Thumper?

[S-Cackalacky]

You know Jed, you got me thinkin' about how I need to slack off on new ferments and runs long enough to correct my main deficiency. I've been running on 120 ever since I started this hobby. I have everything I need to upgrade to 240 except one of those cheap Chinese controllers. I want to keep my 120V controller for other things. The 20 gallon BOP I've been saving for will just have to wait.

[Truckinbutch]

Jed , I keep thinking that if you keep crowding your SOH we may be coming to your place in October for a wake instead of a party

[jedneck]

Jed , I keep thinking that if you keep crowding your SOH we may be coming to your place in October for a wake instead of a party

At least I'll be there in spirit.

[jedneck]

Got the sac runs done. If time allows will get some spirit runs done finite. Gotta get my 3 gallon carboys empty so I can fill them for ageing.

[BoomTown]

Got the sac runs done. If time allows will get some spirit runs done finite. Gotta get my 3 gallon carboys empty so I can fill them for ageing.

Jeb, I know the feeling. I've got 3 @ 3gal Gibbs (used once), a new 5gal Gibbs, and 2 @ little 3gal Mexican barrels (used and reused) sitting in the cabinet begging me to pay more attention to them. AND, we are expecting 10 @ 10gal, new #4 chars from Gibbs any day now.

All this makes me feel pretty guilty as I sit here sipping a double of Elijah Craig 12 yr. Will this bureaucratic shuck and jive never end?

Boom

[Copper Thumper]

Copper thumper? YES!

[Sarah916]

The inlet pipe into the thumper that I'm building is going to be 1". I've read that you want a lot of small bubbles, so should I solder a cap on the bottom that pipe then just drill a bunch of small holes near the end?

[Brutal]

The inlet pipe into the thumper that I'm building is going to be 1". I've read that you want a lot of small bubbles, so should I solder a cap on the bottom that pipe then just drill a bunch of small holes near the end?

Cut small V notches in the end of the down pipe, and push it up against the bottom of the boiler.

[Sarah916]

That makes sense thank you!!

[Coyote]

Never do ANYTHING to restrict the vapor path,

V notch cut and raise it the diameter of the pipe above
the bottom of the doubler, you will have liquid in there anyhow so no reason to
push it against the bottom

Safety we can live with it

Oh yea and Welcome to the dark side

Coyote

[Truckinbutch]

Never do ANYTHING to restrict the vapor path,

V notch cut and raise it the diameter of the pipe above
the bottom of the doubler, you will have liquid in there anyhow so no reason to
push it against the bottom

Safety we can live with it

Oh yea and Welcome to the dark side

Coyote

What he said works well for me , too .

[BoomTown]

The inlet pipe into the thumper that I'm building is going to be 1". I've read that you want a lot of small bubbles, so should I solder a cap on the bottom that pipe then just drill a bunch of small holes near the end?

What are we saying here, "Tiny bubbles?" Huh? Is that so? Opinions, please.


Boom

[LWTCS]

The notches create a baffle that forces incoming vapor to evenly distribute though out the liquid bed. This prevents a possible "blow by" when liquid levels in the thumper are relatively low.

If you run with a deep liquid bed it's a non issue imo. As long as you are getting phase change and no " blow by" your fine.

[LWTCS]

Now if you can't see inside and haven't learned to listen to your systems behavior yet,,,,,,best to use best practice I supose.

[BoomTown]

The notches create a baffle that forces incoming vapor to evenly distribute though out the liquid bed. This prevents a possible "blow by" when liquid levels in the thumper are relatively low.

If you run with a deep liquid bed it's a non issue imo. As long as you are getting phase change and no " blow by" your fine.

I like your logic. We'll notch the bottom of our thumper input tube. We like to start with about ¼ load of the last thumper's pot ale, and run the main charge through to capture congeners and esters. The Thumper gradually fills up, sometimes to about ¾ charge, so the baffle idea might be entirely accurate. Best Practice, thank you LWTCS!

[LWTCS]

Boom,
Harry posted a video over on AD somewhere that illustrated the blow by thing to the letter. Though the behavior was demonstrated on a small plate it is still very much applicable.

