Thumper?

[myles]

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?)

This is a variation of a tried and tested technique. If I were to do back to back runs I would use this technique to use the vapour path to pre-warm the next boiler charge and to remove some energy from the vapour for efficiency.

[shadylane]

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?)

This is a variation of a tried and tested technique. If I were to do back to back runs I would use this technique to use the vapour path to pre-warm the next boiler charge and to remove some energy from the vapour for efficiency.

During stripping runs the condenser absorbs alot of heat. I use the hot, waste water and my wort chiller as a preheater for the next still charge.
Since this is about thumpers mine dissipates heat and makes the liebigs job easier. When running hard, the extra cooling and a puke box is nice. A thumper is valuble during stripping runs.

[chris_adams]

I run my pot without a thumper, had no trouble. I guess they're only needed for large scale distillation.

[Tater]

I run my pot without a thumper, had no trouble. I guess they're only needed for large scale distillation.

nope not at all reread this thread

[crotallis]

ok I am new to this group and have never looked into a thumper, my question is does it need heat under it or not. like i said i have never concidered one before so i know nothing about it. thanks in advance for your help.

[LWTCS]

At the hobby level you would never really need to preheat your thumper.
The incoming vapor temps are quite adequate.
Be mindful that not all thumpers are created equal.

[myles]

Thumpers are incredibly versatile, and can be used for several reasons.

[crotallis]

I would take any info on what to use for thumper. I have no acess to wooden barrells unless I order a new on and am not sure how to convert a beer keg or what ever would be best. I just don't want to wast time and money trying things that may not work. I would like to draw from the experance of the board if I could. Thank you

[myles]

My reply above was actually completed by my cat standing on the keyboard

Oh well! A small keg is an easy option. If you can build a liebig then you can build the fitting that is needed to turn a keg into a simple thumper.

thump2.jpg (6.14 KiB) Viewed 7190 times

Or you can use a stock pot and a bowl for a lid - well 2 bowls actually. Solder the rim of the first bowl to the pot to make a seat for the second bowl to mate onto.

Or line a wood box with a thin copper liner.

[okie]

My still has a thumper. t's a mason jar and there is a tube going to within 1/2" of the bottom and one about 1/2" from the lid. When I start my still I don't fill the thumper until I see the temps coming up to near distillation point. I then put boiling water in the jar and just under 1 inch. When It starts bubbling the water in the thumper it's only a matter of a few minutes before product comes out the tube. I can add anything in the thumper I want to flavor the product with. I made orange flavored vodka that was killer. I put both fresh squeezed orange juice and zest in the thumper and it came out fantastic.

I tried to flavor rum with cinnamon, vanilla bean and cloves and almost ruined a batch of rum. It super concentrates the flavor into the product. It does build up liquid and I toss a lot of it as I make my run. I always get 70-75% on my first run. Thumpers work great. You don't need a big one. Mine is a pint for a 4 gal boiler and it will work up to a 10 gallon just fine. I can add a second thumper also. Then I'll get closer to 85% ABV. Just a pint mason jar is all you need.

[Dnderhead]

do as you want but a glass jar is not safe they have been known to crack,also removing the jar to empty during a run is not safe this would let alcohol vapors into the room and that can make for a violent ending to your distilling adventure.

[okie]

It takes but a minute. I'm not inside either. Don't they boil these jars to can in them? That's at least 212 and I never get to that temp.

[Dnderhead]

Its the difference in temperature that brakes the glass.in a caner this is evenly heated on all sides
(even then some brake) one thing more i thought of ,what you using for a lid? the "caning" lids are
steel with a plastic coating and a rubber seal.

[Prairiepiss]

Not to mention a pint jar is to small for a 4 gal boiler.

[shadylane]

A jar thumper would let you see if your still is puking. I'd like to have one. Anybody have a 5 gallon Pyrex beaker for sale? cheap.

[okie]

What do you recommend for the best thumper?

[LWTCS]

What do you recommend for the best thumper?

That is such an open ended question.

Firstly how big would ones primary boiler be?
If I had a 52 liter keg boiler I would wish for one of those 7 gallon ("6 case") kegs for my thumper.

As it turns out, I stole one of my wife's top notch stock pots and have been happy with the results.

[okie]

So you are implying that once you are running your still, you never open or drain your thumper. If this is correct, aren't you adding extra pressure on your boiler because the level of liquid below the tube in your thumper increases as the run goes on. Does this become an area of concern? The seal on your boiler could open and then you have alcohol vapors escaping. I'm curious.

