Continuous Stripping still?

[edge]

Time is precious and there never seems to be a lot to work with my hobbies.

While I know that I'll be able to find time for a spirit run occasionally, I would like to strip in short sessions.
My question specifically has anyone tried something akin to a tube flash boiler?

My thought would be a pipe of relatively small diameter ( 3/4 inch perhaps) heated with propane.
It would be attached to a column at an angle with a thermocouple at the end near the column.

Two leibig condensers, the first for pre-heating the mash to X degrees and the second for final product condensing ( perhaps a shotgun ).

My thinking is the thermocouple cycles a pump when the max temperature in the boiler reaches say 98-99 degrees ( 10-20%).
(It would most likely just be maintaining a flow.)

The spent wash would overflow into the bottom of the column where it would drain to waste via a trap.
(The column is really only needed as a drain mechanism and to prevent puking into the condensers.)

I'll assume this is not a novel idea so would also assume that it has been tried and either failed or it worked and deemed too much trouble for most folks.

I am ONLY trying to be able to make short work of stripping runs and plan on a "normal" pot still for the spirit runs.
Mainly interested in rum. Probably making 5 gallon batches stripping every few days in short sessions and storing the low wines until time were available for the spirit run which may be many weeks away.

Thanks for any suggestions.

edge.

[Prairiepiss]

I don't see how having this would save time over a pot still? Your still going to be heating the change? And the take off rate will be about the same. So where are you saving time?

[edge]

Total time may be the same, but you would have almost not heat up time.
Also, using the waste heat from the pre-condenser would be reducing heating time further, and reuse the heat for free.

I have little problem finding an hour here and there, but 5 continuous hours are rare and I would prefer to use those times for spirit runs.

[Prairiepiss]

I'm not really sure how to respond to this. So I will just say what I'm thinking.

Maybe this isn't the hobby for you then? If you don't have the time to do it. Why try to?

[edge]

OK, anyone...else with knowledge on dedicated stripping stills?

[rad14701]

I'd tend to agree with Prariepiss on this one...

However, if you want to build a small continuous stripper, several have been built by members here... I have been riding the fence for years on whether or not I'd like to use a compact stripper as a means of quickly reducing washes into low wines... It's one of those love/hate issues with me...

[sicktim]

I have built one. Although the column diameter and reflux control needs tweaking, it works great. Simple stove-top heated and most of the energy goes into heating the feed once it is in the column. I am designing an inline preheater (water heating element with a 120VAC voltage regulator) to take the burden off the boiler to heat the feed. Unfortunately, I was a dummy and had the water feeding into the preheater from top to bottom, letting the element be exposed to air and eventually melting down and burning up. After I fix that flaw, it should be working great. It took us 3 hrs to do 5 gal mash. You must continuously take off liquid from the bottom pot (boiler) so that you do not flood the boiler with liquid and eventually flood the column. This is a simple chemical engineering design and I used copper scrubbers and got a great purity.

The nice thing is that you do not need a large boiler. I used a small SS pot and lid from wally-world for 4 bucks (8 quarts i think). Slapped a thermo on the side, hole for valve on bottom and a sight glass for liquid height (very important!) Again, my only flaws were in the reflux control design and the preheater. The column will do, but it is not optimal (1" diameter). I have a feeling that if you had a bigger column, preheater, and good reflux control, you could finish a 5 gal batch in an hour or so.

[edge]

Thanks, I'll be interested on your progress.

I am a bit curious as to why you would not preheat with the distillate, the heat is already there and its free!

edge.

[sicktim]

That is something I considered, but it would also act as a condenser if used for preheat. Therefore adjusting the feedrate would adjust the reflux, therefore removing a degree of freedom (control) in the system. You could easily route a simple valve tubing system from that one condenser to achieve this if you feel that you would like to control the heat and energy use (then if you wanted to achieve some other reflux rate, then you could switch it to direct feed.). I had thought about making a large area heat exchanger and pumping the bottoms to heat the feed. There is enough energy in the bottoms (near boiling point), to heat the feed as well. All heat utilities would work, its just how complicated you want to get with it. If you are designing a large capacity plant (producing 1000s of gal of product), heat recovery could save a ton of money a day, but if you are only making <1 gal of product for every random run you do, it may be more of a headache and higher upfront capitol cost and not really worth it, but interesting to do for testing.

I had thought about it, and bought a cheap centrifugal pump (used for ponds), to pump a hot liquid out of a 5 gal bucket and through a heat exchanger and back into the bucket. The heat exchanger I made was pretty crappy. Aluminum box (made from sheet aluminum) with many baffles and a copper coil running through. I used Alumniweld rods to "solder" the box shut. Took forever, box wasn't strong and it leaked when under pressure (sprays going everywhere). I have pictures somewhere, but i know that since I am new here I probably cannot post pictures for a while. I thought it would be immensely simpler to make a heater with a water heating element (controlled by a cheap voltage regulator; btw these things are great for this application where people buy expensive variacs because they are rated for very high power: Mine is rated to control 120 VAC up to 3800W, just get another cheap ammeter and hook that baby up and you can control the power easily and visibly). Just as long as you make an upward flowing heater and don't boil the liquid inside, you can heat the feed very quickly and safely.