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So here is what I'm thinking...let me know if I am offbase.

Lets say I like to ferment in 20 gallon batches, but I have a 5 gallon still...This means that I boil 5 gallons, cool the distillate with my garden hose/condenser...when that 5 gallons is done I start all over again...three more times.

What if I used the heat coming off the condenser to warm up my next batch? It could run through two condensers...the first one goes to my next batch of wash, and the second one with a reduced flow of water (compared to running no precondenser) I understand that 5 gallons of wash will not effectively cool 5 gallons of boiling wash because eventually they wont transfer heat as they get closer and closer in temp. Hence the second condenser.

This would save me a lot of time bringing the next batch up to boil. It would save me money on energy cost. It will save me water.

Any drawbacks that ya'll can see?

are you saying that you are using a garden hose as a condensor?
spooky

Do not let the distant or wash come in contact with garden hose many contain lead.

wow, pretty amazing that two people totally missed the point of that post.

I was using that as an example...and yes, I do supply water to my condenser via a garden hose...its also a completely closed system and runs absolutely no risk of contaminating anything...I could cool my distillate with raw sewage if I so chose, it is simply a heat transfer medium with my set up.

So, back to the question at hand, if you took a coil of copper, ran your distillate through that, but the outside of the copper coil was submerged into a tank of wash...the spigot comes out of that tank, goes to a regular condenser....to me it makes perfect sense...and the talk about lead is completely inaccurate with the set up I am proposing.

I think hes talking about useing mash/wash to cool the condensor coil in a bucket to warm the next batch. Not really sure about the second condensor.If the vapor has already condensed how would you use a second condensor.

chinookpilot77 wrote:wow, pretty amazing that two people totally missed the point of that post.

Not only 2, we need specifics on the still you have.. LM, VM, CM...

I was using that as an example...and yes, I do supply water to my condenser via a garden hose...its also a completely closed system and runs absolutely no risk of contaminating anything...I could cool my distillate with raw sewage if I so chose, it is simply a heat transfer medium with my set up.

So, back to the question at hand, if you took a coil of copper, ran your distillate through that, but the outside of the copper coil was submerged into a tank of wash... A Graham Condenser... the spigot comes out of that tank, goes to a regular condenser.... Why? The vapour has already been condensed to liquid... to me it makes perfect sense...and the talk about lead is completely inaccurate with the set up I am proposing.

Your first post was vague, the second a little clearer... But a photo, diagram, detailed description of what you have and want to do, would give us a good idea of of whats going on...

Have fun and Stay Safe...

I think you've identified the potential problem, that your "condenser wash" looses effectiveness as it heats up. So you'd almost certainly need a secondary condenser of some sort (a Graham, Liebig or a second worm in bucket). It is probably unlikely that you'd end up pre-heating the second wash to the vapor point but just in case you'd need some way to divert your output and bypass the bucket altogether. It is an interesting idea.

1) No, the liquid will not be heated to its vapor point, but the liquid will be heated quite close to it. The only heat one will lose is whatever is lost via parts of the still that are not insulated. Even if you heat the mash/wash to 150 degrees, that is that much less heat you have to use the second run.

2) A second condenser will always be needed due to basic laws of thermodynamics. You can't effectively cool a body of liquid at 200 degrees with liquid that is 180 degrees.

3) I can't draw worth a damn or I'd put up a picture of what I'm talking about.

My thoughts are you will lose alc. vapor from the new wash, otherwise it would work just fine.

chinookpilot77 wrote:wow, pretty amazing that two people totally missed the point of that post.

I was using that as an example...and yes, I do supply water to my condenser via a garden hose...its also a completely closed system and runs absolutely no risk of contaminating anything...I could cool my distillate with raw sewage if I so chose, it is simply a heat transfer medium with my set up.