The vapor would enter the tray in sort of bursts. The pressure was strong enough to literally push ALL of the liquid away from the bubble cap to the point where the vapor made no contact with liquid at all.

The cause was due to the fact that Harry didn't make his weir/downcomer stand pipe tall enough to maintain a deep enough liquid bed.

Again a slightly different situation but still is a perfect example of how blow by can occur.

Not bashing Harry at all by the way. His build was a one off prototype and illustrated perfectly why sight glasses are not just for looks.

[BoomTown]

Boom,
Harry posted a video over on AD somewhere that illustrated the blow by thing to the letter. Though the behavior was demonstrated on a small plate it is still very much applicable.

The vapor would enter the tray in sort of bursts. The pressure was strong enough to literally push ALL of the liquid away from the bubble cap to the point where the vapor made no contact with liquid at all.

The cause was due to the fact that Harry didn't make his weir/downcomer stand pipe tall enough to maintain a deep enough liquid bed.

Again a slightly different situation but still is a perfect example of how blow by can occur.

Not bashing Harry at all by the way. His build was a one off prototype and illustrated perfectly why sight glasses are not just for looks.

Thanks again.

Boom

[Slappy26]

So I have a question about all the thumper size statements. I just made a second still it is large, my thumper is less than 10% the size of my pot and I charge it with a quart off 100 proof every run... It works great! Never close to full at the end of a run... My first still has a thumper that is 5% the size of the pot! it too works great with never a fail or close to filling... I know all the safety reasons behind having plenty of space but why do members jump on others when they build or buy something different than the norm? I run my stuff A LOT and never have issues. Why not explain the safety of having enough thumper space to a nube, without the adamant NO IT WONT WORK! Because in mine and many others cases they do work well.

[Truckinbutch]

So I have a question about all the thumper size statements. I just made a second still it is large, my thumper is less than 10% the size of my pot and I charge it with a quart off 100 proof every run... It works great! Never close to full at the end of a run... My first still has a thumper that is 5% the size of the pot! it too works great with never a fail or close to filling... I know all the safety reasons behind having plenty of space but why do members jump on others when they build or buy something different than the norm? I run my stuff A LOT and never have issues. Why not explain the safety of having enough thumper space to a nube, without the adamant NO IT WONT WORK! Because in mine and many others cases they do work well.

To err on the side of caution for safety's sake is the mantra . Fine that you 'get by' with what you have . You have the confidence in a novice to be able to accomplish the same thing ? Gonna take responsibility for him when he fucks up ?.............
Just askin .

[moosemilk]

I posted my thumper results under my original build thread thinking to keep in same place. But Figured i'll cut and paste it here as well so it's also with thumper related discussion for anybody interested. My pot is 12 gallon, thumper is around 4-5 gallons. Here's the copy/paste:

Well, ran the thumper for it's first real run. The boiler was charged with a mix of 6 gallons low wines and 5 gallons of fresh ferment (12 gallon boiler, leaving 2 gallons head space). The low wines were all around 25-30%. The thumper was charged from some higher abv strip run (it was around 50%, so cut it with a bit of fresh wash down to about 30%) and took about 3 quarts to just prime it so it was slightly submerged. One thing I noticed, I need a bigger burner. It worked, but it was SLOW. Some could be attributed to the fact that my burner needs cleaning (think i spilled a bit of fresh mash and some holes weren't firing during run). It was pretty much a constant broken stream the entire run, even with some reflectix around the thump and top of boiler to help with heat. But I didn't mind, it was a nice evening and several hours outside was wonderful.

