Bokakob 2" mini-still column

[HookLine]

This is very good advice from Rad. Do not unroll your copper tube or work it in any way, any more than you absolutely have to. It will work harden very quickly and make forming a coil from it much more difficult.

[Samohon]

Thanks Rad I did not know that. When I roll mine next month I'll remember this tip..

Shinner: The plate with the slot bent down goes on the bottom plate... The one nearest the packing...



It basically directs the flow of liquid (distillate) back down the center of the column as the vapours rise above it...

Love the coil.. It looks ok for a first attempt. Hope mines are as good. Have you given it a run yet? Hook it up to the H2O and make sure it flows OK.

I Like it A Lot...

[Kentucky shinner]

Thanks guys, If i have to make another coil I will fill it with water before I start also. I tried using a tubbing bender spring that slides over the tubbing. Lets just say my hands were a little sore when I finished. It was pretty tough trying to make a coil small enough to fit 1.5" pipe. I know some experience in doing this will help me greatly.
If at first you dont succceed try try again...LOL

[Samohon]

I think Rads advice on bending the coil straight from the roll is very relevant to us Shinner. I have it all to do, just wish I could give more relevant advice to you. Theory is OK and we need it in the beginning, but to actualy get your hands dirty building it is experience of its own kind. You have done probably the hardest part of putting the still together, IMO, Bending the coil. Hope the blisters heal soon...lol. Keep it up shinner your doing great.

Have you thought about packing... The guys all swear by Stainless scrubbers. I found a shop it the UK that will supply me with a copper mesh....

What do you think guys? Can a still have too much copper in it, does the SS Scrubbers balance the still in anyway?

Is there any benefit in mixing them...?

[Kentucky shinner]

I have a couple of pounds of copper mesh that I am going to use.

[chaos]

i need to know will i have to upscale this for a 50L beer keg or will it b fine on that scale and how would i go about connecting if possible can someone email me the design to a still like this or a link so i can look at constructing it
p.s does it have a reflux capacity

[Kentucky shinner]

This column will work fine with a 50L boiler. This is a reflux column for producing high quality neutral spirits. you can attach the column to your Keg with a tri-clamp. This is a very easy column to build and operate. You can expect 90%+ ABV when you learn how to run it properly.
Kentucky Shinner

[crossedwires]

hey guys, I'm going to build a 2" as opposed to a 3" for ease of getting the piping around here. Can anyone tell me how i go about working out how much 1/4" tubing i need to make the condenser head, if it is 10"?

[Kentucky shinner]

hey guys, I'm going to build a 2" as opposed to a 3" for ease of getting the piping around here. Can anyone tell me how i go about working out how much 1/4" tubing i need to make the condenser head, if it is 10"?

I am not positive but I think about 9-10 feet. will do it.

[rad14701]

Here is a condenser coil calculator spreadsheet that I whipped up for determining how much tubing is required for either a single or double helix condenser coil... It is actually an Excel spreadsheet so you will need to save it and rename the extension from .pdf to .xls in order to get it to work... The easiest way to save this file is to Right Click on the filename and select "Save Target As" or "Save Link As", depending on your browser...

condenser-coil-calc.pdf

Change the extension of this file from .pdf to .xls

(7.5 KiB) Downloaded 2263 times

[crazyk78]

Rad, you are a true genius coming up with these things. Maybe you should get it put in a sticky somewhere and we can develop it a little to be metric and imperial.

[crossedwires]

Haha, right on the button. I got a roll of 10' and it did just right with about a foot to spare! It's not super pretty, and its about 15 inches, but i tested it and water flows through it nicely! Guess my tower is going to be a bit higher now, but oh well.

[crazyk78]

Yes spot on the money. Its a safety thing you MUST have a hole or an open cap

[Samohon]

Nice addition rockchucker22, any piccies for us...?

[hoody]

Does the distance from the condenser to the plate's have much of a effect in this design? I am wanting to make my still as modular as possible so am planning on having some threaded fitting's between the "plate" section and the "condenser" section. I think the total distance from top of top plate to bottom of condenser will be approx 50ml, with the threaded fitting's being in between

Can anyone see a issue with this??

