great detail but there's a couple things I think could use a little bit more info about.

It's a little unclear from your description what the position of your 12" double-wound coil is inside your column/tube. Is it "above" the take off port going to the lynearm (but extending down just a bit?). Or does the top of the coil start just above the opening for the lynearm, and then extend "down" past it into the tube? Or is your takeoff to lynearm straight out the top (ie., 90 degree fitting at top) and your coil is below it? I've got an 8" coil (.75" cold finger with a single coil on the outside), in my boka and that will knock down everything you can throw at it (and then some). I would have figured the 12" version would be even "more-so". Maybe the coil being longer offers more of a "temp gradient" that makes it easier to dial in how much gets past it...vs a coldfinger tube). But, probably position plays just as much a roll there as well. Just wanted to pick your brain here a bit given I've also experienced what it's like having a reflux (deplegmator) condenser knock down too much wood (ie., they are very hard to control). Second reason is I know that one of our other members "heartcut" also uses something similar (a longer coil ...single in his case...that extends down past the take off port) and seems to be getting good results from it as well on single runs (and at more tolerable flowrates).

Second, is your still charge. I'm assuming you are running about 10 gals (37-38 liters) in your 13 gal (50l) pot? And if you are single running, I'm assuming you aren't running any low-wines or feints? If you take an average of 10% abv for most common whiskey/run/ wash recipes like UJSM, etc., that gives you a total "potential" alc volume to collect at "less" than 4 liters. You say you are "keeping" 4+ liters off your runs after generous cuts. So, I'm interested to know what kind of still charge you are running for your single runs? It's got to be somewhere around 18-20% to have enough potential alc for you to do as you describe and still keep 4 plus liters after cuts. Or am I misunderstanding something?

3rd, how tall is your column and do you pack it?

Thanks again for a great, informative post and for sharing your experience. I'm sure it will help others.

Usge

[davidwh]

Hello all,
Sry to take so long...work and all...

I'm a big fan of single runs as you've no doubt guessed mainly because of the simplicity and reduced effort which suits my product of choice big robust flavoured sour mashed bourbon styles. Let’s have a crack at the questions raised....

Your right Usge, the top of my coil starts right at the join of the 2''/50mm 90 degree elbow join. This then heads off to the normal positioned Lyne arm. The elbow flange can be used to take up the slots you must cut to get cooling 1/4" tubes out.

Here's another thing I found ....I mid mounted the coil in the column (i.e. half way up the column) at first as I could use the joiner sleeve flange to get the cooling coil 1/4" pipes out with a bit of soldering without much hassle and the joiner would take up any space cut into column to get cooling pipes in position.
No workies this one. I had cooling pump flat out and it barely made a 5% difference in abv's. I now understand that it was too close to the boiling wash and basically the heat over powered the coil.

The cold finger twin wound I tried mounted at the top basically did the same as yours. It gave great abv's but flow rate was a shocker. Too much cooling I suspect...I thought but not sure on theory here it was due to the volume of cooling fluid in a larger volume cooling design and couple that with less resistance to cooling flow in this design even at low pump speeds it was too much.

The longer twin coil I'm happy with is long but it does give me great control over abv's I can push this to initially mid 90's abv but target 80% as I found best flavour/flow rate lives at this % I reckon your on the mark with the gradient point I doubt the bottom of this long coil does much for cooling and that happens further up the coil as the vapour passes. The key point here is the coil seems "in range" as I have apprx 15abv points of adjustment I can make by altering coolant flow only.

On the charge issue I throw approx 45lt plus into my 50lt keg. I end up with about 2cm free air space only left in the keg. Often thought about this but don't know the theory but I suspect that the boiled vapour looses speed if it’s got a big air space at the top of the keg. I say this because lower wash volumes like the 40lt you mentioned runs slower from observation over many runs. There's no puke or overflow issues with a tall pot so why not cram as much in as you can get.

On results, use bakers yeast on 8kg of sugar so should get the 45lt @ roughly 10 - 11% charge to pump out about 5.5lt plus I reckon. As a side point if I’m targeting 80% should I not get more that the 5lt of pure as it contains 20% roughly wash?

The pot head is 72cm tall in total to the top of the elbow. The coil it self is packed. ..I.e. the gap between the winds, the hollow core have SS scrubbers in. On the outside of the coil I stretched and wrapped 3 SS scrubbers to take up the gap between the coil and pot column walls. It's a loose pack but it offers resistance/cooling from coil to the whole diameter of the pot column.

Hope this helps! I think there would be more single runners out there once you consider no thumpers, and the reduced effort and costs. Well worth giving it a try...but be rutheless on cuts.

cheers
dave

[Usge]

Thanks for the additional info Dave. Your experiences of what worked for you and what didn't will be helpful to others seeking similar path.