How much are you shootin in your thumper?

[Skinnerback]

I rigged a bypass on the thumper so that I can pull off the nasties first and then close the valve to bring the thumper on line. I charge my 'shoot' in the thumper until it's time to bring it on. I used teo or three concentrates and 1.5 gallons of wash.

[Wild Bill]

I have tried clear apple pie several ways with my thumper now and what I can say is don’t waste your money on too much apple juice concentrate. On three separate six gallon runs, I tried 4,6 and then 8 12oz cans of the concentrate and the flavor remained very subtle on all runs. I also tried running off foreshots and heads before shooting the thumper and also just charged thumper from the get go with an all hearts run of ujssm in the boiler like Jed. Now the apple pie spice flavor came through great but no matter what the volume of apple juice concentrate the carry over to product is minimal. It is all drinkable for sure but don’t expect an upfront apple flavor. I have left some clear and some oaked that is getting quite interesting. Btw the shooting of the thumper with a preheated charge is very easy and a non event with my system. After much thought and reading I decided to employ the kiss method. That is I have a cork in the 3” tee on the head of my thumper as well as a pressure relief valve threaded into the triclover blank on top the 2” tee on my boiler. After running off foreshots and heads, I kill the heat, pull up on the pressure relief valve on the boiler until pressure equalizes and pull the cork on top the thumper. I can then pour the preheated charge into the thumper, replace the cork, reset pressure relief valve and start the heat back up and resume run. I works very well. I am considering one more try to get more apple flavor. My current thumper is a 15.5 gallon keg and I am considering modding a 7.5 gallon keg to be my thumper. It is tall and skinny and this would give the distillate more dwell time as is bubbled up through the contents of the thumper. For now I have moved on to other projects but may try this next winter. Cheers

[Runamuckr]

Wild Bill.

Thats exactly why I went with the tall skinny thumper rather then the short fat variety. Figured steam bubbling through several inches of liquid had to give it more time to absorb any flavor. Same would seem to apply to removing flavor as I can get a pretty clean neutral from UJSSM stripped with a thumper then doing a spirit run with the thumper, charging with about a gallon and a half of water on both runs.
I get decent results with with flavor when using flavor in my thumper. I posted in another thread some documented results using various jucies, candies, macerations, and such. Most everything was more on the nose then on the tongue, but good, and worth it to do more of. It never lasts long enough to give results of letting it age. And I don't age anything on any wood, just in the clear jugs and usually only lasts a few weeks at most.
I took the valve rout when designing my thump set up, though i''d likely go with a simple "cap" if I ever build another.

[Wild Bill]

Yes Runamuckr I have read some on your exploits and appreciate your contributions. I do enjoy some product white and find that if I run ujssm or booners very slow single foot I get a product I enjoy greatly white. It is like a glass of boozy liquid corn. I also enjoy the clear apple pie with ujssm as a base in white dog form. Using a strip/spirit run protocol or even single spirit run using the thumper some of the flavor is lost for me, with corn liquor anyway. I have also had trouble with smearing using the thumper. From reading here I gleaned my piping to my thump was too small and it was taking too long to come on line. I rectified this situation with 2” copper all the way from my 15.5g boiler to the bottom of my 15.5g thumper. I have a 3” pot still head and a leibig coming off the thump keg. Still it seems to smear the run and/or bring on tails early despite greatly shortening the time to come online. Your talk of not rushing the thump online or it will smear kind of peaks my interest. Would you care to expand on this as it seems to be opposite of some earlier advice I cultivated. Cheers

[Runamuckr]

Sure wild bill no problem.
This might be a bit lengthy.

My set up,

7.75 keg boiler. Short pony keg. Thumper is a 1/6 keg. tall skinny 5 or 5.2 gallons. I use the same hole for in and out on my thumper. 1 inch copper from my pot to the bottom of my thumper via a 2x2x1 inch T. The 1 inch runs down the center of the T and is capped at the bottom of the thumper and stops 1/2 inch from the bottom. The cap is drilled with a dozen or so 1/8 inch holes. Both on the end of the cap and a few on the sides. I have a 2 inch riser 14 inches tall that my liebig connects to. (i recently built a dimroth condenser but will discuss the liebig set up as I have plenty more gallons dripped though that) Liebig is 1/2 in pipe 44 inches long with a 3/4 inch jacket 34 or 36 inches long. The 1/2 inch pipe has "ripples" crimped into it to add some turbulance to cooling water.

