Thumper?

[Usge]

That's very true IES. Long as it suits...that's good enough. When I try and push a lot of heat through a thumper, it'll usually pull tails through the middle and smear everything together flavor wise. Wasn't real partial to that end of the flavor wheel myself. But, there are plenty around who are.

Thanks for posting the particulars of your setup. Sounds like you got it dialed in good for gettin what you want out of it

[LWTCS]

I may leave the thumper off for a run or two to see if I can get girl whiskey at 100 proof.

?? could you explain further please?

[Usge]

LW, I think he means...right now he's got his system "tuned" to pull 120 proof through the thumper on a single pass. If he removed the thumper, he figures his aggregate abv would probably fall to 100 proof. I think he means girl whiskey is 100 proof. Man whiskey 120.

[LWTCS]

Cept 120 will be a "lighter" distillate and the,............

[myles]

This whole concept of a tuneable thumper is a bit of a (pardon the expression) 'holy grail'. Each rig is different and there are so many variables, but I still maintain that eventually - and it may take some time - it is possible to tune the rig to give barrel proof at the desired quality and flavour, in a single run.

I don't do it myself. I habitualy do a strip run and then a spirit run, even with the thumper, but I am interested in using the thumper for flavour enhancement too.

Such a versatile bit of equipment

[LWTCS]

Can't comment on no Holly Grails..........But that is a Tuneable Thumper. Tunes on the fly.

Some say barrel strength for the rums is a higher abv.....
I run it with a curve that remains in the 80s. 79ish puts me into tails...

65 too earthy for me.


You fellers have seen it before.

[imeasystreet]

LWTCS, your setup is vertical. Mine is horizontal with roughly 3ft of 1 1/4 copper between pot and thumper. Vertical versus horizontal would seem to have a tremendous difference in flavor etc. Less heat reaches my thumper too. Or I guess I should say there is more heat loss from pot to thumper. That has to affect product. One thing I like about my thumper is that I need a smaller volume of cooling water for the condenser so wouldn't that make my setup more efficient in terms of energy consumption? I don't even need running water for condensation. I've done runs with three 5 gal buckets of cooling water poured into the condenser as needed.

In no way am I criticising anyone. I'm just pointing out differences in still setup and asking questions about how those differences affect output. I ain't that smart. My setup is just a copy of what I have seen on these forums. My opinion is that i got darned lucky in that what I built does a marvelous job at giving me the output I desire.

I will make an observation that many here push the limits of new and different for the sake of new and different. The history of distillation has been long enough that there isn't much that hasn't already been tried. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. My still seems to work properly, to get creative with taste/flavor I think I need to play with recipes. I am such a nooby that I know nothing about aging for lack of time for feedback. What I'm doing now works great short term. Time will tell.



g

[chappy]

i also have a question about the thumper ... would it be ok if it was square or sub marine shaped?

[LWTCS]

i also have a question about the thumper ... would it be ok if it was square or sub marine shaped?

In general my feeling is that sounds fine....However all thumpers are not equal.

[chappy]

explain ... please

[LWTCS]

Well any parasitic boiler with a charge and enough thermal transfer will create both cycles of phase change. First the condensing, then the re-vaporizing......


The size/scale, shape and heat input of the thumper (and likely the primary boiler too) contribute to the quality of the separation.

Some thumpers can sometimes create smearing that may otherwise be avoided by simply double running.....

[chappy]

what do you mean by smearing?

[Bayou-Ruler]

what do you mean by smearing?

Thats when the heads, hearts &, tails run together and are hard to differentiate.

[imeasystreet]

How exactly would a thumper create smearing other than, along with the boiler, being run to fast? If that' the only reason, operation is at fault, not the thumper. I suspect a square or submarine shaped thumper might be highly inefficient in terms of heat distribution and vapor flow.


g

[rad14701]

How exactly would a thumper create smearing other than, along with the boiler, being run to fast? If that' the only reason, operation is at fault, not the thumper. I suspect a square or submarine shaped thumper might be highly inefficient in terms of heat distribution and vapor flow.

The only purpose of the thumper is to provide a secondary distillation in a single run... Therefore, any potential smearing will still come though but at a higher overall %ABV... And while it may be in more concentrated intervals the smearing will still mix into the spirits unless you detect and remove those jars during the blending process... You don't always keep a contiguous series of jars when blending, you might skip a jar or two that just don't seem right along the way... And when using a thumper these may be the jars where the mystery smearing in the thumper ends up coming out into the collected spirits...

[LWTCS]

How exactly would a thumper create smearing other than, along with the boiler, being run to fast? If that' the only reason, operation is at fault, not the thumper.

Small primary boilers make for tough cuts.
And small thumpers attached to small primarys ain't much better smearing wise....

