Cooling water

[Bushman]

Bloody hell Redwood HB . How did you get away with screwing that sexy cooler to the Kitchen wall
I see my nuts kicked hard Iff'n I even thought about it

The "kitchen" is in the basement. It's my lab/man cave.

I showed that picture to my wife and she said he has to be single!

[Bushman]

If any others have pictures or techniques to share, I find this to be a very useful thread!

[BamaBill]

Hijack much! BamaBill's compact efficient design cools the water directly by making it fall down a column of chilled air and through a chilled permeable layer.

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These guys have some nice setups.
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Kimbodious, I had originally looked into some of these guys ideas. I had considered the radiator with a matching 12v electric fan and shroud straight out of a junkyard. I also priced the transmission coolers and looked at all sorts of fans.
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It was my heating and air conditioning experience that led me to the cooling tower like I made. You can surely remove more heat directly than indirectly.
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Mine isn't as sexy as some of those rigs, but it was a fast, easy build.

[acfixer69]

Bloody hell Redwood HB . How did you get away with screwing that sexy cooler to the Kitchen wall
I see my nuts kicked hard Iff'n I even thought about it

The "kitchen" is in the basement. It's my lab/man cave.

I showed that picture to my wife and she said he has to be single!

What she was really saying Bush was if you do that you will be

AC

[kimbodious]

It was my heating and air conditioning experience that led me to the cooling tower like I made. You can surely remove more heat directly than indirectly.

I worked in a sugar-mill, they had cooling towers on a massive scale! It is great to see how you have been able to draw from that design to make a scaled down really efficient device for cooling condenser water. I am collecting the components to make my own by copying your great design

[cede]

Few years back, I once tried to put a transmission cooler outside garage door in winter but water was coming back too cold !
It was around -15˚C outside.
Water should not freeze while being circulated, but it was really pushing to the limits

[kimbodious]

Few years back, I once tried to put a transmission cooler outside garage door in winter but water was coming back too cold !
Water should not freeze while being circulated, but it was really pushing to the limits

Were you getting huffing from the output?

[cede]

From the output of the cooler, just water close to 1˚C.
For the little story: down the road here, there's a guy who put a 1" hose from a spring coming to the surface. He really plugged the hose into the ground!
He runs that hose to the roadside for people to fill jugs. It's about a 100ft hose.
Water has always been flowing and I never saw it frozen down to -34˚C.
I've always been told here that when water flows it can't freeze.

[jonnys_spirit]

Hey Redwood, just Wondering what temp that water gets to on a run and over what period of time.

Cheers!
-j

[kimbodious]

Nearly completed building one of these BamaBill design coolers - BBC? It is a really quick and simple build. Really looking forward to running with this system! Huge thanks to BamaBill for his patience generosity with advice!

[FlintHills]

Nearly completed building one of these BamaBill design coolers - BBC? It is a really quick and simple build. Really looking forward to running with this system! Huge thanks to BamaBill for his patience generosity with advice!

I just finished my build last week, upscale to a 40 gallon version. Have to say it works pretty well once the filter material gets moist and have the fan running

[Davel]

Great thread BamaBill.

I'm going to figure out something a long these lines for my setup & that'll save me the back and forth from the house to exchange jugs of ice.

Here in Canada air temperatures would be sufficiently low for about 11 month of the year

[BamaBill]

Great thread BamaBill.

I'm going to figure out something a long these lines for my setup & that'll save me the back and forth from the house to exchange jugs of ice.

Here in Canada air temperatures would be sufficiently low for about 11 month of the year

Thanks Davel.
That's what started this all for me, to not have to babysit that condenser water temperature. And, the useless waste of water.

[MoonBreath]

Can anyone tell me their constant water temperature ifn there is one..Ifn end of run temp much warmer than starting temp, it's not a fully efficient design or matched system.
Ifn the reservoir gradually heats up and doesn't maintain a steady constant temp, then no two runs will be the same.
Shots and heads get the preferred cold benefit, while hearts and tails get warmer and warmer water unless the work and water you're trying to avoid is used..Again no mention of stable, near exact temp through entire run..I would bet it'll never maintain 50-55° without bigger and mo money.
50° is preferred optimum temp for reflux condenser.
60° preferred spirit collection and proofing temp.
Gradually increased reservoir temp equals gradually less reflux, effecting proof and volume collected.
I use 3 gal water in seperate 5gal reservoir w/pump fed by return water through 25' ss pre-chiller packed with ice.
Reservoir stays 50°ish throughout the run with minimum work..For larger scale, 50' pre-chiller and larger reservoir would work fine imo..No fans, radiators, excess electric, and cost..
In the cooling condenser section.