I too wanted to go the 2 ich all the way through rout, but the narrow thumper makes that tight, plus I don't weld so....

The small holes in my spear make a very distinct sound as steam begins to push through. Kinda cool actually. Aside from needing something on a smaller scale, part of NOT going with the 15.5 keg, for me, was run time. So the sooner I got finished the better. I ran plenty with out my thumper, and when I add the thumper, I had trouble smearing it all. I use unions to connect my pot to my thump so adjusting the angle of the run from pot to thump could be accomplished. Of course I started with a straight run, I'm certain there was some pooling, and the unions likely only helped with this. Running with extreme angles, either up to or down to the thumper yielded me less smearing, but still had issues. I wrapped the pipe to my thumper to prevent any possible reflux. I wrapped it with exhaust header wrap as thats what I had handy when the idea of insulating it came to mind and its worked well. I later wrapped my thumper in reflectix, and made a "sleeve" for my boiler out of a 55 gallon drum to insulate it. I recommend this to anyone as it saves me a ton of propane even when running without my thumper in pot still mode. So, all this insulating, downward angle to my thumper, playing with the angle of my liebig, and I'm still getting some smearing. But at least I don't tase fores in my hearts anymore In my beginning runs, it all tasted like chemical.

I run in my garage, and usually devote all my time to the still when I do. I've got some UJSSM that been finished for a while and needs to be run, I've also got to rebuild the forks on an old sportster. So I charge up pot, water in the thumper, and I'm going to run this slow while I work on the forks so I don't have to babysit it it so much. I pull my fores and place a gallon jug to just strip into, and go about my business on the sporty. Judging by the looks of the jug, I should be into my hearts by now, lets have a taste just to see, yep, hearts, and only hearts. Pull the jug and break out the pints. Obviously the forks didn't get done that day as I baby sat that run wondering how I managed keep my heads in my heads, hearts in my hearts, and tails in my tails.

It wasn't until talking with the girlfriend later the next day that she mentioned the still sounded different.
All those little holes sound like a gattling gun when I would run the thumper. This time it was practically silent. I hadn't even noticed. And even when its loud, once the thumper comes on line and all is equal and my fores start to drip, its already quieted down to a faint glug sound. I was concentrated on the forks, I hadn't realized the sound difference. I just kept an eye for the first drops to come and adjusted for my desired drip after that.

Now, I can run fast with the thumper and not smear anything. I may not have been clear about that in my previous posts. Its the time before the first drips that seems to be important. If I try to heat my thumper up quickly, I'm smeared. If I slowly pull my fores, my heads, and try to speed up my hearts, I get my tails earlier, and more of them. Likely because there hearts in there. I collect my spirit runs in pints, and usually only about half full, I make my final cuts after airing. Havent mastered cutting while it drips yet. Its worth mentioning, that if I do a spirit run with out the thumper, I end up with the same amount of pints as with a thumper. MAYBE one extra when using the thumper. What I find is that WITH the thumper, on my spirit runs, the number of pints I keep is generally less then when I strip without the thumper. perhaps the transitions between heads hearts and tails is a bit smeared??

I've repeated this several times, its also how I know I can polish a turd with my thumper
All the smeared runs were put on the shelf to be used for cleaning and such. I eventually ran all that back through and cleaned it up, as well as some horrid attempts at distilling some wine as practice.

So if I invoke my patience, bring my thumper online slowly, no machine gun thumper, and take my time with the run, I get a pretty good drop and smearing isn't an issue. I'm sure the insulating, and angle/ length of the pipe to the thumper have their contributing effect as well, but heat up made the biggest impact for me anyway. I hope you weren't expecting a scientific, mathematical, breakdown. It seems to me that temperature is temperature, and there shouldn't be any smearing as the temps things in our boilers vaporize shouldn't change just because we add a thumper. I don't think the change in pressure is great enough to alter the boiling points. Then again, I'm no specialist.

