Thump Tower Concept

[olddog]

Have you got a name for this one Larry

[LWTCS]

Previous post OD.

But the entire assembly will read something like:

"Thehotdogjumpinhumperthumpindogdishbubblintripledoublindistillingapperatus"

Guaranteed to produce "pure rum".
I challenge all commers to refute my forthcomming assertion.

And in the spirit of marketing,,,,,,,,,,,my word play


Gonna have to chop into my head abit to get adaquate clearence from the garage lid.

[squidd]

Larry'sWideThumpin'ColumnSeparator.

squidd

[olddog]

Gonna have to chop into my head abit to get adaquate clearence from the garage lid.

Why don't you try it without the humper thumper first straight onto the keg.

OD

[LWTCS]

Was going to.

But the set up to mount the Humper Thuper is 2" threaded stainless with a coupler joining each male end. At the time, I wanted to insure that I had more than adaquate stout to carry the weight of the thumper and my head W/heavy ass condenser.

The thump tower is set up with 1-1/2" unions.

I can however remove the float and not charge the Humper. That will allow for a reasonably straight push to the tower for testing purposes.

Cutting the still head is,,,,,,,,,,,I'm ok with it.

[LWTCS]

Ok Olddog. As per our discussion I ran the ovaltine wash through my existing rig. Pulled fores, 300ml assumed heads and 1600ml for the house. Shut down.

Remaining boiler charge to run through the "Triple Doubler" after quickly mounting with my trusty unions. I left the Humper Thumper mounted and charged to save some set up time.
Also quickly cut down my stillhead.

Have a small leak on one of the overflow lines. It was below the liquid level and barely a drip, so I wraped a rag around and carried on.

I was initially worried about bits of solder within the chambers, but they worked perfectly as audible boiling chips. I could hear all three stages working perfectly.

Collect the first 400ml to check ABV. the rest is offed down the drive way.

[olddog]

Did you get any indication of ABV with the new rig


OD

[LWTCS]

The 400ml collected read right around 65% just now.

But bear in mind that I ran the thing full blast and pulled off 2100ml prior to mounting the tower.

Really need to run on low for the entire run and see whats what.
But I am definitely excited.

[olddog]

Congrats on a great build, can't wait to see what results you get from a compleat run.


OD

[blanikdog]

Bloody hell Larry, that's one incredible piece of copper.

You blokes are simply amazing.

blanik

[rednose]

Looks really good Larry, congrats.

What I still don't get is how you fill the thumpers.

[LWTCS]

with these turned up fill ports Joe.

[rednose]

Oh, now I got ya, didn't see that part in the other pics.

Now a full run, some copper shining and it's ready for the hall of fame.

I wasn't active in my built cause I'm still waiting for parts, also working with apollo trying out more receipts.

I'm full with paperwork and courses to get my official license done, can't await to open to the public (deadline end of July max).

[LWTCS]

Bloody hell Larry, that's one incredible piece of copper.

I recon it's very close to 25 pounds.

[olddog]

I see you have quite a collection of stills on your workshop bench, do you use them all.

OD

[LWTCS]

Turning into the bone yard over there.

My still head on it's side is current,,,,,,,,,,till I cut it today.

And I used my lil stove top a few weeks ago to do a small brandy short cut trick that Dnder is mulling over.

Also the collateral damage that was the first dogdish build.

My spare keg was going to be another boiler,,,,,,,,,,,,,or dunder pit.

[olddog]

Are you using the soft silver solder in your construction Larry ? or the harder variety.


OD

[LWTCS]

Soft mike.
That's why I felt it was critical to use a continuous piece of copper through the tower. Just so much weight.

[olddog]

I am looking forward to a full test assessment of this rig, I think it should be a winner.

OD

[rad14701]

This design is sounding quite successful for a first attempt... Definitely not a build for beginners, however...

[LWTCS]

This design is sounding quite successful for a first attempt...

I think so too Rad.
I'm not qualified to do any kind of math to arrive at any performance conclusions based on say,,,,conventional thumper sizing compared to the thump tower that I have built.

But because of the overflow protection,,I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that current sizing will work as well as,,,,,,at least anything comparably sized.

I liken this build to a pot still build, in that specifics may not be as critical as long as tubing diameters, input and boiler charge are comensurate.

We shall see.
I will not install the float or charge the Humper Thumper on the next run.
Just gotta clear the next rum batch.

[LWTCS]

20 liter rum wash. No tails. No heads. Charged all three chambers with water. Did not put the float on the Humper Thumper, so she is merely a slober box tonight.

