4th Triangle Flute Design & Build

[DetroitDIY]

Hey there Saskatchewan. Sorry for the slow response, I'm a frequent flyer here of late.

1) My PC is working great these days. I have the coiled copper spiral in each of the tubes. I suppose part of the knockdown troubles could have been from cooling water not being cool enough (been too long to remember now). I'm still running about a 40 gallon reservoir. Never change the water, just re-circ. On a long day I'll strip all out at 5.5 kW for 2 hrs, dump the backset and strip again beginning 20 minutes later. I'll do this 6x in a row. Running the water through the old condenser with a fan and the coils in the shot gun tubes, I never have any issues.

2) I thought max tubes would be better. I put 19 1/2" tubes in my 4" defleg as I recall. I hadn't seen other deflegs with so many 1/2" tubes, not sure what people are making lately. I wasn't thinking I had too large a cooling surface, but rather too large a cross sectional flow for the vapor. I'm not sure if more tubes reduces the head pressure and allows the vapors through faster (starts to look like an open pipe the more tubes I put in), or whether more tubes means less vapor flow through each given tube, thus slower velocity, longer dwell time next to the cooling walls, and thus more effective knock back capability. The latter seems more logical to me thinking on it known, but I can't say I've done any A:B:A comparisons. I pretty quickly choked off a few of them... again that was a long time ago. I've been happy with the effective 15 or so tubes that weren't choked. Never looked back and it's been working fine for my needs. I will say that I control my coolant flow with a needle valve and it is still super sensitive. So I don't think that I'm anywhere close to too little coolant flow. I have to choke the flow way back to let vapors through.

3) I don't recall exactly why I went sieve plates rather than caps. I like the idea of being able to run really slow with bubble caps and not having them drain, but I like the self draining of the sieve plates... I'm pretty low maintenance on my rig once between runs. I built the column to try to run faster. But I mostly prefer brown spirits, and I've since learned to shut off the dephleg, take the plates out, strip really quick (as per above, I can strip 70+ gallons of wash in a longer day, and it's like clockwork enough that I can walk away for 2 hrs and just come back for the switch over), then run 13 gallon runs of low wines nice and slow and I like the spirits I get from that. I'm recently read Ian Smiley's book, and am interested in learning how to run my column dirtier to get more flavor in my brown spirits that way. But I think you need a more repeatable ferment to do that well, and I'm all over the map with my recipes, and often recycle beverages that the brewers in my group didn't like, so I run too much variation and too infrequently to have a more refined and successful process. I still like to collect in jars, air them out, then smell and taste to make my cuts.

This column was my second still (it was my start over). It's great for making neutrals and gins when I want them. I think if I were to start over, I would try a double thumper and play with that. But for a still that can do everything for me (pot and neutrals), I'm happy with this column. I'm happy with the flexibility. I don't change it much, but I didn't know really what I would end up wanting when I was building it, and I suspect many who haven't built a first still or two don't really know either. What's good for me will not be good for the next. But if you incorporate flexibility, you can adapt. Along these lines, some of the biggest things I think I would do differently is add even a bit more flexibility for mods and service. Case in point, I let water sit in my defleg and PC this winter out in the shop. I went on travel, a cold snap came, and last week I found both busted. I was able to fix the PC easy enough, but since I integrated the 4" to 2" reducer above my dephleg into the dephleg, getting into the top of the dephleg to make a good repair has been a real SOB... still sorting through that issue. Wish I had put another 4" triclamp above the dephleg before the 4" to 2" reducer. Lots of work and cost (or more work if I make a reducer) to do it over now.

Cheers!
DetroitDIY

[DetroitDIY]

Just having a thought about my mention in the last paragraph above about having let my condensers sit full of water, it freezing, and them breaking. I have 3 high points in my coolant system: defleg, product condenser, and a water cooling system from an old AC unit above my reservoir. The last one drains nicely on it's own. The first two do not. I was thinking that if I just put a union at the high point of both condensers and stick a valve on the end of that, then when I'm done running my rig I can just open the valves and all the water will drain with the air inlet up high.

Then it occurred to me that sometimes the return tube from my cooling system is above the reservoir level, and sometimes it's not (when the water in the coolant is higher). If I always make sure that the outlet of the cooling system is above the reservoir and thus open to atmosphere, then when I turn off to pump the system should drain passively if the coolant feed lines from my reservoir to my condenser inlets (both of them) is not below the reservoir. Should be quite easy to set up if I'm thinking about it. When I do I'll take a photo to share. Seems like such a passive draining system would be quite helpful for colder climate distillers who don't keep their still area heated.

[Danespirit]

This or you could add antifreeze.
That also helps to prevent corrosion.
It won't come into contact with your product anyway and the thermal conductivity would be more or less like water.

[bunny]

This or you could add antifreeze.
That also helps to prevent corrosion.
It won't come into contact with your product anyway and the thermal conductivity would be more or less like water.

The condo I live in has two hose bibs that are not well protected from freezing.
Each year I close the valve and drain the hose bib lines.
Then i back fill the lines from one hose bib to the other with "heads" assuring there are no low spots filled with freezable water.
You could do similar with your condensers without the risk of any contamination from toxic chemicals.

[Yummyrum]

Car Radiator anti-freeze is Ethylene Glycol . Its very poisonous .Up there with Methanol.

Propylene Glycol is FDA approved anti-freeze and added to things like Ice cream . Unfortunately it is more expensive ….. but so are funerals

[RC Al]

Sometimes condensers leak internally into the product path

[Danespirit]

Sometimes condensers leak internally into the product path

Well, that says something about poor build quality.
My suggestion presupposes that the equipment used is made as it should be and safe.
From what I see Detriot has a pretty good grasp on that build quality.

[DetroitDIY]

Thanks Dane, I appreciate the vote of confidence. I had actually thought of using something that won't freeze years ago. I hadn't thought automotive anti-freeze as I'm also of a mind that I want the least poison near my beverage as possible. But just never went so far as to doing anything with that though.

Good to have a lead Yummy, but the truth is I'll stick with water, and maybe be more thoughtful about a couple of drains in my coolant loop. I won't go the ethanol route, as my coolant loop has rubber and other polymers and I don't want to introduce corrosive agents.

I have this weekend free... I may cut off the top of my dephleg and add a 4" tri-clamp ferrule to make it more serviceable. Should have done that when I first built the thing but... optimism bias.

[Setsumi]

Yip, stick to water for cooling. It is easy enough to manage freezing.... though myself do not deal with less than -8⁰C.

[Wildcats]

BUMP!!!!!
EPIC BUILD!! Absolutely love this build. The etching is beautiful. The homemade reducers are are actually BRILLIANT!! Love your copper work man. Thanks for sharing this.