[myles]

So you are implying that once you are running your still, you never open or drain your thumper. If this is correct, aren't you adding extra pressure on your boiler because the level of liquid below the tube in your thumper increases as the run goes on. Does this become an area of concern? The seal on your boiler could open and then you have alcohol vapors escaping. I'm curious.

The pressure variation introduced into the boiler, by the thumper charge increasing from a depth of lets say 1" to 6" is minimal. If your thumper is correctly set up then NO you do not open or drain it during the run.

If your thumper is under-sized then it can be a good idea to have an overflow back into the primary boiler. This would be protected by a vapour lock. In this situation the boiler pressure would increase marginally until the thumper reached capacity and then it would remain constant.

Bear in mind that it is a good idea to have a safety bypass valve fitted to the boiler in the event of a blockage in the vapour path. Typically this will be set somewhere between 1 and 3 bar.

Note: 1 bar is equivalent to 402" of water. That's a mighty deep thumper to introduce any significant pressure into the boiler.

[Prairiepiss]

I typed out a big long response just so my phone could dump it.

A normal thumper should be sized around 1/2 the normal boiler charge. So that it will hold all the liquid that will be condensed from the run. If smaller a drain system as Myles explained would be needed.

The vapor path should never be opened up during a run. To say drain a thumper that is to small. The thumper should be sized correctly so this doesn't need to happen.

I thought all this was covered in this thread?

[Usge]

Having had a few years to play with thumpers now on several different configurations...I've come to a new understanding about some of the designs, etc I've used.

When one first starts out thinking about adding a thumper, it's usually after having already built and/or run a potstill of some kind. That and most people want to be able to run it, or not run it. So, traditionally, or commonly I should say, one's first thought on how to approach this is usually about placing the thumper between the lynearm and condenser. The thumper I/O design is therefore usually dictated by whatever the end size of your lynearm and condenser connections are....ie. usually the smallest part at the end of the vapor path.

This ,to me anyway, was sort of a "given" parameter that we all worked around. My belief is...the goals for the input side and the output side of the thumper have different needs. On the input side of the thumper...what you want is direct heat/vapor path that is open as possible and short/direct from the pot. This is NOT a place you'd want to restrict the vapor path. Nor would you want it too long or with too many bends, or rises, etc..or anything that interferes with just getting the vapor and heat from the first pot over to the thumper as efficiently as possible without having to drive it too hard such that its forcing vapor out of thumper and smearing it.

Secondly, on the output side...I like to think of it no differently than a standard potstill. Would you put a 1/2" copper tube head on your still? No you wouldn't. Nor should you on your thumper out either. Again, this is commonly done based on the size needed to connect to the condensor rather than thoughts about what impact it might have on the vapor or results. This brings me to some thoughts about one of the previous designs I used.

The single inline thumphead: This again..was mostly designed around logistics for connecting the existing lynearm and condenser to the thumper. And as that goes..it's a pretty efficient way to do it. But, lets look at or think about some of the conditions that exist with this design and what happens to vapor as it goes through the path from beginning to end. In this design, you bring your thumper line in...same size as the end of your lynearm. For most people that's going to be somewhere around 1/2". You use a larger tube "jacket" over that (1" or so) and tee it off to make an attachment point for your existing condenser (usually 1/2"). So the idea being...the tube from lynearm 1/2" volume goes down to the bottom of the pot...and the vapor comes out the 1/2" volume (1") tube as it rises up.

What's the problem with this? Heat and diameter. First we are limited to 1/2" on both sides. Second is..the heat passing from the vapor coming in..is also heating the output tube that surrounds it. This adds to the smearing already inherent in a design using small input/output tubes driving heat. Would you put a heater or heat source at the top of your potstill head where the vapor comes off to enter the lynearm? If you did..what would happen? There is a certain amount of smearing or blending that already occurs naturally using a thumper because of the liquid pool it goes through. But, after the vapor reaches boiling point in the pot...you want don't want it to "rush" out, nor do you want it to super heat just as it's trying to escape the output and go to your condenser.

The other thing you want for your rising vapor in your thumper is "space" or volume to calmly separate as much as it can. I think of it no different than "any" postill. What happens on your potstill if you restrict the output size and turn the heat up? What would happen if you ran 1/2 tube head on your keg and turned the heat up? Why would the output of of vapor coming off a thumper be "any" different? (other than size /volume of the pot). I believe, in the past...this was just never considered because logistics of connecting it trumped any thought or deference given to what was actually going on (my own personal experience with it anyway).

