New to distillation, or simply new to the HD forums.
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Been reading a lot trying to get myself educated enough to get going without to many stupid questions. Ready to put together my first pot still. I have the column and condenser pretty much built and am going to attach to a 15.5 gal. keg. This is where I have a question. I have looked at many different types of fitting and connections and have decided to go with this plan so I can attach different types of still easily to the same keg boiler. Let know if any one sees a problem with it I may not have.
I have a 2" Dia.x10" H column reducing down to a 3/4" Dia. that runs through an 1 1/2" x 30" water jacket for the condenser. I attached some photos
going to thread the column into this fitting of the right size.
Welcome to the forum, sounds like a good game plan as it will give you flexibility for any changes you might want to make in the future! Your water jacket at 1-1/2" and reducing to 3/4" is a little larger than most designs I've seen. Let us know how she runs.
I'd suggest wrapping your 3/4" condenser pipe with some 12 gauge or 10 gauge copper wire to interrupt the laminar flow along the pipe. Wrap about three or four turns, and spot solder along the length.
You'll get better efficiency out of your condenser.
Welcome aboard HD. Do you already have the keg? And I would look at doing an easy flange connection for the column to keg. Would be a lot cheaper then those fittings. But it does look good.
Thanks for welcoming me and the information. Bull Rider suggested coiling some 12 or 10 gauge copper wire around the condenser to slow the laminar flow along the pipe. I used an 1 1/2" water jacket to get a higher flow of water around the condenser pipe to produce similar results. Seemed to make sense to me, as I had access to some 1 1/2" pipe from a friend and wanted to keep cost down to minimum. Hopefully it wont keep things to cool and send it into a reflux action before the vapor gets to the condenser. I will also look at the easy flange fitting mentioned by prairiepiss as well as cost is a factor and those fitting are not cheap but they looked like they would make the connection to the keg very simple.
This is great site I have been reading and learning off and on for a year or so now and been home brewing beer for 5 years. I now want to move into the distilling world. I am sure I will be needing your help and experience in the future so thanks again and glad to meet ya'll.
I will keep you posted on how she runs when I get it all together