[MoonBreath]

Just run off 6+ gallon in right at 4hrs totally finished.
Used 2- 2ltr frozen pop bottles ..Removed ice, placing both ice chunks centered in pre-chiller, then pack good with ice.
Ended up using 5 and1/2 - 1gal bags of saved ice cubes.
Floating thermometer and temp gun said 3-4gal reservoir was 49° to 54° when topping off ice..Once the ice packs tight, easy peasy..I made initial mistake in ordering 3/8" pre-chiller.
Upgrading to 1/2" would be even more better imo.
I've never had anything ever close to 70°, let alone 100°+ on the return...Condenser exits and returns should be steady and luke to warm at most..Brewhaus pump been pumpin fer yrs.

[kimbodious]

MoonBreath, sounds like you're happy with your set up for cooling condenser water. BamaBill is using a different approach and some of us are using variations of the same. Totally efficient? I wouldn't think so and doesn't have to be as long as it keeps condensing the vapour the whole run.

[MoonBreath]

If any others have pictures or techniques to share, I find this to be a very useful thread!

kimbo, the subject line reads Cooling water.
And ya know claimed 113° reservoir temp isn't to far from Actual takeoff temps ..Ole boys go broke letn worm get 113°.
Science can be a btch sometimes.

[kimbodious]

You got me there 113F that's like 45C? If I'm doing a stripping run down to 20% ABV the vapour temp is up around 208F. If BamaBill's reservoir temp isn't getting above 113F surely that's cool enough to knock down all the vapour on even a stripping run?

[MoonBreath]

All your runs strips?...No.
What happens when you doin feints thru plates an it starts drippn at 140°?..Time hearts hit you done got hot, that is till you pack those 3-4 buckets back n forth..Workhorse.
Hot likker for you, not me.
I wouldn't spend to big gettn it right, cost vs viability.

[kimbodious]

8/10 of my runs are with a pot. The other runs are with a CCVM. If the condesnser water only gets up to 45C then all the vapour will be condensed and I will be a happy distiller.

[MoonBreath]

Not enough there for me to advise 100s of folks to spend on it just yet..Sure you can build one to please the masses and all scenarios, but at what cost.
Better keep a cold towel in a bucket of ice water just in case.
May have to go old school for the Unpredictable.
#ragjocky
Snazzy tho.

[piddler]

thanks bama bill for posting your work on this setup. i’m still trying to figure it all out but know i don’t wanna waste all the water i did on my first 2 runs. i’m looking at building either a swamp cooler setup similiar to BB’s or an aircooled setup with a box fan like “shady lane” was good enough to document for everyone in another thread. i’m still a bit puzzled how you get the water back to the condenser if the pond pump is being used to circulate water over the cooling medium/filter material? the pic doesn’t appear as if gravity is being used?

it sure would be helpful if moonbreath and kimbodious could step up to the plate and post a pic of their setups rather than just teasing us novices with their claims,,, “i’m just sayin”?

[pfshine]

I ran a swamp cooler type setup for a little bit. I used an old water softener tank. A large PVC structure with four sides sticking up about 3' out of it with swamp cooler material on it. I used a sump pump with a wye to alleviate any increased pressure or deadhead problems to run the condensers and cooling supply. I used a decent sized heavy duty fan as suction for the swamp cooler. I piped the exhaust out of the area to keep the heat and especially the humidity away for maximum performance and a nicer work environment. The system worked absolutely fantastic, the water was always nice and cool. I couldn't ask for more. Then one particularly bad morning the sump pump died stopping all flow. I was running a boka that day, I heard a strange noise from the column and started to inspect. All of a sudden vapor and high proof distilate started shooting out or the vent in top of the boka. At this time I was still using propane, scared the piss outa me. At that point I decided to go to city water and go electric. I'm not trying to scare you just a reminder things happen. Put a flow meter on it with a buzzer or auto kill switch, anything, just to let you know you no longer have cooling.

[MoonBreath]

Mines posted here a few pages back..Under MoonBreath's Cooling Apparatus.
Sorry had trouble postn link.

