Water supply temperature for the condensor.

hoochinoo · Post by **hoochinoo** » Fri May 18, 2007 5:58 pm

Folks,

Performed some searches on the subject and was not able to dig up any relevant information. I am sure it must have been discussed.

What do you folks keep the water supply temperature to the condenser if you are using a closed loop water from a tube?

I was thinking, if the old timers were using creek water, it must have been on the cool side. Tap water is cool at first but the condenser sure warms up the water in a hurry.

Would dry ice work?

new_moonshiner · Post by **new_moonshiner** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:03 pm

50 -65 F is good Im more concerned about the temp of the water leaving the condenser than anything ,the warmer the water the more volume you will need to knock down the vapors it takes less to condense alcohol vapor than it does water . maybe run ya setup with water to get some ideas if youre cooling water supply is cool enough if it will condense the water vapors then it should have no problem condensing the alcohol vapors , the dry Ice I cant answer that one .

hoochinoo · Post by **hoochinoo** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:19 pm

I already tried with water and it is knocking down the water vapors and it is producing output.
Well, if I keep the tub temperature in the range you specified I would have to use ice to cool the water down then. Where did the temp range come from?
Can you please give me a pointer to look at it.

Thanks.

MikeyT · Post by **MikeyT** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:28 pm

I put my hand around the liebig arm and if it doesn't feel cool, then I let the water pump empty out the tub and start filling it again. I'm usually getting into the 5th+ pint before this is necessary. But, it all depends on how hard you drive the still. I have a 32 gallon container for the water tub.

new_moonshiner · Post by **new_moonshiner** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:38 pm

that temp range was what i try to start with , 50 -65 F if you have a pump located in the bottom of the barrel then it will generate heat as well so bigger pump is not always better you need to have a 3 way valve on the outlet side of the pump so you slow the water down and divert some of the un needed water back into the barrel . and as the temp of the water increases then you ll need to increase the flow rate by adjusting the water flow more, if youre getting too much heat too fast and cant produce enough volume then you can either remove some of the water and add more with a hose or, you can remove a little and drop some jugs of ice in there to cool the water, the outlet temp of the water off the condenser and the vapor temp will tell you what you need , lots of cold water really fast isnt what youre after here , that will drop the vapor temp and take forever to bring it up , and also when you do get it up where ya want it then as the water temp of the barrel increases you have no more volume .and you have a barrel of warm water and a pump pumping all it can with vapor temp on the rise which isnt again what you want .. Dont drive the still too fast .slow is better youll get a better product with fewer problems just bring the pot up to boiling and keep the heat right there untill you get into the tails anyways this will require less water also. the amount of cooling is determined by the amount of heat input .hope this helps some

Post by **theholymackerel** » Sat May 19, 2007 5:56 am

If yer usin' a coil in a bucket ya don't need ice, runnin' water, or any other coolin' source if yer bucket is bigger than yer boiler.

At the end of the run the water will be hot and even steamin' a bit on the top layer, but will still knock down the alcohol vapor, and when yer done ya got a nice bucket of hot water to clean yer gear up with.

BTW: don't stir the water in yer coolin' bucket durin' a run... ya WANT yer coolin' water to seperate into layers based on temperature.

hoochinoo · Post by **hoochinoo** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:13 am

I see what you are saying. This becomes the concept of how the water heaters work. The warm water settles on top of the cold water. Makes sense.

Thanks.

wineo · Post by **wineo** » Sat May 19, 2007 2:22 pm

I freeze 2- 5 gallon buckets solid in my freezer,and put them,one at a time in my 30 gallon barrel.After a few minutes,you can pour out the big chunk of ice,and put the 2nd one in.I have a small pond pump in the bottom of the barrel,feeding a 30 inch leibig condencer.It stays cold.My runs last for 1-2 hours, and its still cold when im done.
wineo

Monster Mash · Post by **Monster Mash** » Sat May 19, 2007 3:36 pm

This is an excellent thread and I am wondering about the emerging distillate temperature.
Does it matter? I am seeing temps from 45C to 48C. Does this effect the quality of the product?

hoochinoo · Post by **hoochinoo** » Sat May 19, 2007 3:53 pm

I don't think that it would matter since you have started collecting or making your cut in a range starting at 79deg C, the out coming distillate is and should not be effected.

As far as the temperature of the water feed to the condenser I have not been able to dig up any concrete data supporting desired water temperatures. I keep thinking, in order to knock down all of vapors while collecting the colder supply the better.

Hopefully, more folks with more knowledge and experience can shed additional light on to this subject.

