My 2" Insulated CCVM Column Build

[Andrew_90]

Hi,

Finally got around to insulating my CCVM column. I had to alter the design a little and needed to remove the ferrules from one side each of the 500mm columns and then insert a piece a straight tube. This allowed me to increase the column length to 1 200mm. I had no sooner done this and I read a forum post that this was potentially too long. Anyways I left it at 1 200mm.



I then made holes on the stop ends, fortunately I had a 64mm hole saw on hand which allowed me to clear the ferrules when installing them. Here is the before and after.



I then cut the 110mm PVC tube to length and with water paper removed the branding and cleaned her up.



The next step was to cut the 13mm x 610mm cloth to size. I cut to length but did not trim the width as I may have needed more material for a snugger fit to the tube. It turns out I did. I secured the ceramic cloth to the column with binding wire.



I then rolled the ceramic fiber around the pipe and applied a catch tape layer of glass tape to hold everything in place while inserting into the tube. Here she is snug as a bug in a rug.



What I did not foresee was the fact that the addition 1/3rd of a turn has moved the column off to one side and now the column is not concentric with the holes in the stop ends. Now while this is probably of no concern from a performance aspect, the concentricity issue will drive me nuts simply because I know it is there. Being a perfectionist is a curse.

When she is concentric I will put a bead of silicone in either end to hermetically seal the construction and to avoid moisture ingress.

There should be sufficient compression left in the material so I will add additional material to bring the column back into concentricity.

Anyways here she is on the keg. Pardon the grubby walls please, missus insists that the house gets a coat of paint before the garage. House does not need painting but I'm not going to win this one.



I am dead pleased with how it turned out and actually how easy it was, did not spend more than 2 hours on it. Now will proceed to insulating the keg.

I want to paint the PVC tube as the sanded surface gets grubby quick. Was thinking of the old steam tractors, red and green.

The primary goal is to reduce the hysteresis in the thermal cycling, which in turn will make process control easier and therefor producing a more consistent product, be it good or bad. Then it is up to me to improve my skill to improve the product quality. The spin off will be an energy saving.

[Yummyrum]

Top job Andrew

Makes my shitty old blanket held in with gaffer tape look real bad

[Andrew_90]

Top job Andrew

Makes my shitty old blanket held in with gaffer tape look real bad

Ah but I still need to make great alcohol, you have a distinct advantage on me .

[Andrew_90]

So it's all getting a little ahead of me now. It is big so I will be building a purpose built trolley on castor wheels so that I can move the little puppy with ease.



I still need to;

Make the Liebig, not too much of an issue, should be quick.
Steal Demy's idea for lifting the reflux coil, with some mods to suit me.
Do the plumbing.

On the Liebig I would like a shallow angle i.e. not far off the horizontal. I was also hoping for a circa a 600mm Liebig. I want to use a 15mm down pipe to guide the distillate, something like in this sketch. Will place some copper mesh at the bottom to arrest the fall of the distillate. The alternate would be a 1 200mm Liebig which is actually simpler. Any suggestions.



Just on the side, I am not too sure if it was the ceramic fibre or the PVC tube but there was a bunch of static generated. Sparks of around 8mm were jumping from my fingers. As a precaution I will earth the PVC tube to the still.

[Twisted Brick]

I would rethink the use of ceramic fiber to insulate my column. The alumina/silicate microfibers do not pose an immediate health risk, but upon inhalation, do not breakdown in the lungs and remain embedded forever. Over time the fibers create scar tissue that is prone to become cancerous. Every time you setup/breakdown your still, these tiny fibers will break off and land where they will (including your skin and clothes) until they are stirred up into the air that you breathe. Repeated exposure increases this risk. When I installed CF blankets around my brick oven I wore a disposable respirator and longsleeves and gloves. Cheap insurance.

Ceramic Fiber MSDS

Makes my shitty old blanket held in with gaffer tape look real bad

Ceramic Fiber blankets such as rookwool are called for in hotface applications that involve temperatures of 1000-3500F. They are not ideal or even marginally more effective in the temperature ranges that our columns see.

You're good, Yummy. I have always used a shitty old towel on my 3" column but am in the process of upgrading to a velcro'd neoprene wrap with a thin sheet of silicone between it and the copper.

[The Baker]

Hi, Andrew.

You could consider a red AND A GREEN snap fitting on your condenser hoses...

Geoff

[Saltbush Bill]

This is how most people I know insulate a reflux still......cheap , easy and quick to use.
Does the job perfectly, and comes in many sizes including 2 and 3 inch.....I've never looked for bigger but I'm sure it would be available. Another advantage is that it weighs almost nothing so keeps overall weight of the still down.

