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Are those 4mm plates?

They look very solid, wished to have access to that material to switch to copper instead of SS.

Is the dephlegmator just a straight 2 inch tube or did you work with reducers inside?

Joe (almost 52)

Nice nice nice Jethro.

52?? Ha

UR52 like it or not.

Cheers
LT

The plates are 1/8 inch/3.125 mm thick, Joe. Told my boss I was making giant pennies The inner tube in the dephlag is just straight tube right now. I was soo happy I finally got it to seal, I had to go home and hoist a few I'm going to add inner fins in a cross pattern or even split the vapor path into six chambers to increase efficiency. Wondering now if giving it a twist would help...

Thanks for all the help and encouragement, Guys.

RC, with a little reengineering, yes. You would need to make a way to hold the plates on your chuck and hold a carbide steady. As long as you can swing 5 inches, anyway.

JethroBodine wrote: I'm going to add inner fins in a cross pattern or even split the vapor path into six chambers to increase efficiency. Wondering now if giving it a twist would help...

Thanks for all the help and encouragement, Guys.

It's sure that finning the tube helps a lot, if you could get them tight in just by pressure would guaranty that your soldering don't get leaks again.

It's important that the fins have as much contact as possible.

Agreed, Joe. I'm thinking if getting some thin flat bar, hard soldering it into shape and turning it to a .001-.002 inch interferance fit, and cooling the fins/heating the dephlag and sliding them together QUICKLY. I've done this with bearings before. Dry ice or even liquid nitrogen would be really fun, too Nitrogen might be overkill, though. I wonder if it would crack the solder?

I think this thread turnin out to be as good as any here on HD...
So much talent...

Very nice...

Yep great thread.

Fins would be nice, but stuffing a copper scrubber in the dephlag would work just as well, if not better. My little BOK condenser wouldn't knock down 1500 watts until I put a scrubber in it, and it then knocked down 3000 watts like nothing.

I don't have a lathe, but I'm going to try turning my plates on my drill press; I'll make a hardwood disc a bit smaller than my plate, screw my copper sheet to it(cut open and flattened 1-1/4" pipe), and using an oiled stick(forget the real term for it) I'll try to form the copper to the hardwood disc. Watch a few youtube videos on spinning bowls for ideas. I think it'll work...

Hey Barney, If you dont mind make some pics along the way and post them so some of us others my use this if it works out for ya. many of us I think have drill presses but not many have lathes.
Great idea to by the way.
KS

I'll try; it'll be a while, yet, though. Maybe a month or more before I can start the build, but since so many are now building these, I thought I'd put my idea out here. I see no reason why it can't work.

I use my old drill press as a lathe of sorts quite a bit; it's pretty much the same as a lathe, only it's vertical, after all.

OTBE...OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL... the larger diameter the tube... the taller the colum needs to be for maximum reflux... right?

I know I built my 2" column 50" tall... I have a bok head (LM) over a SS gate valve (VM)...

Based on what I've read, the "girthier" you go, the faster you can takeoff distallate.

So, the main reason people do not build 4" diameter columns with bok heads for LM, and gate valves for VM takeoff, is that the total height would be absurd... So when you go thicker, you have to change the design to be reasonable and "space conscious"...

The reason why I ask this is that my rig (and many others on the forum) is GREAT... azeotrope with ease! So... why change the design doing all the "fancy stuff"...

Like I said... I think the answer is that when the diameter increases, the height increases... eventually it gets absurd... If only my garage were 40ft tall...

Is my thinking correct?

BG

Hey Barney, I bet you are right about the scrubber/ packing in the dephlag being more efficient. Good idea, but would it also act as another theoretical plate? I'm thinking of running one or two plates and I think I have around 12-14 inches of 2 inch( can't quite remember exactly how much right now ) in the dephlag. I'll have to measure when I can remember how to use the tape measure.

What we are achieving with plated columns 4"and bigger, is high ABV, without stripping out flavor, and a takeoff speed that can distill a 30lt wash in 3-4 hours. A reflux still is a different kettle of fish, the aim is to strip out any flavor to achieve a neutral spirit at a high ABV which can take a long time with the slow takeoff associated with reflux still with packed columns. A plated column will have anything from 3-6 plates as being built on this forum, they can have more, but the more plates the less flavor, whereas a packed column will act like a column with up to 100 plates therefore stripping out more flavor.


OD

olddog wrote:What we are achieving with plated columns 4"and bigger, is high ABV, without stripping out flavor, and a takeoff speed that can distill a 30lt wash in 3-4 hours. A reflux still is a different kettle of fish, the aim is to strip out any flavor to achieve a neutral spirit at a high ABV which can take a long time with the slow takeoff associated with reflux still with packed columns. A plated column will have anything from 3-6 plates as being built on this forum, they can have more, but the more plates the less flavor, whereas a packed column will act like a column with up to 100 plates therefore stripping out more flavor.