So, back to the question at hand, if you took a coil of copper, ran your distillate through that, but the outside of the copper coil was submerged into a tank of wash...the spigot comes out of that tank, goes to a regular condenser....to me it makes perfect sense...and the talk about lead is completely inaccurate with the set up I am proposing.

no need to BUCK UP there chin..
your post clearley said,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "This means that I boil 5 gallons, cool the distillate with my garden hose/condenser...when that 5 gallons is done I start all over again...three more times."
now what does that look like to you?

and ofcorse you could warm up the wash with your hot condensor water.. its just a matter ofhow much trouble you wanna go through.
spooky

wow, pretty amazing that two people totally missed the point of that post.

Your not gonna win any good advice with stabs like that sir.

I could cool my distillate with raw sewage if I so chose

I would advise against this, water works really well. Less chance of E coli poisoning also

On to the original question. You are in a sense saying that you will be taking some of the heat that is absorbed from one batch of distillation and transfering it into the next so that less heat is needed to boil the second wash. Sounds kinda green. Al gore would be proud. I see no problem with it, if you have an effective way to do so.

Was it a stab at them or a stab at my own vague first posting?

Not a fan of al gore...but I am a fan of lower production costs.

as a experiment i just heated a wine that is 16%.
at 46c (115f) it could be ignited. so it was vaporizing well before that.

hmmm...well, I guess this would only be suited to hot liquor tanks then?

Hot tank sounds about right,. I understood from first post what you wanted to do. It is just "Heat Exchange". Just control new wash Evapotating away your Alc. Vapor.Good Idea to save fuel and Cooling water. I don't know about changing taste and aroma of the new wash before stilling it. Think like that then it is "not" a good idea. How does a hot tank keep a fresh Taste & aroma???

That may be a good question to ask at " ADI " . Big boys may Know.

How I do it is this. I have a 30 gallon cooling tank that feeds my libeg, the output from my libeg goes to a wort chiller submerged in a elevated wahs pre heating tank, the output from my wort chiller goes back to the 30 gallon water tank. This system keeps my cooling tank from heating up and pre heats the next wash.

Now the neat thing about an elevated pre heating tank is that all I have to do is open the fill port on the still, empty the still through the drain valve, and refill the still via the drain valve on the pre heating tank. From the time I'm done with the first run it take 5 minutes to be running a fresh, preheated mash.

Thank you RD, that was exactly what I had in mind.

Sounds like you want something similar to a Charentais still, try Google for more info.

It's similar to a Charentais still, or a san luis still but I think my way works better because you can heat up a partial run. I use to run a san luis configuration but some how I would always have 5 or 6 gallons of was left over and that's not enough to cool my still. Running a lebig and a wort chiller with a couple of extra valves to bypass the chiller solved the problem.

chinookpilot77 wrote:So here is what I'm thinking...let me know if I am offbase.

snip

What if I used the heat coming off the condenser to warm up my next batch? It could run through two condensers...the first one goes to my next batch of wash, and the second one with a reduced flow of water (compared to running no precondenser) I understand that 5 gallons of wash will not effectively cool 5 gallons of boiling wash because eventually they wont transfer heat as they get closer and closer in temp. Hence the second condenser.

snip

Now that's interesting!
I have run a big copper tube through a double wash-trough in between my pot still and the worm, to pre-heat the wash and so save money on propane.
(Not yet set up though).
It will probably work best if I partly fill both of the bowls rather than completely filling just the first. When I get it going I will experiment with that.
Thanks for an idea I hadn't thought of.

I can see why you would think of this. In the situation where you are going to be making multiple runs, then it does make sense to use thermal recovery techniques.

You can be sure that they do this on a continuous process. As has been said previously, you might need to be able to bypass the heat exchanger to prevent the wash getting TOO warm before it goes into your boiler. It all depends on the volumes.

The other system that you occasionaly hear about is to empty your backset into a storage tank, and then recirculate it through a coil in your boiler to speed up the warm up times for the next batch. Once the wash and backset have reached the same temperature then you can empty the backset tank.

Interesting topic, there might even be an need for a sub-section devoted to the various thermal recovery techniques that are sometimes used.