[The Baker]

I've forgotten.

What so you call that stuff?

Geoff

[Andrew_90]

Ah, broken a golden rule have I?

@ Twisted Brick. In the posts I describe how the fibre's cannot come into contact with anything, they are sealed in the PVC tube and the stop ends. Silicone sealer has been used to insulate between the copper and the stop ends. Not sure how breaking down the still will affect anything.

When checking the expanded polystyrene pipe lagging as an option the highest rating I could find was 70 deg C. Hence the gravitation to ceramic blanket. Do you get higher temperature ratings? Arrhenius postulated that for every 10 degree change in a materials temperature that the life could either double or halve, depending on if the temperature went up or down. This does not apply to every material but certainly in the electric motor electrical / thermal insulation materials it does apply and to very similar materials, glass impregnated fabrics etc. So operating the expanded polystyrene for me was a no no as the lifespan would reduce to .25X if Arrhenius was correct and so would the effectiveness of the material. The ceramic blanket on the other hand will last forever and will not lose performance at 90 deg C.

Someone school me.

[Twisted Brick]

It sounded like you might be handling the blanket each distillation. Since it is permanently sealed inside the PVC 'shell' you should be good to go.

And 1200mm is not too long. Any length 20-24:1 is fine, and a longer packed column can be run harder than a shorter one.

[kimbodious]

If you rinse the packing in the column you will have to be careful you don’t get water in the insulated layer.

[Saltbush Bill]

When checking the expanded polystyrene pipe lagging as an option the highest rating I could find was 70 deg C.

I have no idea of the heat rating of the stuff I used , I can tell you that its been on a 3 inch Boka for about 7 years now, done a lot of work and shows no sign of deterioration.

[kimbodious]

What so you call that stuff?
Geoff

Closed cell elastomeric foam.

[The Baker]

What so you call that stuff?
Geoff

Closed cell elastomeric foam.

No wonder I forgot.

Geoff

[Andrew_90]

Thanks to all.

Any views of the long down pipe vs. a long Liebig?

[kimbodious]

Thanks to all.

Any views of the long down pipe vs. a long Liebig?

Check out how I have my CCVM set up by clicking on the link in my signature. My product condenser is a shotgun.

[Setsumi]

Thanks to all.

Any views of the long down pipe vs. a long Liebig?

Make a long Liebig and run it vertical. If your goal is neutral run low wines.

[Sporacle]

Ive got a inch over 1/2 inch it's around 950 long, it runs on a 45 degree angle and the product outlet height when it's on my 1000mm column on my keg (still under construction) is just under bench height. It runs on a little 25l boiler at present with 2400w when stripping and handles that fine. I would go with the simplest system, that's just me though as I am trying to keep my stuff as simple as possible

[Andrew_90]

Some Feedback.

So after have run a steam run, vinegar run, stem run it was time to do the sacrificial alcohol run. Not one to waste and opportunity I used this as my trial CCVM spirit run.

- 17:00 Charged the 50l Boiler with 14l low wines at 35oC. Ambient temperature 25oC. Set controller to 2 200W. Set to full reflux with no flow to the PC. as the RC started working I was amazed at the knock down power, the distillate was gushing down the sight glass. No output for the PC not leakage from the RC tube.
- 17:36 There was bubbling in the sight glass turned the controller down to 1 450W. At this point the RC output volume was 1l per minute at 36oC.
- 17:59 The sight glass was bubbling at 3/4 of the sigh glass height. I found I needed constant adjustments to keep the sight glass bubbling at between 1/5 and 1/2 of the sight glass height.
18:30 After a 90 minute stabilization period I opened the cooling water to the PC, slowly raised the coil until I was getting a drip per second and took of 130ml of fore's. Was like watching paint dry. This corresponded with position three on my scale which has the RC well below the outgoing port on the T Piece.
??:?? I then raise the RC until I was getting the flow I estimated to be correct. This corresponded with position 8.5 on my scale. At this point the RC is still fractionally below the output hole of the T Piece. The flow rate turned out to be as near as dammit 1l per hour. I took three 250ml fractions on this setting and all were 98% at 22oC. So the problem is that my hydrometer did not come with any instructions or compensation charts and or if we are measure by weight or by volume.

At 98%ABV I am sure after compensation that I am pretty close to Azeo. Really pleased with the result, all that effort and hard work simply faded away.

My RC appears to be very efficient, a flow of 1l per hour with an output water temp of 36oC. It seemed to be idling.
My PC is grossly overdesigned, a trickle of water keeps my distillate temperature at 22oC. I will not alter it now, first want to enjoy producing product.
My column also appear to be well insulated and working optimally.

Hell the future is so bright I'll need to buy me some shades.