Fores are just flat out nasty

Heads as far as I can tell this evening are only 300ml

82% and riding low on the line at that.

Discharge rate is a bappity bappity bappity to perhaps just a bit slower than a broken stream.

Got spoiled with the dog dish I must admit. I'm used to running freakishly quick compared to this.

Not taking notes this evening. I'm kinda wupt.

[LWTCS]

Bout 600 ml well into hearts and the 83% mark is well below the meniscus.

I hope the trend continues.

[Barney Fife]

How's the flavor profile? I'm thinking that once you get a run done at, say, the 82-83% range that you've now got, run the next rum faster, so that you're averaging maybe 5% less ABV, and see how the flavor is, relative to how clean it is, relative to how fast you can collect. You can always run the fores and heads off at the speed you just did, as it sounds like they separated very well! Then speed it up if the sweet spot can be found at more power input.

That's kind of where I am; I can slow the hell out of it and do a great job of separating the fores and heads, but if I add just a bit more wattage, my ABV drops down to pot still range, and the tails don't separate nearly as well as they do when I run slow, so I have to watch it close, then either lose a liter of heads to the tails jars, or slow it back down after just one liter of hearts.. A little frustrating, but the thing taught me a ton of stuff! Love following your work! I lost my computer for a while, so was away for a good bit!

[LWTCS]

How's the flavor profile? I'm thinking that once you get a run done at, say, the 82-83% range that you've now got, run the next rum faster, so that you're averaging maybe 5% less ABV, and see how the flavor is, relative to how clean it is, relative to how fast you can collect. You can always run the fores and heads off at the speed you just did, as it sounds like they separated very well! Then speed it up if the sweet spot can be found at more power input.

Flavor profile is good as this is a 5th generation. I only have 2 settings at present. So its balls to the wall or what I got tonight with this configuration. This run is a test only. Not gonna run without the Humper again. The Humper goes back into service teamed with the tower and we shall see what gives then.

The dog dish allows me to dump a ton of heat and settle the output down to a more suitable discharge rate.

Once again it seems that not having a controller is preventing me from finding the sweat spot.
I gotta stop getting side tracked and get a controller in the mix.

[LWTCS]

Couple of observations during tear down this morning.

There was less liquid in the top level thumper. Not sure why and not sure that it matters.

Also when I poped the the lid on the Humper, I thought I had left a shit load of likker in the boiler as there was an immediate alcohol smell. Last night I ran down to 80% then opened her up to full blast for the balance of the run. I didn't bother with much evaluating as such. I just ran till I smelled lifeless tails.
So this morning there was a lot of alcky in the humper pot that could not drain back to the primary boiler because of the way the filltube for the humper enters the pot.
Last nite I did not run the Humper with the tower so I did not charge the Humper. But there was a lot of liquid within the humper pot as she was only a slober box last night. And apparently not a very good one as back feeding liquid (alcohol) from the tower could not re-vaporize with out the (humper)thumper action in play.

I pulled off the Humper pot to evaluate the spent wash. And no alcohol to speak of. Smelled like a spent rum wash.

So the Humper is a great thumper but a shity slober box.

[olddog]

I think you would see a big difference if you could mount the new tower directly to your boiler, perhaps with a 2" to 1 1/2" adapter.


OD

[LWTCS]

I think you would see a big difference if you could mount the new tower directly to your boiler, perhaps with a 2" to 1 1/2" adapter.OD

Either way,, She pulls 82 to 83%

Lets see what happens with the Hmper thmper on lne in the next run.

[Slow & Steady]

Larry, I have been waiting to see what your combined ABV would be with the Humper Thumper and the new Thumper Tower. I'm pulling for you to break the 88% ABV barrier. I'm wondering why it is so hard to break that level of ABV with modified Pot Stills.

S&S

[Barney Fife]

Couple of observations during tear down this morning.

There was less liquid in the top level thumper. Not sure why and not sure that it matters.

My guess would be that since everything you want stripped was stripped before it got to the last one was already stripped, there was nothing much left to collect in the top one. When I re-ran some of last winter's bad rum hearts, I was scratching my head and thinking hard as to why I wasn't seeing any foreshots and heads from my plate collection line until I realized that I can't collect what I stripped out previously. IE: there weren't enough heads to collect....

In your case, it can very well be that all the higher volatiles were kept behind in the other levels, leaving not much left for the top one to collect. This would suggest that you've got it right about perfect for the size wash you're doing. At least, that's my first impression.