I use a bucket condenser and I have a lot of trouble with it getting slightly out of alignment and allowing the distillate to pool somewhere inside - it leads to an annoying gushing as it runs out unless I've got it perfectly set.
I think my coil is simply too long and too shallowly sloped - I have three and a half turns of 10mm copper making a coil 30 cm high, it's got about a 40cm diameter, water added at the top takes approx 30secs to come through.
It runs a 6l pot still. Rekon I could do with halving the diameter and doubling the turns - or is that still far too much tubing?
coil trouble
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TN.Frank
- Swill Maker
- Posts: 215
- Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:33 am
- Location: Tennessee, C.S.A.
I use pretty much the same set up, a 5 gal. bucket w/3/8" copper tubing coiled around inside of it. I made sure that the far side part of the coils were always sloped down hill to help it flow. Also, when I pull my thermometer out I take a small section of 1/2" hose and put over the opening and blow into it. This pressurizes my cooker and coil(which is still hooked up together) and pushes out any extra steam or distillant from them. Someday I'd like to make up a condenser that uses a water jacket over a straight pipe. I've seen em' here on the web site but just haven't got around to making one up. Good luck. Talk to ya' later.
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