Pope's 10-plate Continuous Column

[pope]

I have a kind of s-shaped riser so my steam blows in above my bottoms exit but my bottoms flows back up through the 'S' and above the bottom plate, so the bottom ~10" of the column is boiling.

For mine, I really just need to break the line so I can't get a siphon... I'm thinking I don't need a valve after all since the bottoms are already above the steam. A grant with a drain line on it would do well for the job, let the bottoms cascade into that and let gravity drain the grant. I might just resort to rotating buckets for today. Simpler solutions are welcome if y'all have any ideas.

[LWTCS]

Grant? Grant?
Diagram?

[pope]

I'm thinking of a lauter grant, after googling I am using the word wrong. Just thinking of a catch bin for waste. But I'm reevaluating, I'm not sure how I got a siphon this morning but it didn't happen on this last test run whether I restricted flow of the waste or not. I'm thinking maybe a hose kinked and the column filled up and then the pressure pushed a bunch past the kink like a flushing toilet. Anyway I'm thinking its unnecessary now but slapping a valve on the outflow couldn't hurt anything either.

I put 1 cup of cream in 12 gallons of mash and it was like magic, the mash actually dropped into the column with the reduction in foaming, and was able to load the plates properly. I'm sure my abv went up from 30-35 into the expected 55-60 range, everything ran smooth.

Towards the end of the run the sludge at the bottom of the pot (yes I stirred at the start of the run but an hour in and the bottom of the pot had settled and gotten sludgy), the pump trucked on through the mud-like crap and the column took it too... the plates loaded up a bit more but the weight of the solids seemed to reduce the foaming so it was just bubbly sludgy hot mud in the plates for the last 10 minutes. Sooo... yea it went well and things are promising for both fine-ground malt and cornmeal.

I'm thinking a pot-mounted drill-powered mash-stirring contraption is in my near future.

[pope]

Took a few days to sink in but I’m realizing this rig could be my answer to going smaller on batch size and testing recipe iterations back to back... once it’s rolling, pumping a few gallons of water flushes the column clean, and that heat loss only takes a few minutes to recover from. A few minutes after and steam has cleared the product end out. I have a 10-liter potato slurry just to test the system but I’ve also got a 6-gallon batch that’s 10# of fine ground 2-row and this system will give me a little micro batch of single malt to try flavor on 10# grain ratios without getting too crazy. Should be able to strip both down in an hour, set up and tear down/cleaning included.

[LWTCS]

Sounds really productive!!

Valve on your bottoms waste discharge is what you're referring to right?
Definitely helpful to maintain enough back pressure.
Would be interesting to see what the optimal maintained pressure is needed to keep bottoms flowing nicely?

Does your column drive/expel bottoms via pressure?

[pope]

I mean I built it to swing the other way but it’s nice to have other uses.

[pope]

Got new hydrometers yesterday, with puking I got about ~5 gallons off of 32 gallons of wash that was made up of 50# whole grain flour plus water. Came up with 16 and 6 for starting/finishing brix (I tested brix because of all the solids), brix abv calculators tell me that's 8.55% abv which if you try and estimate potential abv of the flour, comes out about right. BUT, my finished 5 gallons measures 36% abv, the difference if you take 30.5x(.0855/.36)=7.24 gallons as what I should've gotten (30.5 because I left some slurry in the pot). So... I'm either 1) losing product down the bottom (still a strong possibility until I get things dialed in, remember the toilet flush effect from above), 2) not accounting for displacement of solids in the mash as being non-alcoholic, 3) my abv measurement is off to begin with, or 4) collecting 100% of the measured potential alcohol into low wines is an unrealistic goal. A little of all four could easily add up to answer the discrepancy. Also if I ever ran sugar wash stripping in a pot still I never concerned myself with writing down how much of the wash abv I collected but I'm sure it's less than 100%. If my bottoms are >210 I have to assume any of those losses are bad tails.

I have my mini-kettle of 6 gallons mash of fine-ground 2-row, if that will go through the system I will scale up and continue to test single malt as I have a barrel to sock some away in, I'll be taking very fine measurements on that batch if I can rectify the issues I had from the second run.

Y'all have any ideas on displacement and trying to factor in actual alcohol volume in the non-dissolved solids in the barley - hull bits, malt dust, etc? You've got to figure everything is soaked through with beer, but there's still a lot of solids that remain. If I search barley carbohydrate percentage I get 73.5% carbs, with a dash of liquid enzymes assuming I get 100% conversion and fermentation, 26.5% of the displacement of the dry grain is still fiber, fat, and protein which is what's left for the waste.