No tease here, just time in.

[kimbodious]

thanks bama bill for posting your work on this setup. i’m still trying to figure it all out ...
it sure would be helpful if moonbreath and kimbodious could step up to the plate and post a pic of their setups rather than just teasing us novices with their claims,,, “i’m just sayin”?

Here is mine still under construction. The bottom tank has the sump pump in there. You'll have to imagine the pump output hose coming out from the black tank. The top part has an 30W exhaust fan which is drawing air in from the holes in the black tank and out through the top. You can see a dark band in the white drum; that is a ring of perforated garden hose for returning the hot water from the condenser. What you can't see is a dome of AC filter fabric between the white and black drums.

Warm water sprays and falls through a column of rising air drawn up by the exhaust fan . The air is chilled by being drawn through the moistened AC filter fabric. The water is cooled by falling through the chilled air and moistened AC filter fabric. There is a minor loss of water to evaporation and a heat input from having a sump pump in the smallish reservoir. I intended to address both by using a 44 gallon plastuc drum for the reservoir.

This is the AC filter fabric formed over a dome of wire mesh

[kimbodious]

There's been a few variations and still one to go (3/4" hoses) but this looks to be the final set up. Did a stripping run today, 2200W element full power, 46 litres of wash, collected 10 litres and the reservoir temperature only got up to 39.5C Starting water temp was 27.7C and starting air temps was 28C on a fairly humid day.

[fafrd]

There's been a few variations and still one to go (3/4" hoses) but this looks to be the final set up. Did a stripping run today, 2200W element full power, 46 litres of wash, collected 10 litres and the reservoir temperature only got up to 39.5C Starting water temp was 27.7C and starting air temps was 28C on a fairly humid day.

image.jpeg

Kimbodious,

that is an interesting design and I may try to copy it. You had 46 liters of wash and collected 10 liters of low wine, but can you say how much water was in the resevoir? (the 44-gallon drum you alluded to earlier? completely filled or partially-filled?)

Also, can you say about how long the run took with 2200W to strip 46 liters.

And finally, have you installed any kind of alarm / fail-safe to detect if coolant flow stops/fails and to automatically cut off power to the element if/when it does?

p.s. please consider adding this pic to the list of pic-links at the bottom of your sign-off

[kimbodious]

I filled the blue drum up to the holes, say 40 gallons.

Four and a half hours from when I first turned the power on.

No alarm or fail-safe needed because I do not leave any still unattended.

[fafrd]

I filled the blue drum up to the holes, say 40 gallons.

Four and a half hours from when I first turned the power on.

No alarm or fail-safe needed because I do not leave any still unattended.

Thanks. A couple nore questions:

Do you know how many CFM your 30W fan is rated for?

Any idea how much tap-water you would use during a 4-1/2" hour stripping run before you built this rig?

[OtisT]

I filled the blue drum up to the holes, say 40 gallons.

Four and a half hours from when I first turned the power on.

No alarm or fail-safe needed because I do not leave any still unattended.

Thanks. A couple nore questions:

Do you know how many CFM your 30W fan is rated for?

Any idea how much tap-water you would use during a 4-1/2" hour stripping run before you built this rig?

Hi fafrd. I have some anecdotal ( what I experience) stats for you.

To make this relevant for you first know that Power In * Still Efficiency = Power Out. Power out is how much cooling you need. Power in is your boiler heat output. STILL Efficiency is the % of power in the vapor remaining after some power escapes through still heat loss to the air.

Another factor that will impact the cooling flow needed is the efficiency of you PC. I find my dimroth is much more efficient than my liebigs. i.e. I need a lot higher flow in my Liebig, as compared to my dimroth, to knock down the same amount of vapor.

All that said, here are my actual figures on tap water flow requirements for stripping. Hopefully you can extrapolate the info you need from these figures.

Stripping at 3500W input, my Liebig requires roughly 4.5 lpm. The output water is warm, at best.
Stripping at 3500W input, my dimroth requires roughly 2.5 lpm. Output water is hot ( more efficient)
3500 watts is the max input for my Liebig before I worry about vapor loss. (3/4” VP with a 24” cooling jacket.)
Stripping at 5500W input, my dimroth requires roughly 3.5 lpm. Water Output is hot, and so is my product.

Otis