how much water?

[nickbbb]

I have a clawhammer supply 5 gal still. How much water would I need on hand for the condensing? Is there a formula or just trial and error to figure it out? I have always just hooked it up to a faucet for this but I am wanting to try to reuse water rather than just letting it run down the drain. Thanks!

[Kegg_jam]

A lot of variables there.
.
You could do a run hooked up to the faucet and start filling up buckets with the waste water.

Then you'd know for sure.

[nickbbb]

Ah!! Keep it simple! Now I'm embarrassed I did not think of that. Thanks!!

[Bagasso]

I have a clawhammer supply 5 gal still. How much water would I need on hand for the condensing? Is there a formula or just trial and error to figure it out? I have always just hooked it up to a faucet for this but I am wanting to try to reuse water rather than just letting it run down the drain. Thanks!

Thats a potstill, right? I remember the rule of thumb being 2 times the boiler size.

[ranger_ric]

i run a 5 gallon pot still with a 33" Liebig condenser and have 10 gallons in a cooler being pumped by a little pond pump. I generally go through about 15 gallons of cooling water. It is possible that I could allow the water to get a lot warmer but with safety in mind I never let the cooling water get above 95°. I have it set up to where I can siphon into a 5 gallon bucket, and then when the bucket is full i use a garden hose to add about 5 gallons to the cooler. This all runs through a little pond pump that will do 5 feet of lift ($20 at Lowes). Seems to work well, water is definitely pushing 95°+ by the time I finish my low wines.
Be safe..

[mason jar]

I used to run my old 10 gallon pot still and 30" liebig condenser using about 27 gallons of water. I ran it pretty
fast so by the end of the run the water was pretty hot to the touch. I didn't measure the temperature so I'm
not sure exactly how hot it was. So like ranger_ric, I used a bit more than the rule of thumb. Maybe that's
technically a little too much water, but I was trying to keep my product fairly cool, though that is probably
not strictly necessary.

Just a thought, but if you don't want to mess with water, you might think about trying an air-cooled condenser:
Shameless plug: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 87&t=54596
You could make one a bit smaller than mine if you're going to stay with a 5 gallon still.