3” reflux Coil or Dephlegmator?

[Gonzo_distills]

I recently located a pile of demolished pipes from the water chiller system at work and found myself in possession of a pile of K type 3 inch pipe. After a good cleaning and polish I’m going to mimic my 2” set up. Two 24” sections with ferrules for the primary column. From there I’m thinking of changing to an inline dephlegmator instead of my tee with a coil.

Do I get a tee and and find a 3”coil like I run on the 2” set up or do I transition to a dephlegmator on the larger diameter column?

If I order the dephlegmator should I add a sight glass until I get used to it or will I be able to feel it out the same way I do now with my coil? Adjusting flow instead of coil height makes sense to me.

What do y’all think?

[acfixer69]

Nice score on the 3" pipe. Type "K" can be a bit heavy but is very solid. Two 24" modular sections is great. I don't know what you are running for a 2" set up, T and coil CCVM maybe? Inline deflegmator is a shotgun style for CM ? More detail will help.

[Saltbush Bill]

What sort of still is this.....hard to answer without knowing that. 3 inch version of your two inch is ok for you.....you know what that is. A photo might help.

[Gonzo_distills]

Half barrel keg, two 1” weld in bungs in the bottom 4” for two 4500 watt elements, 2” cut out and replaced with 4” ferrule. 4”x2” reducer, 2 24” sections of 2”, tee with a 45, ferrules on all 3 sides. Graham coil condenser for reflux, 18” shotgun condenser attaches to the 45. For spirit runs I add in a second half barrel keg I charge with heads, tails, kept back unfermented wash, and tons of fresh fruit added after spirit run heads. The shot gun condenser moves to the output of the thumper’s tee to 45. The output from the 45 on the pot reduces to 1” via reducing ferrule with a 1” fitting that I have threaded to a copper female adapter to that passes through a 1” to 2” reducer that feeds the thumper.

I would keep my thumper set up 2”

[Gonzo_distills]

My goal with the 3” is speed. I just want to spend more time with my boy than distillation. 8-10 years from now he will disagree when we start popping racked bourbon barrels together!

[OtisT]

Just an option for you....

My 2” VM head/column worked fine but I wanted to collect faster. I kept my 2” head/reflux/VM valve/condenser and simply replaced the column under it with 3” parts. There was no need to replace the head because my RC was capable of handling the increased heat, and my VM port/valve was large enough to handle the increased production rate.

Otis

[Tummydoc]

Otis is onto something. If you went with a dephlagmator, you then also need a valve if your doing Vapor management. And at 3 inches thats not cheap. Pretty simple to plumb a new column to your existing and see what speed you get. If the 3 inch to 2 inch reduction is a bottleneck, you can always fashion the missing parts.

[CopperFiend]

Would recommend a shotgun highly. I have both shotguns for my product and reflux condensers, they will knock down a ton of vapour very easily and with a decent valve to control the water flow, you can be very accurate with reflux ratios.

[Saltbush Bill]

Half barrel keg, two 1” weld in bungs in the bottom 4” for two 4500 watt elements, 2” cut out and replaced with 4” ferrule. 4”x2” reducer, 2 24” sections of 2”, tee with a 45, ferrules on all 3 sides. Graham coil condenser for reflux, 18” shotgun condenser attaches to the 45. For spirit runs I add in a second half barrel keg I charge with heads, tails, kept back unfermented wash, and tons of fresh fruit added after spirit run heads. The shot gun condenser moves to the output of the thumper’s tee to 45. The output from the 45 on the pot reduces to 1” via reducing ferrule with a 1” fitting that I have threaded to a copper female adapter to that passes through a 1” to 2” reducer that feeds the thumper.
I would keep my thumper set up 2”

Maybe I'm a bit slow today, but could we keep it simple......Refux?.....VM, LM ,CM, CCVM ? Plated Column ?.....Potty ? Potty with Thumper would have been enough.

[Gonzo_distills]

I will try Otis’s advice for now. A couple reducers is cheap and I can run what I have.

I am definitely overthinking it Bill. I like controlling the smallest details and trying the same thing over and over and over making incremental changes to my technique as things improve or decline.