Home Distiller

Here's my 2" bubble cap still. It's a much more complicated build than a boka slant plate, but I'm extremely happy with it.







This is a rough schematic of what each plate looks like. There are 4 bubble caps per plate w/ one downcomer in the middle of the plate.

Beautiful work! Do you do mostly flavored runs or do you run vodka on it too? What kind of ABVs do you see? How clear are the cuts? Etc.

Centimeter wrote:Beautiful work! Do you do mostly flavored runs or do you run vodka on it too? What kind of ABVs do you see? How clear are the cuts? Etc.

Thanks! No flavored runs whatsoever. I built this rig to spit out the cleanest, purest neutral spirits possible. I don't think it'd be worth a damn for flavored runs. The cuts are clear and it will produce 95% abv.

95%? That's honestly quite impressive for a plate still of that size (I think...). What kind of collection rates do you get?

Could you explain how the reflux section of the take off branch works without any cooling...??? The column appears to be a CM design with plates instead of structured packing... Is the distillate still in vapor form when it reaches the liebig...??? If so, how do you attain liquid reflux back into the column...???

rad14701 wrote:Could you explain how the reflux section of the take off branch works without any cooling...??? The column appears to be a CM design with plates instead of structured packing... Is the distillate still in vapor form when it reaches the liebig...??? If so, how do you attain liquid reflux back into the column...???

It is not a CM design. It has characteristics of LM, CM, & PM.

The tubing between the condenser & the column is strictly there for structural support. The reflux is obtained strictly by air cooling. I have a "T" in the reflux line that allows me to take off product at that point instead of refluxing it back to the column. I was actually amazed at how much condesnation I got strictly from air cooling. My guess is the plates strip a lot of energy from the vapor along with water. By the time it reaches the takeoff, less energy is required to be removed to get the vapor to condense. I designed it this way thinking & hoping that any excess water in the vapor would condense out first and be returned to the column and a more pure product down the leibig. From what I've seen so far that's exactly what happens. I've only done two runs with the still so far. With both runs I got more product coming out the reflux line than I did the leibig. I also added a second thermometer before doing the second run. I put it in the 90 where the takeoff arm bends down to go to the leibig. The temperature at the top of the still will be 78-79 degrees and the thermometer just above the leibig will be reading in the 50's (with fluid only coming out the reflux takeoff). The product coming out the leibig both runs was at 95% for most of the run. I haven't really ran her hard yet so I'm not really sure what the max collection rate will be. Still breaking her in, got to take it easy at first All this make sense?



I was originally going to add a small jacket condenser on the takeoff line upstream from the reflux takeoff. I discovered there was sufficient air cooling and this isn't needed. At one point I was considering going more along the lines of a Coupier's still with several reflux takeoff points.

Coupier's Still


Think of this still as 12 thumpers in a line. With each plate acting as a thumper, the vapor stream is becoming more pure with the ethanol rising and the water flowing back to the boiler. With each succesive plate the vapor contains less and less water.

I work in the oilfield offshore. Normally 14 days on, 14 day off. Going on days off this Tuesday for 21 days. Will have 10 days to play with the still then going to play in Costa Rica for little over a week. Got a couple barrels of wash to strip then gonna fire the bubble cap still back up. Not sure which I'm more excited about, firing up the still or going to Costa Rica. Please let me know if you have any other questions. You are more than happy to come witness a run for yourself

I think its great to see people thinking outside of the square.
And actually doing it rather than just talking about it.

Lovely piece of copper.

Thanks man...

S

Wow she is a beaut man! if you dont mind me asking, I am new to all this and was wondering how hard this is to fabricate/operate and what a build like this would cost on average. Im obviously not going to just jump into this for my first, but was just wondering for a project down the road. Cheers man
_C

conduktor wrote:Wow she is a beaut man! if you dont mind me asking, I am new to all this and was wondering how hard this is to fabricate/operate and what a build like this would cost on average. Im obviously not going to just jump into this for my first, but was just wondering for a project down the road. Cheers man
_C

Thanks for the kind words. For someone with little to no tig welding experience, it would be a very difficult build. I suppose it could be done soldering but there's a lot of joints to solder. As far as cost, somewhere around $300 usd. I would suggest a bok slant plate column for your first build. It's an easy column to cut your teeth on and easy to graduate on from there. Besides, I still have some kinks to work out on the bubble cap still

Well thanx for the info man! Im going to try and get some nice plans for what you recommended and get to work here soon. Il throw up a pic or two whenever I get it done! Cheers

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 8#p6820648

This link will explain how to build it by soldering. this is how I built the second column on the Evil Twins. There is sometimes another way to do things, you just gotto think outside of the square.

OD