Thumper?

[rad14701]

Rad, just so I understand: if the larger thumper would fill up with too much spirit, why wouldn't the smaller thumper fill up with too much spirit sooner?

Because the smaller thumper will heat up faster due to less liquid volume and stay hotter due to less passive cooling because it has less surface area...

[newengland]

So the smaller thumper would discharge its liquid sooner, thus collecting less prior to end of distillation? How much wash would you begin with in the thumper? I've read various amounts.

[Usge]

Use only enough to cover the bottom inlet. It fills itself. If you add more to it, it will take longer to heat up and could over fill.

[newengland]

Thanks. I go from 5 gal still to 1 gal thumper but limit my wash to 2.5 to 3 gals. That gives me a pretty good ratio.

[MeltWarEagle71]

So I'm new to this forum, however have been distilling for awhile now. Have a few questions, if I use distilled water in my mash, which I do, do i need a thumper, or will it be fine without?
second question: i am thinking of running two pots with columns on two burners into one copper water jacket condenser using a copper "T" piece welded onto the inlet of Copper water jacket. is this dangerous or do i need a valve of some sort to keep vapors from still 1 going into still 2? I'm thinking if both pots are "going" and sealed shut, it wouldn't hurt.
thanks for your replies -MWE71

[Dnderhead]

" if I use distilled water in my mash, which I do, do i need a thumper, or will it be fine without?"
what has this to do with a thumper?

"running two pots with columns on two burners into one copper water jacket condenser using a copper "T""
sounds like a whole lot of smearing could take place.

[Richard7]

Don't put a valve on a pot still....

[Prairiepiss]

Get a bigger boiler. Forget about two pots into one.

And distilled water isn't needed for a ferment. Mater of fact it is missing minerals useful for good ferments.

And step over to the welcome center and give us a proper intro. Tell us about your stillin background.

[MeltWarEagle71]

to dndrhead, thumpers filter the vapor, correct? if i use distilled water( not city water) my vapor is that much cleaner, no need for a filter, if im watching my heat and not letting my boil "puke", then i wont need one.

[MeltWarEagle71]

to prairiepiss, what water do you recommend?

[rad14701]

@MeltWarEagle71

There will always be pressure differences, no matter how subtle, which will cause problems running two boilers... One could run just a bit hotter and force its vapor into the cooler one... You're looking at too complicated of a solution to a simple problem... Use a bigger boiler or do multiple runs...

This isn't a race to see how much spirits you can end up with in the shortest amount of time, this is a hobby... If you can't do it right or invest the proper amount of time then perhaps this isn't the hobby for you... It's just that simple... Sometimes we have to point out the obvious...

[MeltWarEagle71]

richard7, its not a pot still, i have a column.

[gonagin58]

A thumper is just a secondary boiler powered by the primary boiler.

I know folks use glass thumpers, but I doubt it's smart. I mean think about it... a glass boiler? It's not even rolled borosilicate glass. Mason jars are cheap glass made in a mold.

Do whatever yall think best, this is just my two-cents worth.




I wish ya luck (especially those usin' glass boilers).

Mason jars are made to be put in a pressure cooker @ 10 lbs for hours at a time then pulled out and set on a counter to cool. They should work fine for a thumper/ slobber box.

[Prairiepiss]

A thumper is just a secondary boiler powered by the primary boiler.

I know folks use glass thumpers, but I doubt it's smart. I mean think about it... a glass boiler? It's not even rolled borosilicate glass. Mason jars are cheap glass made in a mold.

Do whatever yall think best, this is just my two-cents worth.




I wish ya luck (especially those usin' glass boilers).

Mason jars are made to be put in a pressure cooker @ 10 lbs for hours at a time then pulled out and set on a counter to cool. They should work fine for a thumper/ slobber box.

Wow have a look around before you post.
It's a safety issue no mater how you try to put it.

[Prairiepiss]

to prairiepiss, what water do you recommend?

Tap, spring, filtered, rain, or well.

