A stripper by design

[yakattack]

i have spent the better part of the last three days in a design/theory phase trying to improve myself and my process. I am starting a design/ build for a stripping head for my keg boiler to make it a faster process. Here is a little about my current setup.

Keg. 2 inch column approx 4 ft in length.

T fitting on top. capped at top (extends another 3 or four inches past the t fitting.
Side of t fitting stays 2 inch until past the 90* bend where it reduces to half inch over about 8 inches (could step that up and do a more gradual decrease )

Lieburg condenser. 44 inches of cooling jacket. 3/4 over half inch (all copper).

2 unions. one 2 inch on the column to change the angle of the condenser and another on the condenser itself to allow for a quick removal and easy storage.

55 gallon reservoir for my cooling water.


Typical strip run.

Fill boiler to max 12 gallons.
flame on. at full its close to 2 hours to get to running temp as it is consistently negative 10 to neg 20 here right now. yes this is a slow heat up time for most but i am running propane and propane doesn't like the cold so its less efficient. I will be switching to electric in the near future so, this is just a temporary obstetrical.

run as fast as the boiler and column/condenser will allow. For a full charge this can be upwards of 2 to 3 hours. way longer then others have reported here. leaving me to believe that my rig is actually counter productive for stripping runs. dont get me wrong, it works great for the spirit run, and yes I intentionally made the column large for two reasons.

One it gave me the take off hight that I wanted with my condenser, and two it allowed for more intensive modifications later (boka potentially).

The boiler and column are both insulated with fire proof insulation and even the burner area is well insulated to contain the heat, (think stove box) again with fireproof insulation.

With it being well insulated it should be running a lot faster in my opinion (unless the half inch is contricting it way to much).

With that being said, I have read odins thread on building a world class stripper and had come up with a design before actually reading it. The basic design that I have in mind was actually touched upon there but i have two models that I would like you guys to evaluate and critique before i hack into valuable copper.

Th design works on a few principals that I have come to understand from reading a lot of stuff from OD, Rad MR and Odin to name a few. ( haven't slept much the last week as I have been reading non stop)

1. Diameter = speed. this is true mathematically and is something many (myself included) overlook.
2. Each time the vapour path changes direction you are going change the speed of the vapour. This is playing a huge part on my condenser for stripping. Its to slow for a fast and dirty run. plus by having it change direction twice, and travel on a 45* down angle for the condenser this is all causing major speed restrictions.
3. Height = purity. Because we are stripping a mash or wash to low wines ( or low wines to higher abv low wines for long term storage) we do not need height here. In fact this is counter productive as we need to heat the column up before we start running.

So I propose this new stripping head (new to me anyway).

stripping condesnor one.png

The diagram will detail how I expect it to work. Sorry in advance for the crude work. This is not my forte.

as you can see it is a simple design but there are a few things that bare mention and explanation.

1. the inside chamber opens up to allow vapour expansion which should effect a faster cooling coefficient. this chamber is at the minimum 4 inch copper pipe. this will have 2 end caps to seal it except for where the column extends into it and above it by about half an inch to keep it from flooding back down the column. This whole area will be about 6 to 8 inches high, giving it a large area to condense back down and hopefully allow it to keep from just refluxing.

2. The outer jacket pipe will be the next size up. between 4.5 inches and 6 inches ( whichever I can get my hands on )

3. Inlet and outlet are both either 3/8 or half inch id (this will follow my pump)

4. the take off size it not very important as it is all gravity fed. this will have an inverted end cap between the layers to act as a drain with the take off soldered in. I hope this makes sense.

5. There will be an air void soldered in around the vapour pipe in the cooling jacket. this will keep it from refluxing before it hits the chamber.

by keeping the path one direction and short we should be able to see some good stripping run times. you will not want to drink anything out of this but that's not what it is intended for anyway.


Looking forward to everyone chiming in. If this has already been done before id love to hear about how well or how horrible it worked. All thoughts on improvements are welcome as this is how we all learn and benefit.

Yak