42 mm still

Simple pot still distillation and construction with or without a thumper.

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cosminman
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42 mm still

Post by cosminman »

Hello,

I am building my first pot still. It is a 50 liter boiler, with 42 mm riser. I will also add a 10 liter thumper. My question isȘ will 42 mm be enough? I know that 54 mm( 2 inches) is what many recommend, but this is what I was able to source. How much hourly yield could I expect with this equipment, takin into consideration that I heat my wash with a 4500 w heat element (with pwm control, so I cab reduce the output). Does anyone have a similar equipment?
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Yummyrum
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Yummyrum »

No I don't have 42mm riser but I can gaurantee you that you will be fine :thumbup: .
Based on having a gas rig that can output way more than that through a 3/4" riser .
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

Hi, a 10 liters thumper with 50 liters boiler is a little undersized. 20 liters would be better. 42mm is way enough for a potstill riser. Remember that what counts is the smallest diameter that your vapor will hit. And that is inside the condenser. How large and long is your condenser? Production speed is directly linked to how much and how fast your condenser can knock down.

BWT: 54mm riser is the size you often see mentioned, but it is not related to potstills, it is related to reflux columns. In a potstill ideally you could have a riser as large as you condenser tube, and that would work the same.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by cosminman »

Thank you for the feedback :). The condenser will be a 1 meter long likening, 15mm inside 22mm. I do not know how much is that in inches :d

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Kareltje
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Kareltje »

Should do fine.

(1 inch = 2.54 cm.)
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thecroweater
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by thecroweater »

@ cug.. that is not exactly true 42 mm is fine yes but most guys have a larger riser like 50mm ID and reducing Lynne arm to 19 to 13mm diameter condenser line. That diameter right through would not run as well or as fast, loads of guys start out with those restrictive sizes and shit can them pretty quickly. It is not solely dependant on the smallest section as other factors come in to it affecting vapour speed and separation like the length of the smallest size and more important where in the still that is in. A coil or Liebig working effectively most of that length with be carrying liquid not vapour. A constant fast vapour speed is not good for separation and if it causes even a very slight pressure build up that is worse still. If a small line just mean faster vapour for the same volume as a larger diameter then ya wouldn't see guys with these issues using 1/2 and 3/8 riser stills getting smearing and pressure issues.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

So if I understand good, a pot still with a 2" column will distill as fast as another with a 3" column considering they both got a 1/2 condenser???

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thecroweater
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Re: 42 mm still

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The condenser is not strictly speaking part of the vapour path as there isn't vapour in it, not for much of it anyway , no I think the 3" would be faster.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Pikey »

4500 watts up a 42mm tube should be ok - I stick around 2 -2500 up a 1" stick and get a lovely "match stick trickle" of product. You can back the power off a bit when you get to boiling.

I believe in fact that I get a bit more passive reflux since more vapour comes into contact with the walls, so don't insulate it. Also, I run a 1m column up to take-off point. If you're only going a short length as most do - you probably won't see any difference from "the norm".
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

It seems really hard to get the right info. In a thread below ppl are saying that passive reflux dont do anything at our scale, but you said the opposite:

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36041


The same principle is happening about praticly everything.

So could someone please validate that column diameter does not matter due to the condenser ??

Im actually using a 2" column and was thinking about going bigger due to the time that it takes (up to 7h for a spirit run and 5 for stripping)

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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Kareltje »

Maxime wrote: So could someone please validate that column diameter does not matter due to the condenser ??

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I guess no one can do that, because every still is different and everybodys goal or process is different.

I do not know about all kinds of refluxing stills, but in pot stills or the like the cooling capacity of the condenser is the limiting factor.

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Re: 42 mm still

Post by thecroweater »

7 hours to strip with a 2" pot still is pretty bad assuming you are doing say 50 litres. One or both of two things are going to cause that, and that is the heat source and or condenser size and that's not a guess because I use to be able to strip a beer keg with a two inch pot still in an hour from turn firing to shut down. I used gas to heat and a Liebig condenser that was only 3/4 over 1/2" but the jacket was 5 foot. Over kill? Maybe but I couldn't overwhelm it, I would say 4 ft would have been enough. Now you could go with 3" and maybe get it a bit faster but then you will still need more heat and a condenser that will cope so I would change those things before going to those extreems .
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

thecroweater wrote:7 hours to strip with a 2" pot still is pretty bad assuming you are doing say 50 litres. One or both of two things are going to cause that, and that is the heat source and or condenser size and that's not a guess because I use to be able to strip a beer keg with a two inch pot still in an hour from turn firing to shut down. I used gas to heat and a Liebig condenser that was only 3/4 over 1/2" but the jacket was 5 foot. Over kill? Maybe but I couldn't overwhelm it, I would say 4 ft would have been enough. Now you could go with 3" and maybe get it a bit faster but then you will still need more heat and a condenser that will cope so I would change those things before going to those extreems .
Thanks for the reply. Have a look at my setup. I really need to change something, 7hours for a 40l stripoing run is a big pain in the butt!! Im tired of that lol. Im using a 65 000 btu gas burner, maybe my kab6 210 000 btu would be better ImageImageImage

