Dephlegamator with no packing or plates?

[Steve Broady]

Would anything useful happen if I put a dephlegmator (in the form of a Dimroth condenser) between a pot still and the product condenser? Assume that the dephleg is capable of condensing up to 100% of the vapor, and controllable via a needle valve on the cooling water outlet. My thinking is that I could use it to hold the still in full reflux, either to encourage estrification or in case I needed to walk away for a bit for any reason. I could then turn it off completely and run the still normally, but bring it back in to help get more hearts, holding the tails back.

I have seen a few tantalizing hints that this might have been tried, or at least considered, and that it might not be completely stupid. I have most of the parts needed to do it, aside from the needle valve and cooling plumbing, but that's not hard to change. What I don't have is a lot of spare time to waste with pointless experiments, or a lot of spare wash to experiment on. So I figured I'd ask here before venturing off on a fool's errand.

[Yummyrum]

A Deflag is a partial condenser and it will do as you suggest . IE help with separation .
And can also be run in 100% reflux for esterification .

I would suggest use of full reflux not be used as a method of pausing the still while you walk away , but handy if you need to take a call

A valve in parallel with the needle valve is handy here as it allows you to set the normal run speed with the needle and quickly switch to full reflux and back with minimal rejigging of needle .

[shadylane]

Awhile back I gave it a try just to see what happens.
Here's my 2 cents worth. It might help with esterification.
Otherwise, reflux without packing is like driving down the highway with your brakes on.

[Steve Broady]

Shady, did you find that it made any significant difference in the hearts/tails cut? I was thinking it turning the cooling water off during most of the run, so that presumably it would just just like a normal pot still. At least, once the water in the coil heated up. Basically only using the RC at the extremes of the run.

[LWTCS]

It is basically as Shady describes. One foot on the break and one on the gas. Driving with the windows down and the AC on. Etc.
When running the dephlegmator you'll need to bump up power a bit more or otherwise collect slower (if that matters?).
You can boost proof a do-dad but you can also just turn down the heat a bit with no dephlegmator to achieve a similar result with respect to separation.

I would echo what yummy eluded to and say that a dephlegmator attached to what would otherwise be a pot still transforms the system into more of a reactor to more optimally promote esterfication.

[BrewinBrian44]

A defleg pause button doesn’t sound too bad. I like the idea of creating more esters.

[SDEngr1]

I run my dephlegamator without any plates and still end up with 170 proof minimum. What it does and why I use it is to allow me to accurately cut between the heads and tails and maximize my hearts. The flavor that comes through is as good as running it in pure pot still. I do run it with an alembic onion head and many times I will use a single plate.

[Demy]

Perhaps a "detuned" column would do both better.

[Johnnywhiskey]

A dephleg with no packing won't do much other than require more power to send the product to the condenser. The packing is where the magic (reflux) happens, not the dephleg. But there will always be some minimal reflux even without packing. Maybe it would be useful to run a dephleg without any packing if you just want to boil the pot for an extended period? You can probably get the same results and use less water by putting some packing in the column.

I've never run the depheg without packing, but sometime on a whiskey run I'll shut off the cooling water when I don't need any reflux and the dephleg is helpful to stabilize the head temperature as a big thermal mass in the system.

Best, JW

[still_stirrin]

When you use the deflag without packing or plates, where does the condensate from the RC go? Does it fall back into the boiler? If so, how do you expect to get separation of the volatile constituents from the water in the boiler? You boil some out, then condense it back into the boiler. It makes for a very long run I’d bet.

I suppose a little of the more volatile vapors may escape through the deflag to the product condenser. But, much more of the vapors are condensed and returned, particularly those vapors with a higher boiling point (easier to condense with heat removal).

So, you’re burning much more energy to get separation, separation that would occur during the reflux cycle(s) from packing where the heat is transferred from the hot vapors to the cooler condensate. If you have plates, then the vapor to liquid heat transfer would occur on the “loaded plates”.

So Larry’s analogy of stepping on the accelerator while stomping on the brakes is somewhat relevant here. You’re wasting energy in the boiler and the deflag for minimum product production, although you can get a %ABV off the spout that is slightly higher than a simple potstill would produce.

It’s counter-productive in my eyes, especially the equipment you have to work with. A double pass through the potstill would be more efficient and yet produce the %ABV you’re looking for.
ss

[Steve Broady]

Going with the driving analogy, this is what I’m thinking (this all just what-if at this point):

At the beginning, lock the brakes and spin the tires. Burnouts make lots of smells. From what I’ve read, that can be a good thing with some spirits.

Don’t use the brakes at all for most of the trip. Just cruise as normal. The brakes are just extra weight along for the ride.

At the end, ride the brakes a little. This is where my analogy breaks down a bit, but I hope that makes sense. And this seems to me an important part of the question. Would a dephlegmator, on its own, help separate hearts and tails? If so, then it seems like it might be a way to get more hearts out of a spirit run. Not aiming to increase the ABV, just to extract the most good quality product possible within the limitations of the equipment.

I sure hope that makes sense. I have a feeling that I’m missing something obvious and that it’s just not a good idea, for any of a number of reasons.

[Yummyrum]

Steve , I have never tried it . So take my opinion with a grain of salt .

But , I think tails hold back is where a Deflag will help .
Tails smearing is pretty much what buggers a good hearts cut so keeping as much out has got to worth it .

I do however , think that it will be like running a still with a PID and you will need to be tweaking water flow as the run progresses to keep output flowing at the right pace .

[Steve Broady]

So, assuming it did work to hold back tails, I should be able to turn water on when I just start to taste the tails and push them back down, right? Would that be a viable way to test the concept? Granted, I think you’re absolutely right about it needing a lot of fiddling with the valve to get it just right, and maybe it wouldn’t be worth doing, but I’d like to at least try to get my own understanding in line with reality.

[Yummyrum]

It would be wonderful to have two takeoffs and condensers , one above and one below the Deflag to compare . ….. iff’n one was keen

But yeah , I think I’d start the deflag coolant flow as soon as you were into the nice hearts, it’s only going to get more tailsy after that .

Iff’n you hadn’t got it , I hate tails

[Demy]

I think there should be at least some plate or some packing to make what you want to do work... that way you would have a "place" to set the "magic", I mean a small section packed with scrubbers would suffice. ..in this way you would have flavor and increase in abv and a better separation.... I don't see the reason for a RC without a minimum of packaging or anything else.

[SDEngr1]

A Dephlegamator alone or with a plate can control your vapor temperature which allows better cuts. By limiting the temperature between 79 and 82 you push out the hearts and limit the heads. I realize pure pot stills have much higher take off temperature rates but that only leads to smearing in my opinion.

[squigglefunk]

don't be scared of a little tail

in my opinion if you're doing things right that's where all the flavor is... dont try and hold them back

why use good grains/fruit/etc and then try to make the hearts as flavorless as possible...

I see so many posts where people are like "oh man I made so and so type mash/must/wash and after distilling and letting it sit there's no sign of the flavor"

yeah they got scared of a little tail and ran away before it got good

if your tails taste that bad I think there's something else wrong, I know I had some gross stuff when I first started too.

[BrewinBrian44]

I agree about tails not being so bad… early tails make whiskey what it is. Late tails are what you want to avoid. You need some of the acids from the tails to create complex esters in the aging process.

All that said, if you want to make a little cleaner product, using a defleg, just use a single plate or small packed section like what was mentioned above.

I do like the idea of using a defleg only at the beginning to allow extra time to create esters. After this, just shut the defleg down and collect in normal pot still mode.