Hope this helps.

[Wild Bill]

I will have to ponder this awhile and I also have a 2 gen run of ujssm I need to do so maybe I will experiment a bit. My setup I am sure has no pooling issues and my piping has a pretty decent uphill slope from my boiler to the thump. I also insulate my thump and have tried insulating my pipe between also. All this had minimal effect on smearing. There will be a transitional period with a thumper where hot alcohol vapor contacts the cooler contents of the thumper causing the vapor to implode. This is the genesis of the name “thumper”. As the thumper gets hotter approaching thermal parity with the boiler it becomes quieter as less and less alcohol vapor is imploding. I am not sure you can get around this noise/phase, unless the liquid in the thump is not covering the down pipe opening to start or you are simultaneously heating the thump along with the boiler. Anyhow those are my random thoughts as of now. Thanks for the response and I will continue on with the thumper experiments with your input in mind. Cheers

[Runamuckr]

I don't doubt the exploding vapor phenomenon.
But the sound is primarily the Bubble pushing through the down tube. Much like blowing through a straw in a glass of liquid. If you've got a raging boil in your pot, you'll get louder and more frequent thumps in your thumper. If you have a slow rolling boil in your pot you'll have a more subblte, quieter thump out of your thumper. You can test this with just water in you pot and thumper. Crank the heat up and it will get louder.
My thumper is never dry, and the spread is covered by about 5 inches of liquid.

[Wild Bill]

In my opinion the reason for the noise disparity is strictly due to the variance in alcohol vapor volume from slow boil to full tilt boil. Less volume of vapor less violent implosion hence less noise. I am still struggling to equate slow warm up to less smearing though but I am going to give her a go!

[Wild Bill]

I am guessing the output of your run would be the same as your slow approach if you laid the heat to the boiler until you hear that first crack in the thump and then lay off the heat and run as before. Might save you a bit of time anyway. I am going to try this approach with my rig anyway. As always ymmv.

[Runamuckr]

I look forward to hearing your results.
Do you get sound from your thumper before the pipe to your thumper is completely hot?
Is your spear have a 2 inch opening at the bottom or you have smaller holes to disperse the bubbles?
It's hard to nail down smearing since we know certain temps vaporize certain things. We can achieve those temps with the thumper in use, but those that vaporize at higher temps seem to carry some of the lower temp stuff with them. Where is the mixture happening would be the question I would assume.
As I said, there seems to still be smearing at the transition points. When I run without my thumper, there's more of an abrupt transition. I can just about nail it when I run in pot still mode. That said, I can induce some smearing in pot still mode as well by driving my pot really fast. I've yet to outrun my liebig, I joke it could knock down a locomotive. I get bad huffing before I see any steam come out the end. But I can smear a stripping run collecting in half pints if I wanted to.

[Runamuckr]

Low n slow seems to work for me. Suppose I could bring mi pints to someone further along then myself and they may insist I smeared the whole run.

My thoughts on angle were to angle down to the thumper.
There has to be reflux in that pipe even if it's minimal, my thoughts were to insure any possible condensation went into the thumper and not back to the boiler.

[Wild Bill]

My inclination would be to have any reflux run back to the boiler but I am still learning for sure. I get a bit of sound but no sharp cracks until that hot vapor hits the liquid in the thump. Yes I have an open 2” pipe all the way down to within 1/4” or so from the bottom of the keg. I do however have some smaller holes drilled in the pipe further up and a couple inverted v -notches at the bottom edge of pipe. This was a measure to hopefully allow smaller bubbles to escape out holes and v notches yet have enough open area to deal with puke without plugging. I have yet to puke this rig though but now having said that I am sure to lol.

[Runamuckr]

I would think the vapor explosion happens exclusively in the down tube at first contact the cooler down tube?
Wonder if those that have gone the mason jar thumper rout can see steam in the bubbles as it would be just air after the steam has imploded??