Thanks.

wineo · Post by **wineo** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:49 pm

From my experence of running both my rigs,and making improvements to my condencers,and cooling system,I think ,the cooler the better.If the distillate is coming off too hot,you will be putting vapor in the air,loosing some proof,and making more danger of having a fire.Both of my columns used to run a little on the warm side,but I made bigger condencers for both,and no longer have that problem.I run ice water in my potstill,but just run water from the faucet on my nixon/stone.My pump isnt powerful enough to get a good flow of water up that high.I have 18ft of 1/4in copper double wound coil in the top of my reflux.
wineo

Monster Mash · Post by **Monster Mash** » Sun May 20, 2007 12:13 am

wineo wrote:From my experence of running both my rigs,and making improvements to my condencers,and cooling system,I think ,the cooler the better.If the distillate is coming off too hot,you will be putting vapor in the air,loosing some proof,and making more danger of having a fire.Both of my columns used to run a little on the warm side,but I made bigger condencers for both,and no longer have that problem.I run ice water in my potstill,but just run water from the faucet on my nixon/stone.My pump isnt powerful enough to get a good flow of water up that high.I have 18ft of 1/4in copper double wound coil in the top of my reflux.
wineo

So other than losing some vapor into the air there are no quality issues?

new_moonshiner · Post by **new_moonshiner** » Sun May 20, 2007 5:26 am

look under cooling water.
http://homedistiller.org/equip/concept" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

MikeyT · Post by **MikeyT** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:44 am

Some old-timers say you want the distillate coming out cool to the touch. To hot, and it will impart a bad taste to the alcohol, so they say. When my liebig arm quits feeling cool to the touch, I start pumping out my cooling tub and replace the water with cool tap water that's probatly at 65° or so. If I'm running slow on an 8 gallon wash, I generally don't have to replace the cooling water. If I'm strippin, I do.

If your running in an air conditioned shop and have a fan blowing on top of the cooling water, you probably won't have to change the water.

rezaxis · Post by **rezaxis** » Mon May 21, 2007 10:18 am

Let me see if I can add something to this discussion.

The vapor condenser is a heat exchanger. Heat from the hot vapors gets "rejected" to the condenser water via conduction through the surface of the condenser that comes in contact with the vapor. The vapor condenser only has to turn the vapors back into a liquid. Only a minor temperature change need occor.

Alcohol vapors are at a lower temperature than water vapors. Hotter vapors are harder to condense then cooler vapors. That's where all the comments about a condenser having trouble condensing water, but working fine with alcohol come from.

A vapor condensers ability to condense vapors is a function of size of the surface area of the condenser that comes in contact with the vapors, and the temperature of the vapor contact surface of the condenser. The vapor variables are, vapor temperature, and how long the vapor stays in contact with the condenser (vapor speed.)

We can control the surface area of the vapor contact portion of the condenser. More coils, packing scrubber material next to it are some examples.

We can also control the temperature of the vapor contact surface of the condenser by running colder water through it and/or by varying the speed of the water through it. A colder vapor contact surface has a greater ability to suck the heat from a vapor.

The temperature of the condenser water at any point in the condenser directly relates to the temperature of the vapor condensing surface at that same point in the condenser. This is where people talk about the difference between condenser water temperature into the condenser vs the temperature of the water leaving the condenser. This in/out difference is called delta T.

Greater water flow and/or lower temperature water will lower the delta T, which lowers the combined temperature across the entire surface of the vapor contact area of a condenser. If a greater area of the vapor contact area stays colder, the ability of the condenser to condense vapors increases. You could speed up the water to a point where there is almost no delta T, and then it just wouldn't matter anymore how much faster you ran it. But as was said, colder is always better.

It takes time for a vapor to lose its heat. Vapor speed relates to how long the vapor stays in contact with the condensing surface. Obviously, the longer it stays in contact, the more of its heat will be rejected. All we need is for it is to turn back into a liquid. It needs to stay in contact long enough.

The condensed vapor (Condensate) temperature will be just a few degrees cooler than the vapor temp in an offset head still because of the time the the vapor/condensate and condensing surface stay in contact with one another. To measure %ABV you need to lower the condensate temperature to around room temp, that's why another condenser is required.

Maybe I'm all F'd up here and feel free to shoot me down on any point. I posted to try to help people understand. Writing it down helps me understand. I don't want to misunderstand these concepts, and I certainly don't want to lead someone into a misunderstanding either. So, I encourage any experts out there to chime in and clarify and fix any misunderstanding I might have expressed above.

Rez

Monster Mash · Post by **Monster Mash** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:35 pm

A good post. So is there any quality issues with a hot distillate?

wineo · Post by **wineo** » Mon May 21, 2007 10:04 pm

I think its more of a safety issue.I used to run warm,before I redid my condencers,and the only thing that i noticed was that the distillate aired out faster,because it was warm,and your hydrometer gave off readings because of the temp.
wineo

hoochinoo · Post by **hoochinoo** » Tue May 22, 2007 6:03 am

Your logic makes sense to me. To control the vapor speed, obviously one must control the boiler and that is if too much vapor visible to the eye is escaping into the atmosphere then the vapor speed is very high and there is not enough time for the vapors to come in contact with the condenser surface to fully condense.