I suspect a square or submarine shaped thumper might be highly inefficient in terms of heat distribution and vapor flow.

Vapor flow is definitely an issue. Square corners can certainly cause fores and heads to become entrained within the vessel and re-mingle.

I figger a pair of matching/scaled vessels like POS's copper outfit would be a dern good design for someone that wanted to get good performance. Or any set of vessels with a cone/blockhead cap or the like.
Git yer thumper design to behave as much like a column section as possible for good quality separation.

[myles]

How exactly would a thumper create smearing other than, along with the boiler, being run to fast? If that' the only reason, operation is at fault, not the thumper. I suspect a square or submarine shaped thumper might be highly inefficient in terms of heat distribution and vapor flow.

The only purpose of the thumper is to provide a secondary distillation in a single run.

Sorry rad but I am going to disagree with this big style. This is the traditional view of a thumper but it is not one that I follow any more. It all depends on how you wish to use the thumper. There are several folks out there that use a thumper mainly for flavour modification. A thumper is a very versatile tool, on the most basic level you can fill it with water. Or you can fill it with wash, or honey, or molasses or anything else that you lke. Stick a dephlegmator above your thumper and you are into an entirely different system.

Runing whisky? Well how about putting speciality crystal malt in the thumper? Fruit brandy or grappa? How about filling the thumper with a fruit pulp? Making rum? Fill your thumper with a well aged dunder and rum oils. The shape is a load of bollocks. Far too simplistic an approach. Do you use a difuser? tall thin thumper or a wide fat arsed one.

A thumper is more primative than a plated column, but it is also more versatile. After all how many flute users deliberately load the plates with anything other than vapour from lower down??

As for smearing - well that is an opperational problem. Each still is unique. You need to find the correct set of conditions for your individual still that will enable you to remove sufficient heads, early on, to produce a clean hearts component. Not enough power and the heads will be present all through the run. This game is an art not a science.. The still is as much an instrument as a clarinette. Thankfully. It would be terribly boring if they were all the same.

[The Baker]

"There are several folks out there that use a thumper mainly for flavour modification.
A thumper is a very versatile tool, on the most basic level you can fill it with water. Or you can fill it with wash, or honey, or molasses or anything else that you like."

Thanks again Myles for making us think.

Suppose the thumper was not really big.
In my case, fifty litre boiler on the pot still, maybe ten litres capacity in the thumper. (Yet to be connected but this is gettin me enthused...)
If I (partly?) filled the thumper with (fruit juice, wash, whatever) then I expect this would be partly used up in the foreshots (and would be lost)
then a fair bit would go into the heads (which is not what I want, to recover that it would have to be re-run with the heads)
then what goes where I want it, into the hearts, would (maybe; this is speculation) be pretty much exhausted early in the hearts;
so there could be a good proportion in the early hearts, dropping to almost none later.
I THINK this possible variation as you go through the hearts would mean that making the cuts would be difficult.
Especially because the result would be skewed;
the particular cut may be good for the flavour-from-the-thumper but not one you like otherwise.......
and these proportions would constantly change...
Probably inversely, that is as one factor improves and you want to keep the cut, the other gets worse, and you don't want to keep the cut,
so you end up with nothing you want to keep??
Does that make sense?
So I wondered...
Suppose you have a little tank higher than the thumper, with a tap to control the flow, and maybe a loop in the pipe for a vapour lock....
And, say a bit after the foreshots, you start the (juice, whatever) gradually running into the thumper.
The control you have would keep the (juice, whatever) from the foreshots, heads and tails; and you can also control the flow of it,
so that it is evenly added through the hearts distillation.

(Since this whole idea could be especially useful with a large boiler and a smaller thumper,
there would propably not be a problem with vapourising this very small flow of liquid into the thumper.
But if there were a problem you could run the lyne arm through the little tank [too hot?] or sit the little tank directly on top of either the boiler or the thumper?)

Just musing, but it all seems logical and possible and good.....

[LWTCS]

The Baker,,
Can also slow your strip down a bit,,,make some rough cuts during this "strip"
Then charge your outfit with your high wines and charge your thumper with the flavor juice to get more adjunct into your keeper spirits.

Can also just do a flavor charge on the thumper with some pre-cut neutral in the primary.......

[The Baker]

Thanks LWCTS.

MORE heavy thinking you have given me.

[imeasystreet]

'Some thumpers can sometimes create smearing that may otherwise be avoided by simply double running....."

" Small primary boilers make for tough cuts.
And small thumpers attached to small primarys ain't much better smearing wise...."

Ah yes, I see your point. I should have said that still design or operation is at fault, not the thumper theory in general.