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thecroweater
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by thecroweater »

struggled to spot any really issue til I spotted the flame through the flake handle. Looking at your burner I'm guessing you have a standard regulator on your gas line. What you want is a high pressure regulator, some guys run none at all but that kind of freaks me out a bit.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

Whats wrong with the low pressure? Any clue on how i could speed up that lazy rig?

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Re: 42 mm still

Post by thecroweater »

Not enough BTUs , no not really you can disable them but the valve hole is still a restricting factor, you will need a HP reg.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

thecroweater wrote:Not enough BTUs , no not really you can disable them but the valve hole is still a restricting factor, you will need a HP reg.
Condensor seems like a big factor too.

I was thinking about building a shotgun condensor but came across this :

https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/4-Dephle ... eLevelAB=5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Is the 200mm lenght too short for my need, considering I will use a 210 000 btu burner (about 61 000W) ?


Simpe caculation there :
2'' pipe = 3.14''²
18mm pipe = .39439''²
3.14/.39439= 7.9 so 8x18mm pipes = the same area of my 2'' tube
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by zapata »

1. You can't relate btu to watts in any practical sense. You lose way too much energy to the environment with gas. 61,000 watts actually put into a keg would boil it dry in minutes (if it didnt produce so much vapor so fast that it blew the keg even with a wide open condenser path).

2. Build a flame shield and insulate your boiler. Puts as much heat into the boiler as you can, and keeps it there.

3. I don't know for sure about that dephlegmator, but it looks too short to me. But I don't have a stainless shotgun so I don't have a good frame of reference.

ETA, if you want to know how much energy you are actually putting into your pot, heatup a known volume of water over a known period of time for a measured change in temperature and its easy to calculate from there. For example how long does it take to heat 5 gallons of water from 70-120 degrees?
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Pikey »

Maxime wrote:It seems really hard to get the right info. In a thread below ppl are saying that passive reflux dont do anything at our scale, but you said the opposite:

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36041
Yes I know mate - Those statement types really flummoxed me when I was a newbie and running a 1" "pot" still and getting these type of results from a single run :
no temp control resize.jpg
[Edit - because of this I can use massively reduced "flavour ingredients" (and do ! ) ]

Now I know that a lot of what is said here is genuinely believed by those saying it - sometimes because it is just "oft received wisdom", sometimes because it is experience speaking.

I too find it hard to accept that a 2" pot column is better than a 1" when you then reduce it down to 1/2" before passing it to the condenser - just sounds wrong to me ! Mine stays at 1" and I use this as a condenser (Believe it's called a "Dimroth" I just made it up as I went along :
DSC_0941 resize.jpg
If I were to increase to 2" - I'd make a bigger version.

Maxime wrote: The same principle is happening about praticly everything.

...........
Yes - It's a public forum and we are all from different places and have different histories - so we do it different ways - "PH" control is another area where we differ !
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Kareltje
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Kareltje »

210 kilo Btu/hr = 61.5 kW.
Quite an amount of energy.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by cranky »

According to the Google 42mm is 1.65 inches. I run a 1.5 inch (38.1mm) pot riser, turning 90 degrees then reducing to 3/4" (19mm) then 1/2" (13mm) into a 36" long (914mm) 3/4 over 1/2 liebig. My boiler is a 15.5 gallon (58.6 l) keg with a 5500W element. I typically run stripping runs at full power and collect at a rate of a quart (liter) every 4 minutes 30 seconds. Speed should not be an issue with a 42mm riser. I don't know if it matters but I don't like having 90 degree bends on the smaller sections because I feel a 45 degree gives a better flow but have no scientific data to back that up.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Pikey »

You see "myles " came up with a calculation here didn't he ? (From the thread you linked to)
myles wrote:
onemarleyfan wrote:So do you think when looking at Scottish distillery's stills that they are just using that as PR bullshit? i.e. Our Lyne arm is at an upward angle so it produces a much lighter blah blah blah.

I would think if you want more/less reflux you would turn the wick up/down. I know my column I can run it hard/fast and kick out 65% or I can run it slow and get 85%. I think of all the differences in the various Single malts(I have tried over a 100 different commercial whiskies). They basically taste the same but there are very minute yet significant differences. If oak barrels account for 60-80% of the flavor, you would have to think that Yeast and the way you distill would account for the rest. I know lots of factors go into both of those.