Hoody

[Pikluk]

no i don't think that would affect anything
why would you want a threaded fitting at that point?
you want vm and lm style option?
we are talking about 8" of pipe there just put a extra 8" piece on each head.
less fitting and cheaper.

if im off then please ignore me .

[hoody]

Was thinking that way I could use the same piece for the condenser, and easily change to/add a VM section and swap between the 2 or use a combination of both. Also because I dont have a huge amount of 2" and am trying to make the still as versatile as possible with what I have.
Was also thinking of cleaning abilities?

Hoody

[Pikluk]

if you are that limited in 2" pipe make a head that have both boka and vm.
theres a few post of people doing that in here.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s197 ... gn_v11.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

how much 2" pipe do you have?

[rad14701]

Like Pikluk eluded to, go with a combo LM/VM by adding an LM branch onto the Bokakob dual slant plate column and get the best of both worlds...

[rad14701]

so I could convert my original design into a lm/vm by adding a valve and coil cooling and eliminate the bottom cooling conection?????

No... Refer to the picture that Pikluk posted the link to in his previous post... Port "B" is where your VM take off branch would be located... For your column, which we haven't seen a picture of yet, you can just as easily use a T placed in the column below the dual slant plate section... The rest of the Bokakob LM design remains the same... When you want to run in LM mode you keep the VM take off valve closed... When you want to run in LM mode you keep the LM needle valve closed...

You get the best of both designs this way... One packed column and reflux condenser head, and one packed column, with two column designs at your disposal... You can draw off foreshots and heads with the LM section and then switch to the VM section for hearts collection if you like by simply turning one valve off and the other on... And the dual slant plates take care of the reflux centering regardless of which mode you are using...

[rad14701]

I have two stills one is very close to pikluks' design but my first still is the bad/old design with the cooling tubes running through the column, It seems like it could easly be converted???

Yes, the CM column you have can be converted into either a LM, VM, or combo LM/VM...

[Kenneth_V]

Thanks for all the great info on this site.

I am getting ready for my first build but have a few questions.

what can one expect for output volumes on this design??
I have read that above 500ml/hr pikluk was getting suction from the output tube.

is there a way to overcome this? I would like to incorporate any mods into my initial build

Any other suggestions or modifications before i begin my build?

Thanks again

[TipsyPig]

would expanding to a 3" pipe above the plates allow the vapores to condense greater and improve your output? The vapor would have to evpand inside the 3' and thus slow down also reducing your sucking from the output. am I off base with this or at least still in the same ballpark?

[LWTCS]

would expanding to a 3" pipe above the plates allow the vapores to condense greater and improve your output?

I'm jumping in where I don't belong, but I assume your out put will be mostly predicated on the size of your take off valve.



I do like your train of thought as it relates to liberating, isolating and stacking bulk amounts of vapor............

[TipsyPig]

With the T at the leibig are you going to get proper water flow? I see where the water will take the path of least resistance and bypass the lieb.. Just an opinion.

[rad14701]

With enough water pressure it goes everywhere and works great. I wanted some og the cold water bypass the liebig and go streight to the coil.

Why...??? I highly doubt that cooling will be an issue...

Adopt me... You must be rich based on the number of brass fittings on that column... Or at least you were...

[still crazy]

With a constant water pressure passing thru the line tee'd into your liebig the pressure will be negative at both outlets there by passing your liebig without flow thru it the line passing by MUST be bigger that the tap offs out of it or it will not draw a flow
You could have soldered two tubes touching side to side and cold sinked the heat out of your distillate

[crazyk78]

Whats with the needle valve after the leibig is that absolutely necessary?

[TipsyPig]

I was not trying to come down on you, and I’m sorry if it came off that way. I am new here also; my concern is that you are running an inefficient flow system. Without going into fluid dynamics to heavily, water will always take the path of least resistance. Thus when your inlet water reaches the second T it is creating less flow. IE what SC said. “Negative pressure" Now, as long as you can manage your vapors and you are ok with the takeoff let it be, and table the idea for a change later on.

[crazyk78]

Knock out the 2 tee's on the leibig, water running on both sides like that will cause positive pressure and you will get minimal cooling effect through the leibig. It will still cool but performance will be dropped.

Run water in the top and out the bottom.