Anyway the journey continues, I'll have more fermented wash and mash in a few days to test it some more.

[pope]

Fine-milled barley mashes and ferments well but is a no-go for my little double diaphragm pump. In disassembling the pump to unclog it, I can see why: there are four small one-way/check valves made of plastic and teflon beads that have a very small passageway. This pump will work well for wheat and potato flour but I wonder if it will even handle corn flour... my next ferment will be some maseca to try.

So... getting solids into the still becomes the main problem again. Most ~3 gpm brew transfer pumps are diaphragm and come with pre-filters to 'protect the diaphragm' so no-go there either, flexible impeller or just impeller based might be the way to go, and if there's wear on the impeller just consider it a consumable if replacements can be found?

That said if this little pump I have can move flour slurry, its possible its larger siblings can move fine barley and hull particles.

[Getsmokin]

Fine-milled barley mashes and ferments well but is a no-go for my little double diaphragm pump. In disassembling the pump to unclog it, I can see why: there are four small one-way/check valves made of plastic and teflon beads that have a very small passageway. This pump will work well for wheat and potato flour but I wonder if it will even handle corn flour... my next ferment will be some maseca to try.

So... getting solids into the still becomes the main problem again. Most ~3 gpm brew transfer pumps are diaphragm and come with pre-filters to 'protect the diaphragm' so no-go there either, flexible impeller or just impeller based might be the way to go, and if there's wear on the impeller just consider it a consumable if replacements can be found?

That said if this little pump I have can move flour slurry, its possible its larger siblings can move fine barley and hull particles.

I picked up a 1" aodd pump (tho it only has .5" npt adaptors at the moment). Waiting on fittings to plumb up, will report back when everything shows up.

[pope]

[I picked up a 1" aodd pump (tho it only has .5" npt adaptors at the moment). Waiting on fittings to plumb up, will report back when everything shows up.

Do you have a link? Very curious to look at the specs and pricing!

[Getsmokin]

[I picked up a 1" aodd pump (tho it only has .5" npt adaptors at the moment). Waiting on fittings to plumb up, will report back when everything shows up.

Do you have a link? Very curious to look at the specs and pricing!

Don't have the model handy.. aro pro ss 1". Finding an old stock or used is the only reasonable way to buy one, new models are 2k+. Suppose to be good for 1/8 or 3/16 solids (can't remember which).

[pope]

The 1" ARO max flow rate (and more importantly the cycle displacement of .22) would mean I could only run it at one cycle per minute, I could probably run 2-4 cycles per minute (theoretically - not sure if I could dial the air control to run that slow consistently) and have half or 3/4 of the flow go through the bypass, but its a lot.

I am back to looking at the EnoItalia 20, it's a flex impeller and has a review "This pump is a rockstar. I use it to move a heavy/sticky mash (think oatmeal texture) NO PROBLEM! Reversibility a major plus! Switching to a US plug was simple. Best/most versatile pump I own!" which sounds promising since that's what I want to pump anyway. I'm putting a lot on this review but it certainly sounds like a home brewer or distiller who is transferring cooked mash into the fermenter.

Literature suggests a bypass for flow control, ignoring head pressures I only need 5% of the flow so that's a lot to by pass but I'm struggling to see another option here. It's also certified for food grade up to 150F which is a nice feature, AODD pumps that are certified are over a grand up to several thousands of dollars.

[fzbwfk9r]

as a noob here, I'm wondering....

due to it's capacity, what is the best use for this?

Can it produce high enough ABV to count as fuel?
or is this a Drinking still?

[LWTCS]

as a noob here, I'm wondering....

due to it's capacity, what is the best use for this?

Can it produce high enough ABV to count as fuel?
or is this a Drinking still?

Neither.
This is a stripping still the way it is currently set up.

[pope]

Just for stripping low wines off of a mash slurry that's all.

[LWTCS]

Although, with just fraction more than a marriage ending budget,,,,a rectifying section for finished spirits can be added to the existing system.

[pope]

Yea yea yea... don't think I haven't already welded a 4" adapter for a takeoff valve. That, and I just need a second dephleg and a few more parts. I already have a flute so that's a leg up on the budget. I pulled the trigger on the flex impeller pump, that's enough spend for now haha. If I develop a drinking problem this build might just be cheaper than store bought by the time I die

[LWTCS]

Haha.
Puh,,, you know you're only building it because you can.
Congrats on the pump.
I'm sure you lovit long time. You will pet it and take it for walks and bake birthday cakes for it and....
Gonna put a speed control on it or just plumb a bypass?