Who knows maybe I could make 36 gallons of wash and run each with a different head and see what I get.
ABSOLUTELY NOT. Just calculate the surface area involved in a 20 foot long cone tapering from 6" dia to 2" dia. There is a significant amount of reflux caused by the loss of heat from the arm into the surrounding air. This is non linear - rate of heat loss increases with diameter at an increasing rate as diameter increases.

Taking a standard temperature difference of 55 deg C (for comparison):

1/2 " pipe looses 45 watts per meter
1" pipe looses 76 watts per meter
2" pipe looses 131 watts per meter
4" pipe looses 232 watts per meter

The bigger the lyne arm the more affect it has, and in these conditions THEN the arm angle becomes significant. Power management of the boiler IS used, but this is more about varying the production rates for heads and tails concentration. ..........
Now "Myles " was a very respected guru in many ways ... But he is only taking into account the surface area (Perimeter) of the tube. and ... Wherever can you get a temperature differential as LOW as 55 dC ? - around here 75 dC would still be a conservative average "!

In my opinion, If you turn the wick down a little (I do a 25 litre wash in abour 3.5 hours start to finish (Finish at head temp 99.9 dC usually because I can't be bothered to wait for the little alcohol I get by letting the temp run to 105 dC ! (My elements only go to 3kW and I don't over tax them when the warm up is getting to boiling - so 2 - 2.5 kW maybe ? That little condenser knocks all that down running a water throughput just above 1 litre / minute.

Now if you look at the 1" & 2", the cross sectional area of the 2" is around 4X the cross sectional area of the 1", so my assessment wuld be that 4x as much vapour touches the outer skin in a 1" as in a 2" - Now I don't care about the ability of the copper to emit heat. Clearly my still overwhelmes that capacity anyhow - otherwise I couldn't get head temps at 105 dC ! (around 221 dF !)

My argument is simply that some of the vapour which touches the sides is ethanol which bounces off and some of the moleculeas are water. As long as the copper is below 100 dC, the water molecules kind of "stick" and run down the sides. However in condensing, they release their "Latent heat of vapourisation" which heats the copper. This in turn heats any vapour coming in contact and thus my head temp rises above the 100 dC level.

I don't know if that's what's going on - but I DO know there's no fakery in the abv levels marked on those bottles and I ferment 1 kg sugar (equivalent) in 5 litres wash as a rule of thumb. )

[Edit - Sorry K and C - I was typing while u were posting - got myself out of place ! - lol ]
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

cranky wrote: I typically run stripping runs at full power and collect at a rate of a quart (liter) every 4 minutes 30 seconds.
What the heck, I'm doing about 250mL every 7 min.. So you guys are telling me that a better heat source would solve the problem? A 1/2 condenser is ok??


Maybe I should try to put some 45° elbow considering theres like 3 1/2 90° elbow on my setup. I do belive your right about that, it must restrict the vapor.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by cranky »

Maxime wrote:
cranky wrote: I typically run stripping runs at full power and collect at a rate of a quart (liter) every 4 minutes 30 seconds.
What the heck, I'm doing about 250mL every 7 min.. So you guys are telling me that a better heat source would solve the problem? A 1/2 condenser is ok??


Maybe I should try to put some 45° elbow considering theres like 3 1/2 90° elbow on my setup. I do belive your right about that, it must restrict the vapor.
I do a complete stripping run in something like an hour and a half, 35 minutes of that is heat up time. I built mine with the intention of handling whatever I wanted to throw at it. I modeled my liebig after Hooklines ( http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =87&t=9247 ) with a twist of wire in the vapor path to add turbulence. Most likely your problem is heat source, there are plenty of people running 90 degree bends with no problems, so maybe it deosn't really matter.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by zapata »

Technically 90s do cause resistance over 2x45s, smooth bends or straight sections, . But its a tiny amount on a practical level. I have 2x90's on mine. No worries. Most used pot presently is a tall 2" riser reducing to 1/2" before the 2x 90's to a 3/4" over 1/2" liebig. No issues with speed. Blow through your rig, do you feel any resistance?

It's gotta be your heat source/boiler insulation. Test heat some water and calculate how much energy is getting into your boiler. I bet its not more than about 1.5 kw or 5,000 btu. And in actual distilling you'll transfer a bit of that to the riser.
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by Maxime »

Thanks guys, ill do some testing with the kab6 next year lol
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Re: 42 mm still

Post by thecroweater »

I seem to think that that worm should work fine, maybe keep a bit of an eye on the water temp. I'd just get a HP reg and see how ya go, no point chucking the baby out with the bath water till ya know what's what.
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