air cooled project

[mason jar]

I'm leaning towards an air cooled condenser after some thought. I want to be able to do this without a supply of water because I want to do this on the second floor of an unplumbed barn.
I found this at Home Depot. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-Fi ... /202312893" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Nice price, nice length. For Mason Jar and Shadylane... Do you think 3 ft will be enough? There is also a 4 ft for 40.00.

Sorry nomoon, I've been off-line for a while and I didn't see your post. 3 feet might be a little short,
depending on how much power you are putting into your boiler. My condenser is 5ft long and it can
knock down everything my burners can throw at it. I measured about 1.6kW of steam (not heat input,
but rather actual steam) and less than half of the condenser was warm. See page 3 of my thread
here: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 6&start=60 if you want a little more info. Based on that I could
have gotten by with 4ft I think. I suspect you could as well, unless you have a REALLY powerful burner.

Other than the fins, I need a fan and the connecting pluming. That's about it, right? It sounds too simple.
Thanks

Yes, it really is that simple. I like the way shadylane built his condenser using a box fan and zig-zag
finned tubes because it's a bit more space efficient than my design, but I think mine is easier to build
since you don't need to solder up all the bends in the pipe. If you have got the space, and don't mind
using several of those little computer fans, I would suggest just using one 4 or 5 ft section of the finned
pipe with 6 or 7 fans mounted on it. Simple and very effective

[mason jar]

Those finned tubes will condense 500-600 watts per foot with a fan blowing on them.
Without a fan maybe 125-150w per foot

My question is whether or not they would work with a turkey fryer burner...not sure of btu's made by grillsmith model tf2005102-gs-00

I'm pretty sure it would take a pretty large burner to overwhelm my 5ft condenser. If you are concerned
about capacity then you can always buy a longer piece and cut it down if it's too long or go with a shorter
one and add another section of it's not quite long enough for your burner. These things are very easy to
work with so give it a try and see what happens.

[mason jar]

...It left me thinking, though -- the cooler temperature further down the condenser
pipe must create some sort of vacuum, right? Like, boiling forces vapor up, and cooling pulls it down, so for
the purpose of efficiency, would we be better off cooling further down the condenser to create a vacuum?

I think you want to have the top (input side) of the condenser very hot and a nice temperature gradient
as you move along the pipe to the cold end. Mine has a fairly abrupt shift from hot to cool at about
1.5 - 2 feet down the pipe. That is probably not ideal. I think if I removed one or two fans or slowed
down the fan speed a little I would get a better temperature gradient.

Rad is right, read up on shock cooling. It sounds dumb, but it is possible for an air-cooled condenser to
experience shock cooling, if you are removing heat fast enough. Put your ear up to the output end of
the condenser while it is running with your boiler running as hard as it can. If you hear a little "huffing"
sound or feel puffs of air coming out then you are shock cooling, which is not good. If that happens
just slow your fan(s) down a little till it goes away. If that's not happening then your good. You don't need
too cool one end of the condenser more than the other.

[raketemensch]

You know -- I ran the sac run of box wine in the backyard, and the next day I noticed that a whole bunch of grass was dead near my drip, although I didn't spill any, and that's had me baffled.

I wonder if maybe it's huffing vapor out of the pipe, and that's what killed the grass... I'll mess with lowering the fan this weekend, and see how low it can go and still cool effectively.

Ironic, if this is all true, that what I thought might not work is actually *too* effective :]

[mason jar]

You know -- I ran the sac run of box wine in the backyard, and the next day I noticed that a whole bunch of grass was dead near my drip, although I didn't spill any, and that's had me baffled.
I wonder if maybe it's huffing vapor out of the pipe, and that's what killed the grass... I'll mess with lowering the fan this weekend, and see how low it can go and still cool effectively.

Weird. I would think it would have to huff pretty bad before it would spray the distillate out like that.
I say check it next time you make a run, but that's not likely.

Are you sure the fan wasn't blowing the drips around a little? That could easily happen if your using a
big box fan. What type of fan(s) are you using?