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Hi Guys,

After having seeing this still and seeing the inline alcometer these guys have, I have thought up a variation on this theme. If I put the alcometer in the reflux line of this head design (original: Bokakob) as shown, would that give me an idea of when to do heads/body/tails cuts? I believe that it should give me an idea on the %ABV of the output of the still too? It's only a rough sketch but I think you get the idea.

Does all this sound like a good idea to you guys, or is it a waste of time?
Cheers,
Nimrod

Anybody?? Bueler?

i think its handy to have the reading but you should place it on your output not the reflux..

your reflux is only about 30% of your total output, you would get a reading which is updated at a faster rate and there for of higher accuaracy by placing it on your output.

you shouldnt disregard the use of a thermometer and taste and smel as a guide as well..

I agree with decoy, put it in the output line. Decoy, I think you got it backwards. Reflux is far more then the output. A 3:1 RR would be reflux 75% and output 25%.

you might be right im talking from a plate still point of view...

Like this...

Sorry about the drawings, the one on the left is showing how it could be compact by welding it against the side of the head, with the collection, output & reflux line all in close to the body of the head. The drawing on the right shows an easier to see version of the same design. Hope it makes sence to you guys.
Cheers

I think putting it on the reflux line was a good idea as long as your reflux volume is higher than your output volume.

The reflux spirit is exactly the same as the output spirit.

Even better, would be to put it inline with the column output so that BOTH the reflux fluid AND the collected fluid passed through it. Then afterword, put your valve and overflow reflux tube. The downside might be that this might lower your reflux tube in the column which would decrease the amout of packing you could have in your column.

EDIT: That may be exactly what you are showing on your drawing. I like it.

Thanks for the feedback guys
The reason I wanted it in the reflux or output line in the head before the tap was so that I could see the % ABV before opening the tap to take heads, and to help guess when the tails kick in.
Anymore feedback is welcome

That is an interesting idea that's for sure. While your columns stabilizing before a run you could watch as the ABV increases. Now the bad part about it would be that while running a reflux the first 50 ml per 20 L wash gets tossed. With this devise in the reflux line you would need to hold at least 200 ml back to have enough to measure so that would mess up your foreshots extraction. Another thing is that area will be super hot. Your glass hydrometer would be between the column and the head sitting in hot alcohol in a copper cylinder. I am not sure that would be good for it. Mine says "do not boil" on the package.

Would I be right in asuming that the Alcohol in the output line would be 78-79 deg C? I assumed that by not boiling that it ment not 100 deg C or above. If I watch the temp gauge at the tails end of the run, it should never get that high. Does this sound correct, or am I missing something?
Thanks again for the input!

The alcohol shouldn't be 79C or it would be boiling. The top end of a still gets really hot. The eprouvette is usually place on the output side far away form the top end. On your pictures with the reflux line running straight back into the column the liquid won't spend much time there, it will be constantly flowing. An eprouvette is designed to hold a certain amount of liquid at all times so it would absorb heat form the top end and the metal would be hot enough to boil the reflux. The top end is in fact around 79 C so if you put this devise there you would have a vessel inline, made of copper which is putting a lot of heat into the alcohol. This vessel would need to be open so you could insert the hydrometer and there for you would have vapor escaping.

So, either I need to remove the eprouvette from the head, or cool it some how. What if I made a cooling jacket for the eprouvette so that cooling water flowed around it? Might be too much flow I suppose to work.... Mabey I should just make a seperate one
Thanks for the input.

I appreciate your determination. Cooling it would definatly solve one problem but I think it will create another. If your reflux is to cold it my mess up your equilibrium in the column in that it will take that much more heat to get it to vaporize again. Also there is still the issue I mentioned earlier about holding so much liquid in the reflux line. The forshots will be under 50 mil's form a 20 liter wash. If your eprouvette holds enough liquid to get a reading that may also give you a problem. If you've already got it built then give it a go, see what happens and let us know but I would make sure and cool the unit since you will have vapor loss if you don't cool it. For myself personally I don't use an eprouvette for the simple reason that watching a reflux still can be like watching paint dry. I need to have something to do and taking samples for testing gives me something to do.

For myself personally I don't use an eprouvette for the simple reason that watching a reflux still can be like watching paint dry.

Sounds like fun SO with that in mind, is ARC a good thing then? I stubled across the ARC set up by accident and it looks pretty good to me. (No taking tails, just heads). Have you heard of anyone using this method sucessfully?
Cheers,
Nimrod

There is talk about it on the Yahoo group. There are also a bunch of pictures of a couple of ARC rigs that evidently worked. I think they determined that external ARC was much easier to build but didn't work nearly as well as internal ARC.

The concept is solid and just watching a regular reflux rig slow itself down as the pot runs low on etoh will give you an idea of the concept behind ARC.

Do some searches in the yahoo distillers groups.

Could someone point me in the right direction for the pictures that your talking about jbrew? I looked on the yahoo site, but can't find any pictures on there of a working still, only a document on how it works.
Cheers

I can't get on Yahoo groups here. Look in the photos section of both distillers and new_distillers on yahoo groups for ARC