I would guess that whatever you use to pre-charge a thumper would be predictably diluted by the incoming vapor/condensate. The characteristics of the vapor out of the tumper would be the dynamic water/flavor/ABV combination of the two.

I'll have to agree with Rad in that the primary purpose of the thumper is to provide a secondary distillation in a single run. When you use a thumper you use less time and fuel to get the similar volume and percent of alcohol as a double run. And since the thumper consumes heat you need less cooling water. Thumpers increase still efficiency.

I'd like to hear more specifics from folks that use a thumper mainly for flavour modification. I thought thumpers weren't all that popular for any reason.

g

[Kidnapper2]

In the illustration above, with the double thumper. Wouldn't that be a a triple distillation in one run? And if so, why the hell haven't I figured out how to build a monster reflux with a double thumper?

Or, I guess the real question is. Has anyone built a monster reflux with a double thumper? And if so, what kind of results have you gotten from it?

[rad14701]

In the illustration above, with the double thumper. Wouldn't that be a a triple distillation in one run? And if so, why the hell haven't I figured out how to build a monster reflux with a double thumper?

Or, I guess the real question is. Has anyone built a monster reflux with a double thumper? And if so, what kind of results have you gotten from it?

Several members have built multiple thumper stills... LWTCS has his humper thumper with inline thumpers and there are a few spin-offs as well as several that he may have borrowed concepts from...

[LWTCS]

Can check this out if ya want:
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... er+concept

I am largely happy with the performance of this bot.

[Marshwalker]

The Baker,,
Can also slow your strip down a bit,,,make some rough cuts during this "strip"
Then charge your outfit with your high wines and charge your thumper with the flavor juice to get more adjunct into your keeper spirits.

Can also just do a flavor charge on the thumper with some pre-cut neutral in the primary.......

now that sounds interesting to me... i havent even made a run yet and am far off from this...but introducing flavor at the end of the heads sounds like an awesome idea to get more flavor into the hearts... has any of yall tried it yet?

[LWTCS]

has any of yall tried it yet?

yes

[Marshwalker]

has any of yall tried it yet?

yes

Was it worth it bubba?

[LWTCS]

Yes it was absolutely worth it..
But I at some point I grew tired of every run being an experiment and felt it time to settle on a preferred method so that I could build some drinking stock....While I was putting my equipment through the paces it was fun to see how many pony tricks I could make it do while charging the vessels with various degrees of this and that..An essential part of becoming familiar with my equipment.

I settled on dunder use (I do rum) to insure heavier notes as I collect at 89-90 or so. I got one lil trick that I like to still play with every other run or so but mostly I am quite content to do the same thing these days...

I do have some new build configurations that need to be run. Soon I will be in the garage fiddling with my knobs and such to see what kind of drop I'll get from these new configurations...

[Marshwalker]

Good deal!! You'll never settle cause your like me in sorts...your a tinkerer...I'm going to try to build a stock after I figure out what I'm doing,,,,but doubt I'll ever quit thinking about something new to build!!

[myles]

And since the thumper consumes heat you need less cooling water. Thumpers increase still efficiency.

g

This just isn't accurate - or possibly I should say it is an oversimplification. Thumpers do not "consume heat".

The additional heat needed to warm up a prefilled thumper is exactly the same as if that same volume had been added to your primary boiler charge. So in that context they take a bit more start up heat. Once warmed up the only extra heat you need to put into the boiler is that radiated by the thumper, if it is insulated this is not an issue. This would be the same as the heat lost from an equivalent increase in surface area of your vapour path, with something like an expansion chamber, boil bowl or an increase in riser length.

If you are running a reflux condenser over your thumper to self fill it, then the condenser itself will "consume heat". Once the thumper is up and running the change in coolant requirement to your condenser is minimal at best.

Lets not forget what is actually going on in a thumper.

It is a MASS & ENERGY TRANSFER situation. If you start with a minimal volume in the thumper, during the early phase the volume increases because you have transfered (condensed) low boiling point alcohols from the primary into the thumper. As a result it is now filled with higher proof liquid with a lower boiling point than the primary boiler. This is why the vapour comes out of it at a higher proof. At this moment in time you might need less coolant (because the vapour is at a lower temperature) but over the remainder of the run it evens out.

I suspect if you were to measure the coolant load over the entire run it would be the same. If you collect the same volume of product at the same temperature (with or without your thumper)your condenser has removed the same amount of energy. The energy distribution over time might have changed, but not the total amount removed.

There might be some savings due to the different run times - the thumper tends to compress the heads so they are being produced over a shorter period. However, I haven't actually measured the total run times during which the product condenser is actually in use. Easiest option is just to measure the temperature of your coolant reservoir after the run to see if there is a noticeable difference.