[S-Cackalacky]

to dndrhead, thumpers filter the vapor, correct? if i use distilled water( not city water) my vapor is that much cleaner, no need for a filter, if im watching my heat and not letting my boil "puke", then i wont need one.

I'm not Dndrhead, but from this post and most others you've made on this thread, it would appear that you have a misconception of what a thumper IS and DOES. It is, by no stretch of the imagination, a filter. You could think about it as a secondary boiler. Once it heats up from the hot vapor coming into it from the main boiler, it begins producing its own vapor which exits out the outtake of the thumper to whatever condenser you're using. Think of the addition of a thumper as combining a stripping run and a spirit run in a single operation. The main boiler performs the stripping run and the thumper (secondary distillation) performs the spirit run.

The use of distilled water means absolutely nothing in the distillation process. The vapors coming from your boiler have a certain amount of water vapor mixed in with all the other vapor molecules. Once the water is recondensed in your condenser, it IS then distilled water - no matter what kind of water you used during your ferment. Matter of fact you could use your still to produce distilled water from what might be some real crap water.

You later posted that you are not using a pot still, but a column (reflux?) still. If this is the case, you don't really need a thumper. A thumper is actually the equivalent of a single reflux action of sorts. If you have refluxed the vapor many times in a reflux column, why would you go to the trouble of doing it one more time in a thumper. That is, unless you are running your column in a pot still mode.

I have simply reiterated what has already been discussed here in this thread. I would suggest you go back and reread the thread if you haven't already. All you need to know about what a thumper is and does is already in the thread.

Just sayin',
S-C

[MeltWarEagle71]

@ S-C,
Thank you for your reply. it was the most helpful out of the others. looking forward to hearing from you again!
MWE71 \m/

[808shiner]

Just my input I'm a newbie as well. I ju st finished building me a 13.5 gal keg still with another 13.5 keg thumper. Its got a 2.5inc column and lyne arm connection the thumper tk the boiler and 3/4" arm connecting the thumper to the condensor. It works good havnt hot my hydrometer yet. (Since it broke before I got to use it) butmy guesstimate from the bubles say its about 80 - 120 proof I om the first run.

[davedebeaulieu]

hmmm so if i put my rum wash into my boiler (pot still) and some wash into the thumper, i would be able to do my spirit cuts at the end of a first run? crikey all these threads made things a bit confusing....

[mealstrom]

Reading through this thread made me think about low spots in a worm. Basically a thumper is one really big low spot (in some cases with 1 - 2 liters of fluid providing resistance).

Not that I'm planning on doing this, but for curiosity's sake could you just turn your worm horizontal instead of vertical? Or just tilt it to the side a little to form small low spots as fluid collection points? The bottoms of the coils would fill up with liquid, but then would strip the vapor that followed it. In the end you'd end up with a cup or two of spirits in the coils that filters all the rest.

Maybe I'll give this a shot just to see what happens. I'm not worried about explosions because the amount of fluid in the coils couldn't come close to providing as much back pressure or resistance as a thumper. Plus when it comes down to it gas is always going to flow through a lightly viscous fluid long before it builds up enough pressure to blow metal apart.

[LWTCS]

I reckon your business end is going to spit, sputter and smear though...There are just better ways to do it.

[NateTG]

Reading through this thread made me think about low spots in a worm. Basically a thumper is one really big low spot (in some cases with 1 - 2 liters of fluid providing resistance).

There's something like condensation and reveaporation happening in the thumper in order to make it work. That requires a relatively high temperature, but the worm is actively cooled. You could try putting a hot section of pipe out of the pot if you like, I think they're called liebig arms or reflux columns.

... Plus when it comes down to it gas is always going to flow through a lightly viscous fluid long before it builds up enough pressure to blow metal apart.

It's not about the viscous resistance of the water, but about the pressure required to displace the water so that the air can get through -- in a U-trap, the gas has to push the fluid all the way to the bottom of the U before it can start trickling up the other side. The conventional thumper geometry of a wide jar with a narrow pipe is relatively well-suited to keeping the back pressure steady.