So, on this inline thumper design...you've got basically a 1/2" worth of tube volume that is continually heated to a temp above the vapor temp trying to exit it. In thinking about all these things, and reviewing my notes on my thumper runs over the years..and different designs..and the various problems I had with them, including smearing runs badly..I decided to test a new one.

Part of the concept of this is modular. I already had an 8 gal heavy duty commercial pot (brewhaus) that has a 2" ferrule on the top. This was my main pot. Now I have a keg as well. I went through the above thought process when trying to decide how to use my 8 gal pot..as the thumper for the keg. And my first thoughts were..as always...just how to attach it between the potstill head and the liebig condenser (ie., 1/2"). An inline thumphead to connect to ferrule was my first thought. But, I didn't want to restrict or limit the i/o size to 1/2". Everywhere I looked...this what people were doing. Mile-hi even sells a "thumper" version of their smaller pot which has ferrule blanks..drilled with small 1/2" tubes stucking up for you to connect to

So, I sketched out a design..with a goal of optimizing the input and output side in so far as vapor path...and also...being as efficient as possible. Of course..so long as you are trying to connect your thumper in between your potstill head and liebig...you are still stuck with 1/2" (or whatever that connection size is). So I decided to use a straight length of 2" pipe with 90's and ferrules on both ends...such that the pipe was about 20" long. Direct...straight off the keg...into the thumper at 2". And this 2" tube would extend to the bottom of the thumper (almost touching) with diffuser holes drilled in it. It would attach to the thumper with triclamp. On the output side..would simply be another 2" ferrule and I would attach to that...my existing standard up and over potstill head and liebig just as it is when I use it on the keg. This removed the limitation of 1/2" tube...and allowed the thing to be plumbed at 2" with secure/solid/and modular tri-clamp connections and I could reuse my existing equipment.

On my first run, I used 8 gals of thin-mash (around 10%) and 2 gals of low-wines/feints. I put between 1-2 gals of low-wines in the thumper pot which just covered the difussion holes in the downtube. After 45 mins heating..I started to hear the thumper thump. Within 14 mins after that...drips starting coming out. The resulting distillate was high proof (started in high 80s %), and fell through the run (as all wash runs do)...falling slower at first...and much faster at the end. The middle was blended/flavorful and not harsh. It was not smeared with tails...and lighter in taste. It made an excellent whiskey cut from 80% to lower 60s% that had a very nice corn after taste without being to tailsy. So far I've done 3 runs on it. All of them had the typical "blended" flavor that comes from bubbling vapor through the liquid (ie., plates), but none were smeared..even at a qt every 15 mins. Better results (for me) taste wise were around 20mins per qt.

There's probably plenty of ways to overcome any of these obstacles. These are just my thoughts. YMMV. And if anything changes, I'll update it.

[okie]

Outstanding. I follow your thinking and I'm going to make changes.

[LWTCS]

Nice Daryl,
insightful post also.
Glad she is dialed in. I'll be down your way soon..............

Moral of the story,,,,,,,,Not all thumpers are equal.

[Marshwalker]

What's a thumper?... maybe I can come up with a new idea for one...?? ha ha!!

[BillFreeme]

USGE,

Where are you taking the temperature on this? Do you use an infrared thermometer?

[LWTCS]

No temps needed on this outfit. The operator's interpretation is predicated on collection speed rather than the moving target of temps on a potstill.

[Usge]

I don't use a therm. You can't control the temp on a potstill. The boiling point is determined by the abv of the solution/mixture you start with.
The only thing I do is use my hand..to feel when the vapor starts to come over. Then, you can hear the thumper come online. As LWTCS says, I use the flow-rate to set my heat. And I measure the abv of what comes out the other end.

The moonshine tv shows where they heat the pot till it's (whatever) degree they believe is boiling point of ethanol...so it comes off pure alkyhaul...is pure BS. It doesn't work like that. Nor will it produce "pure" ethanol in this configuration. Not even close.

[BillFreeme]

Usge,

Could you post a better pic of the connections at the thumper? And how big and how many holes for the diffuser?

Imitation is the finest form of flattery, isn't it?

[Usge]

Both connections are 2" ferrules/tri-clamp.

Here's a pick of the lid with downtube.

And a pick of the connector from thumper to keg

[BillFreeme]

Beautiful. Did you make it? The only ones I've seen have one outlet...