Hi to all, im new here.
Ill had some bad experience with mushroom alembic distiller, so now im making something different on my own.
Id like make peated whisky and london gin mostly ( im already a beer maker ) so i thinked a column ( maybe short? ) with some welded outer coils to enable reflux ( keeping out packing ). Jacked condenser.
I pick up some copper scratches and this is what im able to make:
Column 1.5" x max 1 meter with 12 turns of 10 mm pipe as condenser
Connection as drawned with a 3 piece brass joint (o ring) so im able to clean or unmount or tilt condenser
Condenser is a 22mm pipe with a 35mm jacket. Max lengt 700 mm
My idea was to use mostly with no reflux or with low reflux rate.
I use a 27 l pot with 2400 w resistor ( i can decrease power with a controler ).
Any suggestion ( measures tricks ecc ) for a poor newbie ??
No offense, but it seems like a rather crap design. Better to hear it harsh and honest yeah?
1. Brass? Naw man, don't do that.
2. Oring? Nope, no good materials in o rings.
3 Reflux with no packing? Waste of time.
4. 1.5" is pretty narrow for a decent takeoff rate if you pack it and try for a neutral base for your gin. You'll probably be looking at 1-2 lph max (total guess of the top of my head)
If you're committed because its the parts you have, maybe try
1. Replace the brass fitting with
A. Copper union or
B. Triclamp, either via easy flanges or soldered on ferrules
2. Assume you will want packing if trying for a single run whiskey. If you're going to run it without packing you will need to run twice but you can definitely skip the reflux, and then you'd be well served by a much simpler pot still.
A single still for whisky and gin will be a bit of a compromise on both, but can be done. How about starting back with your goals, what do you want to achieve differently than you did with the alembic? And would you rather compromise the gin function or the whisky function?
Sorry for my english... i explain better:
all fittings are copper solded with copper-phospate wire at 800°C, the only brass one is on the top where i want couple the condenser: this one is a 3/4" 3 pieces brass joint with a silicone oring: with this one i can take off condenser and clean all better.
I know 2% of brass is lead.... cmon is less than one square inch of brass in contact with vapours... i dont think will be so messy...
i will put stainless steel scrubs as packing, but i want also to be able to take packing off and turn off coils on column in order to have something near to an simple alembic.
Small or not, theres just no need for brass. A copper union seals fine and needs no gasket of any sort, just copper to copper. It can be disconnected as often as necessary, and assembled at any angle.
Or an easy flange and triclamp fitting can be made from scrap for practically free. It also can be assembled at any angle and seals with PTFE, which is far more suitable than silicone, and is by the way the only synthetic material allowed to be discussed here. But of course we all make the decisions we are comfortable with.
Wouldn't a standard boka or similar do everything the design above does, and use fewer materials?
Ok, no brass ill make all with copper.
Boka require bigger pipes in order to fit condenser.
Returning to column: i can compromise whisky function... keeping the gin ok...
i was thinking about cut column at 600 700 mm and fill with stainless steel scrubs.
12 coil wrapped around 3ft of 1.5"...Put it as high as possible.
Get ya a piece of 3" foam insulation and trim to fit jacket over the coils (only)..For your lil to no reflux ..Won't be refluxing tho without packing or plates, then longer maybe better for super...24-28" length riser would work just as well for that scale and size imo .
Just a thought, maybe offset slants or somethin unique.
*Spend it all, Use it up, Wear it out*
Beware of sheet-sniffers and dime-droppers!
MoonBreath wrote:12 coil wrapped around 3ft of 1.5"...Put it as high as possible.
Get ya a piece of 3" foam insulation and trim to fit jacket over the coils (only)..For your lil to no reflux ..Won't be refluxing tho without packing or plates, then longer maybe better for super...24-28" length riser would work just as well for that scale and size imo .
Just a thought, maybe offset slants or somethin unique.
moonbreath ill solder it on external pipe with some fluxant so will me mecanically connected, not just on it... but ill insulate too...
just start thinking to make a simple alembic seem not a nice start make a reflux
I really doubt that that external Cooling coil will be very effective unless you turn your power right down .