It's also easy to underestimate how big the force that a seemingly small pressure over a large area can exert, and remember that you don't have to 'blow metal apart' for a boiler failure.

[lickermaker]

In a thumper the vapor bubbles into the liguid and up and out! if as you say you turned a worm on side the vapor would have to push the liquid up and over the next coil each round to get past unless you had a very large coil that wouldn't leave any mingling just blow by. sounds like you'd cause to much back pressure IMO

[mealstrom]

I agree with what y'all are saying. I also think it'd be pointless only because you can't control what/how much you're putting into the coil. I think it might fill up too much if it was flat on its side. Tilting it might make it work, but I agree you'd probably be smearing like crazy.

[Kravenhed]

Well i read all this and the discussions are lively, here's my take....I was taught to make a quality product slowly and the same way each time, i am all for experimentation...... but when you get to a product your proud of, well as long as it's safe, then you begin the long life work of carefully refining this taste to perfection. Me...I'll always have a wood fired copper pot still and a genuine white oak barrel for both my thumper and flake stand.....PePaw would expect no less from me. Thanks for the the discussion and I appreciate everyone's views.

[sltm1]

I've read this thread and stuff at the parent site, and either I missed it or CRS has claimed another portion of my memory. What I am considering is making a small thumper suspended off the column (not a mason jar like the pic). The question is, would an overflow pipe installed 1/2 way up the thumper and going back to the boiler effect the action of the thumper. I'm thinking I'd fill it 1/4 full with Everclear as the bath, or starting it dry.

[Loganmeister]

Just wondering about copper tube size into the thumper to produce the most efficient design. I figured I would just post this here for feedback instead of spending 3 hours hoping to find the answer I am looking for. Would a 1/2 inch copper tube into a 8 qt thumper from a 5 gallo4 tn pot be enough surface area to heat up to temp three inches of mash wash? And about how far from the bottom should it be. I recall reading something about 1/3. Is this 1/3 the diameter of the copper tube into the thumper? I built my arm going to the thumper out of scrap tube, and I am about 2 inches from the bottom and just think this is too far.

Any thoughts?

:cheers:

[corene1]

Just wondering about copper tube size into the thumper to produce the most efficient design. I figured I would just post this here for feedback instead of spending 3 hours hoping to find the answer I am looking for. Would a 1/2 inch copper tube into a 8 qt thumper from a 5 gallo4 tn pot be enough surface area to heat up to temp three inches of mash wash? And about how far from the bottom should it be. I recall reading something about 1/3. Is this 1/3 the diameter of the copper tube into the thumper? I built my arm going to the thumper out of scrap tube, and I am about 2 inches from the bottom and just think this is too far.

Any thoughts?

:cheers:

Mine is 3/4 inch tube in and 3/4 inch tube out and goes all the way to the bottom. I run the 3/4 tube through a 3/4 by 1 1/4 reducer and drilled it with a bunch of tiny holes so the vapor bubbles well in the liquid at the bottom of the thumper. My hearts on the first run typically run about 130 to 145 proof and run pretty steady at 165 to 170 proof on a second spirit run using 35% abv wash mixture.

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[Halfbaked]

LWTCS I saw your thump pic a long time ago and kinda forgot about it. I liked it then and still like it now. Id think you could get an extra gal or 2 in the boiler. It has to control puke and control overfill of the thump. Id like to do the same thing on a 15 gal keg with a 7.5 setting on top and do a triclamp version. To make it work the thump top tri clamp ferel might have to be bigger than 2 inch.

[Loganmeister]

Mine is 3/4 inch tube in and 3/4 inch tube out and goes all the way to the bottom. I run the 3/4 tube through a 3/4 by 1 1/4 reducer and drilled it with a bunch of tiny holes so the vapor bubbles well in the liquid at the bottom of the thumper. My hearts on the first run typically run about 130 to 145 proof and run pretty steady at 165 to 170 proof on a second spirit run using 35% abv wash mixture.

008.JPG

All the way to the bottom with holes.......more bubbles of vapor..........cool thanks.