[Runamuckr]

Assuming the whole "path of least resistance" thing, not sure anything makes it out those smaller holes as it would require more pressure then the 2 inch hole.
However, I bet you get a nice deep chug when it starts to wake up.

[Runamuckr]

Wonder if a 15.5 gallon thumper may be to big?
As in the lower temp stuff hanging around on the walls of the head space in your thumper?? Hitching a ride with the good stuff??

[Wild Bill]

It happens when it contacts the cooler liquid. The cool pipe just would condense the vapor and not cause an implosion within the piping unless it pooled a bunch somehow. I have some insight into the properties of steam as I have operated many large steam boilers in the course of my career and find alcohol vapor to respond similarly. Water in piping during the cold start of a steam boiler can be quite alarming to downright dangerous if the imploding vapor is of a large enough volume. That is why slopes and auto and manual drains are very critical in their placement in a steam boiler piping system.

[Wild Bill]

I believe there are many people on this forum that run similar rigs to mine so I think the 15.5 gallon boiler/thumper can be made to work. I just think I have to hone in on my driving a bit. I think my design is good but not beyond scrutiny of course. I welcome all input and I will keep an open mind.

[Runamuckr]

Similar to the knocking in the old radiator heating systems used to heat homes??

Never really worked around steam.
I do work in the beverage filling industry, and while it's cold fill, the temp difference on the walls of holding tanks and piping can wreak havock.
I understood my reading that the size of the thumper nearly had to contain any extra volume collected before the thumper came on line.


Perhaps in a smaller thumper, the bubbles breaking the surface keep any steam above the liquid in a rolling state avoiding any temp differences big enough to cause smearing??
Those running a big thumper, are they charging their thumpers with 2, 4, 8 gallons??

Just an example, I charge with 1-1.5 gallons of liquid. I've shut 'er down after pulling heads and broke the seal before anything could get sucked back to the boiler and found my thumper a good 2/3+ full.
That doesn't leave alot of room for "cold spots" above the liquid.
Even in an insulated thumper, or pot for that matter, there is still a temperature gradient even if it's minimal.
Just a thought.

[Wild Bill]

The main reasons I used a 15.5g keg is because I had it already and the possibility of running large stripping runs. I most noticed smearing/early tails while doing stripping runs with 12 gallons in boiler and 12 gallons in thumper. Even running the results of these strips through a second time on a spirit run either single foot or with doubler seemed to produce a run with that taily flavor where hearts should have been. These are all tried and trued recipes that I have been running successfully single foot for a couple years now. On a twelve gallon charge I may gain 1.5-2 gallons or so in the thumper.

[Runamuckr]

Interesting that it wouldn't clean up with a second run. And that your getting tails as I got the chemically headsy taste smell smearing through mine.

You obviously had a pipe or at least a fitting welded into your keg since you run a 2 inch spear in your thumper.

I'm not a welder, but when welding stainless that will come in contact with anything we may consume (food grade) there's a back purging process that classifies the weld as sanitary. Without back purging the weld with shielding gas, the weld will "sugar". Corrode or rot so to say.
Can you see that weld on the inside??
Does it look like the rest of the inside of your keg? Is it gray? Darker then the rest of the keg?

One of the things we test for where I work is taste, obviously, but a musty, moldy taste is said to be produced from pipes that weren't welded properly and have begun to "sugar" at the welds.
Or our RO filters have failed

Your tails are musty? Wet? Cardboard? My tails typically smell old. However, my beginning tails have been known to have some of the best flavor too, so. I get good corn flavor in the first jar of tails on almost every run. If I run to far into my tails they'll get really funky.

I dumped some AG in my thumper the other day to run some low wines through and the tails have me kind of excited. I'm hoping they hang on.

[Wild Bill]

No welds I used staybrite 8 solder on all triclover ferrule attachments 4” top center of kegs 1 1/2” drains and a 3” on top off center for downpipe into thumper. I am really sensitive to tails and have no problem id’ing them so maybe I am oversensitive to them? I do find some of those tails have some great flavors and oak out nicely so all is not lost. White it has to be all hearts for me though.