Vapour speed in a 1 1/2" will be really high and especially on 2400 Watts . There is no way that you will achieve 100% reflux . Vapour will just shoot on past it....especially the middle of the pipe flow . Stuffing the cooled area with scrubbers will help this a bit .Copper Scrubbers will conduct the heat slightly better than Staino ones as well as help with Copper in the vapour path
I think you would need to Run this still with Power management . IE once it come up to temp , turn the power right down until the point that nothing comes out the spout . Will take a bit of fiddling to find that place but then mark it for future reference .
Then hold the still in full reflux for 1/2 hour before slowly turning up the power to drip off the fores and early heads . I've found that its the fores and early heads that are the hardest to knock back . once your into middle heads , you'll find you can ramp up the power quite a bit but I doubt that you would be running this still much over 1000 Watts
As writen i can modulate power with a controller so no problems to take power down at 1000 or less. So:
NO BRASS OR ORING
MAX 1000W POWER
STAINLESS PACKING
REFLUX LENGHT 39"(ALL PIPE)
can i add more coil if needed... i make 12 turns couse ive seen that generally jacket or coils are about 6" long on diy columns
There's another problem with that kind of condenser, it cools the outside of the pipe, concentrating reflux right at the walls where it can easily channel down. It just makes the packing less efficient.
How bad will it be? I honestly have no idea. I mean, it will work as shown.
btw, you can fit a coil inside of 1.5" pipe, the boka mini still did: https://homedistiller.org/image/mini_explained.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
And I think that is definitely more aligned with making neutral (slowly) than whiskey, though it can do both.
Ok let me understand better:
If ill just make a simple pot still with an empty 24" 1 1/2" riser, no coil or packing, reduction and turn at condenser as in attached image.
PRO: simple, less tuning
BAD: double run, less eff, less pure
Whisky: should be ok
Gin: ?? i can see a lot of people use pot still with botanical in second run
whats other considerations?
mordor wrote:
Gin: ?? i can see a lot of people use pot still with botanical in second run
Yes Pot still is great for Gin but you need to start off with a good clean neutral spirit ....you need a good reflux still to make that .
A Pot still is great for stripping your Neutral wash .Then run the strip through the reflux still at @ 30%ABV gives you a nice clean neutral @ around 95-96% ABV . Then run the Neutral diluted to typically 45% ABV with Botanical's through the Pot still to get your Gin
OK clear yummyrum.
Can be a strategy so run a simple column like a was thinking for the first neutral wash, and rerun without packing stainless and without coolant for second with botanical ?
Don't underestimate the 12 wraps tho, especially ifn 1/2"ID.
As Larry Taylor can attest, I used a 'cold wet rag' and a bucket of ice water to load a single torpedo for per near 2yrs before I figured out my reflux plans..#ragjocky .
So that may actually work for ya.
All you need is copper mesh and your good to go imo.
Orr, you could slice a couple spots and slide in perfs and seal with solder..
Pot/reflux easy peasy.
#coldwater!
*Spend it all, Use it up, Wear it out*
Beware of sheet-sniffers and dime-droppers!
if is just a conduction and surface problem i can just put inside a vertical piece of copper soldered coupled with coils ... in order to make more surface....
I'm late to this one but I might have some useful input:
My Cm uses a coil condenser at the very top of the column, about 14 wraps specifically. The way I fixed the problem of the condensate running down the walls is thus:
The condenser section is narrower than the packed column itself, it's only 3/4" and it connects to the column by way of a reducer. I sanded out the inside of the reducer (sanded the limiting ridge down flat) so the 3/4" can slide all the way through. I soldered the lower end of the condenser to the reducer so that the very bottom of the 3/4" section is flush with the lower edge of the part where the reducer expands to 1" (my column is only 1" diameter) . Basically it feeds all the way through the reducer so that the condensate is centered onto the top of the packing. I've fooled around with using a 3/4" cap with a large hole drilled in it to get even better centering but it didn't appear to improve things any further. My column works just fine. It's much less complex than the way I'm wording it here. Let me know if you want a picture.
just start thinking to make a simple alembic 
.
