recirculating water system

[MuleKicker]

I guess water useage might be a bigger problem in other places but I live in the country with a well and run the stuff strait through the condenser and into the grass. I check the temp coming out the end discharge and no steam coming out the top. If I can hold my hand under the discharge i turn the flow down. I got to thinking one day, how much water do I go through in a run? I put my discharge into a barrel and over a 5 hr. run with a 3200w element i use no more than 25 - 30 gallons.

[Dnderhead]

Iv done the same, I just save the water (or heat) to do the wash,dishes, take a bath.

[Nightforce]

As posted in another topic, I've tried several methods and have concluded that the waste option if by far the least hassle. Now that I have a valve that can be very finely adjusted I can control the output temp almost to the degree. Using a barrel of coolant water until it's to hot to work properly, then dumping that and refilling with new and running that "uses" about the same amount of water if you just turn your coolant flow way down so no vapor escapes and the outlet temp is to hot to put your hand under. My last run using the new valve adjusted to a low level used a bit more than MuleKicker's setup. I would have used about 50-60 gal on a 5 hour run. I will however, capture the hot coolant and dump it in the washer for a shop towel or other hot wash load. Factoring in that 1000 gallons cost me about a $1.50, it's just hard to jump in front of the environmentally friendly train.

For someone with a dedicated stillin area, a custom built chiller barrel using an old window unit would be a great option. A 5000 BTU unit, reconfigured for the cold side to a permanently mounted wort type chiller in a bucket of water (or a RV antifreeze with water running through a second coil for greater delta T) would seem to be a good closed system operation. Mount the compressor and radiator outside in a sound damping enclosure and run the line set through the wall to the chiller. I'm sure someone with HVAC background could even rig up a diverter so that heat during winter could be piped into the stillin area.

[MuleKicker]

too much thinkin fo' such a simple function. water goes back in the ground and comes out yer spigot again next year. comes out as clean as it went in. its not like yer pollutin that water.

[bfpierce]

for my small still a 12L bucket and an aquarium pump works fine, the main reason for my recirculating setup is that my sink is on the opposite side of the kitchen and running lines would be a sure fire way for clutz to stumble and flood the kitchen. so far I've found 11L of cold tap water (10C) will keep my distillate temp below 30C for a one gallon run of 8% and will even do a second higher ABV run with only a couple trays of ice cubes added. I can also tuck the bucket directly under the leibig which keeps the head height to a minimum.

if a guy wanted to conserve water and not lug it around to change, just pick up a galvanized garbage can and solder the seams, you can then put a homebuilt bulkhead in the bottom and a few inches down from the top, connect the lower to a garden hose and the upper to the floor drain, when the coolant gets hot, turn on the hose a bit and let the hot water on top go down the drain, easy, peazy and you can drain the whole works through the lower connection.

[Nightforce]

By next weekend I'll have put an end to recirculating and/or capture and reuse methods. I've got my cold water source to the stillin' area complete and I have the tee installing to my house plumbing. All I need now is to finish the 2" drain piping and stilling will be a breeze to setup and take down without lugging water all over the place. Water conservation is good, but much like Mulekicker does, discarding the water at high temps will limit the waste.

[Icarus]

I have built and tested a recirculating system for a reflux still that I run for neutral spirits as we rely on raion water tanks.

The design is based on two basic principles of physics, radiation and evaporation in a two stage process. It is mounted on a 60 litre drum. All the electrics including the pump are 12 volt.

Stage one takes the hot water output from the reflux system, usually in the range 43-48C and passes it through a small radiator cooled by three 150mm computer fans. The output from the radiator is then passed up to the inlet of a 150mm diameter PVC cooling tower about 1 metre high with the inlet sprays about 100 from the top. A dual bladed high speed computer fan is mounted on the top of the tower. The tower is packed loosly with teased out stainless steel pot scrubbers.

The pump is a small plastic marine type that will pump up to 11 litres per minute, so the outlet is connected to a manifold with two outlets, one acting as volumetric bypass control and the other with a needle valve water control to the still.

I have run for 4 hours on this system continuously, and up to a humidity of 85%. The highest temp ever reached after cooling was 29c which is more than acceptable in the tropics.

I have calcualated from the amount of water evaporated each run that it is radiating approximately 2300 watts.

[Rasalbargi]

Have you got some pics or plans you could post up please? I'll need to build something soon...

[Bama1981]

I do my distilling outside in the garage now and I use a 600 GPH Koi Pond water fall Pump to provide water for my condenser. Got a small Dollar General kiddie pool I fill with water and an occasional bag or two of ice or frozen gallon jugs of water work just fine. When finished I use the pump to pump the water back out into the yard. I've tried other methods , but just love the simplicity of this..Sure beats my first rig with a 5 gallon bucket and me manually circulating the water by adding and subtracting from the top.

[wtfdskin]

I run an aquarium pump. I place a frozen jug of water in the 5 gal bucket and run the discharge hose into the jug. It cools the water very quickly. When the ice melts I change jugs. Works pretty well.

On a stripping run I had to change the jug 3 times (I keep a bunch of them in a chest freezer) On a spirit run I ended with the same jug I started with. I guess I wasn't pushing the run too hard.

+1 for me.
I use an old coleman cooler. Winter runs I dont need ice. Summer time I use the milk jug method. I dont recirculate hot water, I let it run to drain. Cooling water goes in to the bottom of flake stand around 70 f.