Started pulling off over 160 proof. Sorry, don't have exact volumes for how long blah blah blah . . . I rarely worry about that now and go by taste and smell, my proof and tralle only comes out during blending and proofing, but I did take a few readings being first thump run. Things I noticed with this versus pot with no thump on spirit run:

1. Initial proof was 10-15% abv higher
2. The abv held higher for longer, nice and steady and consistent around 160 proof (80%abv) rather than a steady linear drop I have noticed on runs without thumper.
3. When the proof did start to drop, it was very gradual with the thumper, as opposed to without a thump where it tends to drop faster
4. Most of my hearts were in a range of 60-80% abv with thumper, below was starting to cloud and get the cardboard/wet dog. Without a thumper, there seems to be more smearing of the tails into the hearts. I'm letting it air for a bit before deciding on cuts for heads/hearts. The tails were very pronounced and easy to detect though off the spout
5. It started to cloud at about the 55% abv mark with the thumper. Typically on pot only, it doesn't cloud off the spout until about 40% abv with this recipe.
6. All of the cuts seem to be more compressed with slightly less smearing than pot only.
7. The overall volume collected before hitting tails using a thumper was much lower than straight pot, but this is attributed to it holding a higher abv steadily rather than a linear drop.

I ended up shutting down when i was pulling 50%abv simply because i was tired, it was already 3am, and it was only tails. I left it all ready to go tonight to pull the last of the tails off without the thumper to toss in the feints collection (thinking i can pull maybe a gallon of tails so it's definitely worth it).

I probably could have put this in thump design or whatever, but seems to confirm what's already there written, and no point starting a new thread. Since this is my original build thread, figured I'd keep everything in one place of how i built, how it runs, and the difference a thumper makes (even if it's a few years down the road from the original build).

Conclusion: Definitely love the thumper. What i did sample off the still was a nice rounded spirit. The grain bill was around 85% corn, 10% barley malt (malted myself from feed store barley), and 5% rye malt. I used sebstar and sebamyl for conversion as i just cooked all grains together, not wanting to chance infection since i malted myself. I've done this exact recipe before with no thumper, and one thing that really stood out with this one is the rye. Even just that little bit, and the spice already pops out. I didn't have this before the thumper.

This is reposted from page 3 of my original build thread, which also includes some vids of the thumper and what to expect when it's heating up. Original thread:
http://ww.homedistiller.org/forum/viewt ... 6#p7199796" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Hope this info helps others a little!

[Jimy Dee]

Hello all

My question is to deal with the relationship between (A) the size of the pipe between the pot and the thumper -and- (B) the size of the pipe exiting the thumper on its way to a liebig?

I was thinking that if pipe A (from pot to thumper) was too big, it could over flood pipe B (exiting thumper to liebig) if it was too small in diameter? I could be totally wring on this one.

I have a 13 gallon / 50 liter SS keg as a pot, and an 8 gallon/30 liter SS keg as the intended thumper. My existing liebig is down to a half inch in diameter, however we were thinking of using a 2 inch SS pipe from the pot to the thumper. Is this too big given this set up? If so what size should I bring the pipe down to (ie the pipe size from the pot to the pumper).

Thanks in advance

Jim

PS : - I have read this whole thread over the last few nights and can only say it is jam packed with info, especially valuable for beginners like me. Thanks to everyone.

[Shine0n]

I wouldn't be concerned about flooding, you would have to screw up pretty good to do that. Lol
On mine I go 2" all the way to top of my thumper and reduced to 1", then I go 1" out of thump over to my worm and reduce again to 1/2" ID worm. Have never had an issue with my set up. So I can't see why you would have any issues either. send some pics when ready!!!

[Iamgod]

My boiler is a 50 Ltd keg if i used a mini keg think there quarter of the volume of my boiler would I need an overflow or would the end result from the output match the input I run a four inch reflux two and a half feet long

[skow69]

What are you trying to do? Run a thumper after your reflux column?

[rad14701]

What are you trying to do? Run a thumper after your reflux column?

[goose eye]

You plan on putin favorin in your doublein keg?
See like it'll come across good on clean likker.
Just eyein it from around the corner
cause I ain't ever run no likker and ain't gonna in the future.


So I'm tole

[Iamgod]

Sorry wasn't very clear I have a standard keg reflux with a Liebig condenser thinking of adding a thumper with a mini keg will this be any benefit will it improve abv of output and will I need an overflow can't seem to find the answers on here sorry if this has been covered just can't find it mike

[dieselduo]

if you have a reflux column there is no need for a thumper

[Iamgod]

I understand that its not needed but are there any benefits at all I only ask as I can't find any info regarding reflux and thumper together mike

[skow69]

I don't see any benefit. If you want more purity, make your column longer.