Please tell me where I went wrong and where to improve.

[Sporacle]

Sounds like everything work out pretty well mate, well done I threw 98 at 22 into a calc and got 97.4

[Andrew_90]

But that cannot be real as that is higher than what it should be surely? Is Azeo not 96.7%.

Does a Alcohol Hydrometer read ABW or ABV?

[kimbodious]

Sounds like everything work out pretty well mate, well done I threw 98 at 22 into a calc and got 97.4

I wish it were that easy BUT each hydrometer is calibrated differently. There should have been a calibration chart that came with your hydrometer.

The practise run sounds like it went really well What power setting were you on when taking off heads? I heat my boiler up at the power setting where I take off heads, sure it adds a bit of time but it stops the liquid in the boiler from getting really disturbed before you then try to get everything in equilibrium.

[Sporacle]

Kimbo, about as scientific as I get is the app on my phone told me that, I like the heat up on heads temp. I've got two lots of Googes Goo ready to go so will try that method for sure

[Andrew_90]

What power setting were you on when taking off heads? 1 450W.

[still_stirrin]

… Does a Alcohol Hydrometer read ABW or ABV?

Neither. It measures the liquid’s density.

The chart in the hydrometer’s tube shows a scale which gives the ratio of alcohol to water as the density varies proportionally as the alcohol percentage increases. But, the hydrometer is actually measuring the density not the %ABV (or %ABW).
ss

[Andrew_90]

Chapter 2.

Started my first real spirit run and have a couple of questions but first the background.

- Charged the 50l boiler with 40l of SSSW stripped to low wines at 28% (includes feints from prior runs).
- Stabilized the column for 90 minutes before drawing the Fore's. Took 130ml Fore's at one drop a second. Position 3.5 on the RC.
- Cranked the RC up to position 8.5 and began to take fractions of circa 325ml and I drew 8 fractions before shutting down to continue tomorrow. Fractions were being taken at a rate of 1.2l per hour.

So the questions are;
1. When stabilizing the column, should the bubbling be visible in the sight glass? I stabilized at 1 000W and there was no bubbling but lots of reflux going on.
2. When taking the fore's must the bubbling be visible in the sight glass?
3. I am having difficulty in maintaining a constant bubble level in the sight glass. Constantly tweaking but the tweaks are very small between bubbles and no bubbles. Running between 1 450 and 1 700W trying to get into equilibrium.
4. I took a very small taste sample of fraction 8 (2.4l into the run) and diluted this with an equal quantity water to give around 45%. The taste was bitter and there was a very sharp alcohol bite. Am I not through the heads yet?
5. If the RC height determines the flow what determines the kW input. The sight glass activity, keeping enough het to avoid flooding?
6. Coarsely speaking, if I have 40l low wines @ 35% then should I expect circa 14l total spirit output at 100% or 13.3l at 95%?
7. Do I increase distillate output when I get into the hearts?
8. What is my biggest clue that tell me I am about to enter the Tails?

[Sporacle]

Many people will be able answer 1 through 7, my CCVM when I get to tails is a rapid drop in output, it goes from a broken stream ( I collect at about 1Lph ) to a fast drip, also a pretty distinct drop in abv. You will know when the tails turn up with mine it's a very definite point

[Andrew_90]

Many people will be able answer 1 through 7, my CCVM when I get to tails is a rapid drop in output, it goes from a broken stream ( I collect at about 1Lph ) to a fast drip, also a pretty distinct drop in abv. You will know when the tails turn up with mine it's a very definite point

Thanks.

[Sporacle]

Meant to say many people with more experience will give advice on 1 thru 7

[Yummyrum]

Glad you are at this point Andrew .
As you are finding , running in that semi aquatic state is bloody hard to maintain . Some say you can get the best results but personally I don’t think its worth the stress .

I’n my experience , it doesn’t seem to be a steady state as you are also discovering .It’s either beginning to flood or draining away . There is a massive hysteresis . You tweak the power, nothing happens fir ages , then suddenly up she rises or down she falls .

So , for me , if can get the odd splash or splatter visible, then thats close enough for me . I don’t touch the power again unless I start to see splashing starting to increase , then I know “here we go again”

I’d take off a jar of foreshots at a drip rate , then after that I’ll start collecting at around 750ml an hour for a few jars of heads then crank it to about just over 1l/h .

I think your takeoff rate sounds pretty good .

As far as heads taken off , I think you may be close to hearts but not quite there yet especially since you have included feints .

I’m pretty shit at taking notes , but I would estimate that on a 30% low wines around 20-25 liters , I’d get about 1.5 liters of foreshots/ heads , then around 4-5 liters of hearts .