OD

so if i was to put copper scrubbers inbetween my 4 plates, it would get a good nuetral in half the time?????
thanks
spooky

Not unless you restricted you takeoff to drips like a reflux column, or as stated to have a 40'high column.


OD

i hate to sound dumb, but i havent really studied a reflux column so i dont know what the slow drips has to do with the stripping of flavor... i need to study this.
thanks
spooky

Mind you,,, 92 at pot still speed is not too shabby.

If ya want a proper nuetral jes strip first.
Then dilute to 35-40 ........and git you some nuetral at pot still speed

Spook higher ABV of a proper nuetral is usually acheived a drip at a time. Oh man put a gun to me heed if I had to sit fer that.

LWTCS wrote: Oh man put a gun to me heed if I had to sit fer that.

+1+1+1


OD

LWTCS wrote:Mind you,,, 92 at pot still speed is not too shabby.

If ya want a proper nuetral jes strip first.
Then dilute to 35-40 ........and git you some nuetral at pot still speed

Spook higher ABV of a proper nuetral is usually acheived a drip at a time. Oh man put a gun to me heed if I had to sit fer that.

92 at pot still speed is great! in the big scheem of things, one drip at a time cant keep up with what i can drink at a time. theres gotta be a happy medium

Hey Barney, I bet you are right about the scrubber/ packing in the dephlag being more efficient. Good idea, but would it also act as another theoretical plate?

Not in the way I see a dephlag working. If the packing is -in- the column, yes, we have more "plates", but the scrubber in the dephlag simply increases the surface area, making the dephlag more efficient. So, when running the still, using KS's video as the example, we can put the still into 100% reflux to concentrate the fores and heads, then back off on the dephlag flow to allow the hearts to go to the condenser. At the beginning of the tails, we can again increase flow to the dephlag to concentrate, this time, the hearts, then back off and let them through, allow for flow to the dephlag to stop the hearts to again concentrate them, etc.... No different if we have a scrubber in there; only difference is it will require a lower water flow at any given point because it will be more efficient(same as adding fins would do, only simpler to do).

I may be wrong about how to run a true plated column with a dephlag, and if so, please correct me, but I do believe that a more efficient dephlag, one way or another, can't stop flavor as long as we back off enough on the water flow(always a good thing) -and- as long as we don't stuff the dephlag full of scrubber(it only took a very loose amount to "fix' my BOK condenser). With the water flow to the dephlag completely stopped, the dephlag should act as an insulator and the scrubber shouldn't reflux anything. Again, I could be wrong, though, so this is all speculative on my part, at this time.

I can achieve 100% reflux with the Magic Flute, with no packing required, the dephlag contains approx 2 pints of cooling water with the Dephlag turn off, it's a huge potstill.



OD

the dephlag contains approx 2 pints of cooling water with the Dephlag turn off, it's a huge potstill.


Right! With a smaller dephleg(and a bit of scrubber to make the smaller dephleg more efficient), we could still attain 100% reflux when needed or wanted, yet with the flow turned off, it's still a big 'ol pot still. The dephleg is just a condenser by another name, after all.

Barney Fife wrote:Right! With a smaller dephleg(and a bit of scrubber to make the smaller dephleg more efficient), we could still attain 100% reflux when needed or wanted, yet with the flow turned off, it's still a big 'ol pot still. The dephleg is just a condenser by another name, after all.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.


OD

olddog wrote: after all. If it aint broke, don't fix it.


OD

AHH OD your a man after my own heart... 100% agree

[quote="olddog"]I can achieve 100% reflux with the Magic Flute, it's a huge potstill. quote]

MashMan wrote:

olddog wrote:I can achieve 100% reflux with the Magic Flute, it's a huge potstill. quote]

Only when the dephlagmater is turned off is it in potstill mode, it will only achieve full reflux with the dephlagmater working.



OD

MashMan wrote:

olddog wrote:I can achieve 100% reflux with the Magic Flute, it's a huge potstill. quote]

Only when the dephlagmater is turned off is it in potstill mode



OD

olddog wrote:

MashMan wrote:

olddog wrote:I can achieve 100% reflux with the Magic Flute, it's a huge potstill. quote]

Only when the dephlagmater is turned off



OD

gotcha.

OK, so after reading all the responses to the question of what is the difference between a 2" VM column and a 4" plate colum... I think the answer is as follows:

2" reflux comlumn will yield very neutral high ABV spirits, but at a drip drip drip pace.

4" plate column will yield high ABV (92%), buy with more flavor, and MUCH FASTER.

So, is there a way to get high abv (94-95%), almost flavorless, at a faster pace than drip drip drip? I'm thinking it would be a 4" column, but with maximum reflux... Again, Just to be reasonable, I think the design should not be taller than 6-8 feet.