[pope]

The recommendation from the pump maker is a bypass. The rated flow means I'll return ~90% of the flow to the fermenter but with all the head pressure, check valve, etc., I'm sure it'll take more than that to get the required flow rate dialed in. So that butterfly valve I thought I didn't need after all? I need it AND another one

Do you think for a bypass a y- or t-shape would be better? My initial thought was a tee with the straight shot through the tee being the bypass (pump one end, exit the other), and having the desired flow make the 90 degree bend. Not sure how much it matters as long as the flow is split?

[pope]

Haha.
Puh,,, you know you're only building it because you can.

Some guys have muscle cars or rat rods in the garage, I have a welder and this monstrosity always in the works. Fast car might be safer though.

[Getsmokin]

Yea yea yea... don't think I haven't already welded a 4" adapter for a takeoff valve. That, and I just need a second dephleg and a few more parts. I already have a flute so that's a leg up on the budget. I pulled the trigger on the flex impeller pump, that's enough spend for now haha. If I develop a drinking problem this build might just be cheaper than store bought by the time I die

Which flex pump did you settle on?

[Sulaiman]

Would it be easier to have a facility for a stripping run before using your nice column?

Equivalently you could have a continuous pre-boiler
(with some way to continuously or intermittently remove the lees)
and introduce the output vapour to your column ?

[LWTCS]

Would it be easier to have a facility for a stripping run before using your nice column?

Equivalently you could have a continuous pre-boiler
(with some way to continuously or intermittently remove the lees)
and introduce the output vapour to your column ?

Actually, setting up as you suggest would be more work (in my view) and perhaps more wasted utility if you factor in the potential for heat losses. Your suggested pre-boiler in practice would be an HX that uses beer as the cooling medium (in the beer feed circuit) to cool low wines. Then the partially pre-heated beer is piped over to an additional HX that is used to recover heat from the rectifier's column bottoms. This heat exchange is the final step toward preheating the beer as it makes it's way to the injection point. Naturally insulating all of the lines on the beer feed circuit will help reduce heat losses.

By using two or more dephlegmators on the rectifying column and collecting product LM style it is indeed possible to make cuts. Not necessarily as precise as batch distillation but completely doable.

[jdetechguy]

pope, this is a wonderful thread. Its a PHD in continuous plate columns.

[pope]

Thanks, jdetechguy!

Getsmokin, I went with the Enoitalia Euro 20, it wasn't the cheapest but it's a food grade pump and has the 1" tc fittings so I figured it was the most future proof. At ~4 gpm it's a lot slower for such a large diameter than many other flex impellers, and the guy's rave review above of pumping mash sludge through it made be decide to stick my neck out one more time for another pump. I'm going to do a bypass but I might try a variable frequency drive too, as yummy suggested in another thread.

[pope]

Something like this: https://www.ato.com/1-2hp-vfd-single-phase-input-output

The market seems flooded with VFD's for 220 single phase in with 3-phase out for lathes and cnc motors. Since the pump mfg. recommends bypass I'm wary of putting a VFD on it, though.

[SV-Distiller]

Pope,

What is the status of your stripper column? How is it working out? Any updates?

[bluc]

+1 awesome thread

[pope]

I wish there were updates! I put down some good money on a 220v 20a pump for the feed right before or after the pandemic hit (can't remember which), it is nice and dusty. I took down the still for a good cleaning but haven't reconstructed it... it worked well enough to strip ferments down but I will have some re-learning to do on that first run.

I tried sourcing distiller's malt flour (https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/craft ... ld-flours/) from my local home brew shop but it was early pandemic, I should try again once I've done a regular flour wash through the system.

I know besides input flow control my other big challenge was foaming and I think heavy cream is really what I'll use for now, I tried to emulsify vegetable oil with another natural powdered ingredient (very unprofessional but I can't remember what it was) but I had problems with the emulsion so distribution into the wash was sub-par. LWTCS had suggested the cream. Honestly dosing the feed with a separate pump and supply might be the ticket, like a little IV drip of oil for the column.

I've got a lot going on at the moment but I do plan on getting this reconstructed and operating eventually. The simple version of the story is I'm alive and well just living in the moment and the big distillation dreams are simmering well on the back burner.

[stevea]

20200310_145943.jpg

This plate is known to successfully process 350 gallons of beer per hour.
...

Uhhm - rules of thumb are ~ 1 - 1.3 l/hr feed per cm^2 (stripper). I can't see the scale, but I have a strong suspicion that you aren't vaguely close to 350gal/hr or 40cm ~= 16inch diameter! Yes you *could* run a 1500 l/hr, or more thru a 10cm diameter stripper ... IF you are willing to toss most of your EtOH. So I find this VERY hard to understand..