I think mikeyT said something I was able to experience yesterday. The water temp to the condenser was being supplied from a 10 gallon tank and I added some ice to keep the water around 40 to 50 degrees F. I did touch the output distillate and it did feed cold to the touch. Sort of like it was cool and it wasn't. That is the water temp I will maintain for my future reference.

This is where I think I like the old time design of the pot stills better. All of the gases were filtered through water a natural filtering element and then the gases were all condensed in the worm bucket.

Surely, both systems pose their pros and cons.

Thanks to be in you company.

rezaxis · Post by **rezaxis** » Sat May 26, 2007 3:33 pm

hoochinoo: You made a statement about too much vapor escaping. ANY vapor escaping is too much vapor. None should escape. I have an offset head rig and I put a light surgical rubber glove over the top opening of it. It very readily indicates any escaping vapors by "waving" at me. It also readily confirms to my loved ones that I really am crazy!

Rez

hoochinoo · Post by **hoochinoo** » Sat May 26, 2007 5:08 pm

Rez,

I like the idea of the latex glove

, good one to try. The other day I covered the top with a paper towel.

However, I do agree that no vapor should escape. I was observing that due to the higher heat to the boiler it was working harder and pumping more vapors up the column. By simply adjusting the temp to the boiler I was able to reduce the vapors.
Only two actual hooch making runs and I have learned the importance of equilibrium and how to stay within a certain heat operating range.

Thank you.

Post by **bronzdragon** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 6:59 pm

My liebig condenser seems to be doing the job but very slowly. Has anyone tried attaching a worm to a liebig and running the liebig right into a worm bucket? Am I on the wrong track, trying to improve my condenser?

~r~

new_moonshiner · Post by **new_moonshiner** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:40 pm

coming off the liebig going into a worm in a barrel will not have any effect UNLESS there are some vapors making it past youre liebig It would drop the temp of the product down in case that might be needed to check for abv like in a parrots beak or something ..Just my take on it

wineo · Post by **wineo** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:57 pm

If your leibig is removable,try putting a piece of stretched out scrubber in the condencer.It will increse the cooling surface area,and cool alot better.
I do this on every run.It makes a big difference.

defcon4 · Post by **defcon4** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 8:15 pm

I currently use water straight from my garden hose and collect hot water from my condenser in buckets. Then I use the buckets of water in my washing machine to wash some clothes. That way I'm not wasting all that water, since we are in a drought.

I have thought about making a recirculating cooling system with a sump pump submerged in a bucket. My plan would be to have the hot water output from the condenser go through a radiator of some sort before it returns to the bucket.

I found this site which sells some smaller, computer sized radiators but the great thing is, they connect to common tubing sizes that us distillers already use (or could rig up to use).
http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/d ... =1&sort=3a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I'm assuming that if using a radiator like this, that the cooling water should have a bit of antifreeze in it to keep the radiator from corroding inside.

wineo · Post by **wineo** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 8:27 pm

I use a barrel and a pump,and 2-5 gallon ice cubes.

dunderhead · Post by **dunderhead** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:13 pm

Whate you put in you have to take out
what you do whith this is up to you
bath? pre heat wash? heat air? If you put in 5500btu--
100000btu what yould like to do with thatheat
heat your hot tub?
But havto get red of it. Alot depends on wher you live

Post by **bronzdragon** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 4:14 pm

Defcon, I was thinking of the same thing. But I felt that the small radiators for the computer cooling units would not keep up with the cooling needed for a still. I even thought about running two of the small radiators inline before going back into my recirc tub.

Currently I use about a 20-25 gallon tub for my recirc water and put the frozen jugs in it to cool down. The problem being that after the 8th or 9th hour, I have to start replacing the whole volume of water because the jugs aren't doing anything.

That is a good idea to use the water to do one's wash with though.

My liebig condenser is welded to the unit so I will have to find a different option.

Thanks for all the comments though, it has got me thinking about it from different angles.

~r~

thomas · Post by **thomas** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 4:37 pm

try you local car-dump, and find a large radiator, then buy 12-15 10cm computer fans, and attach them in a 3x5 or 2x6 pattern. Then you need a 12v power supply (from an old computer, or a car-battery charger). this will provide quite some cooling for a closed, or semi-closed curcuit, typical a bathtub or a large bucket (the 25l buckets you ferment the wash in?).

And if you have an icecube maker throw in a few of them as well

Post by **bronzdragon** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 5:14 pm

Although I wouldn't let an old radiator come within spitting distance of my still ... I had thought of a brand new motorcycle radiator. I get your idea though.

~r~

tracker0945 · Post by **tracker0945** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:40 pm

bronzdragon wrote:Although I wouldn't let an old radiator come within spitting distance of my still ... I had thought of a brand new motorcycle radiator. I get your idea though.

~r~

You are only running your cooling water through it, not your product. I dont see the problem.