Thumper question.

[hoochinoo]

Hi Folks,

I have made my second run with a pot still using a thumper. First time I noticed that amount of liquid in the thumper increased during the run. The second time I decided to measure and found that there is a 8 cup increase.

Any suggestions to remedy this. I was thinking to shorten the arm length between the boiler and the thumper.



My thumper is 2 gallon capacity.




Here are the dimensions of my set up.

Thanks.

[Tater]

Its gonna happen run little slower might help a bit.

[goose eye]

why you lookin to change it . have you floated a tester in it. mostky that aint the licker
left behind.

so im tole

[Dnderhead]

Goose is right thumpers work as a "parasite" still when it comes up to temperature the alcohol evaporates leaving some water behind

[blanikdog]

I have a perfectly satisfactory pot still that gives me a very good product. I swore I would never alter it and now I find myself making another one. I guess the only way to really experience the product from a thumper is to try one, so now I'll just have to build a thumper into it to find out. I can always toss it away if I wish. Bugrit!!

blanik

[Dnderhead]

Blanikdog why not make thumper so you can convert to a spirit still if you want ? Just size so that it would hold 2d-or 3d run from your pot
about the only difference is the input from the still ,made right you could cap that

[hoochinoo]

why you lookin to change it . have you floated a tester in it. mostky that aint the licker
left behind.

I did but the ABV% was about 20%. I started out with 14 cups of water in the thumper and came to have 22 cups at the end.

The reason I was thinking of shortening the length of the arm was maybe to cut down the travel path of the vapor and reducing the liquid accumulation in the thumper.

[Dnderhead]

for flavor use ---wash in thumper
for efficient---use heads--tales
for clean ----use water the thumper needs alcohol in it to be affective After the water builds up enough alcohol it wont take on more (just leave it in there) you can put thumper juice back in your next wash ( I preferred wash)

[theholymackerel]

I did but the ABV% was about 20%. I started out with 14 cups of water in the thumper and came to have 22 cups at the end.

Yep.

The thumper is raisin' the ABV%. It's doin' this by seperatin' the alcohol from the water... where did ya expect the water to go?

[Dnderhead]

If you use water in your thumper you will loose some alcohol in it That's why i used wash and also for flavor. if the alcohol keep building
up you know your not running hard enough to git thumper up to temperature ,you could try to insulate arm-/thumper to keep heat in also the thumper could be to big for still ( not enough heat from still to keep thumper hot ) its like running a secant still but being a "parasite "it depends heat from
main still . not enough heat you will loose alcohol ( alcohol will just condense in water) too much heat and you will boil water out of thumper
Hope this makes sense I'm not to good on this light box ( Id make another run with same thumper "juice" and see if alcohol increases more in thumper
if it does you will know it is not hot enough

[blanikdog]

Blanikdog why not make thumper so you can convert to a spirit still if you want ? Just size so that it would hold 2d-or 3d run from your pot
about the only difference is the input from the still ,made right you could cap that

Not a bad idea, dunder. I have no idea why I decided to make another still anyway. I just liked the look of a nice shiny tapered lyne arm. The weather must be getting to me, or perhaps it's old age racing up, but I don't care what the reason is, I want to do it!!!!

blanik

[blanikdog]

for flavor use ---wash in thumper ...

I guess it would help if the wash were pre-heated?

blanik

[Dnderhead]

Yes you could preheat some heated thumper until it got going on is own .it makes a difference how long you are going to run as you notice it takes
time to git going once started it will go all night I thank it really works best on long runs. but I dont make 8-10 hour runs anny more

[goose eye]

i aint sure what you lookin . quanity or quality.

[blanikdog]

i aint sure what you lookin . quanity or quality.

Quality goose. I used to go for quantity but having a bit more experience these days I find that quality beats quantity hands down.

blanik.

[hoochinoo]

There are some good points here and they make sense.

- Yes, I do get an increase in the volume of liquid in the thumper with the measured ABV% I provided. However that is diluted in the overall volume. Not sure if it would make sense to search and calculate in reality how much hooch I lost.

On the other hand, when I actually started to collect distillate, the first 100 ml were heads, the off color stuff.

So how do we explain that. Am I missing something from the readings that I may have forgotten?

If I am to compare this operation to the reflux column I also operate. With that I collect the heads and continue on to collect the rest.

- Yes, I agree that it takes time to heat up the thumper and actually all of the copper all the way to the condenser, it all become very hot!

That is why I was thinking to reduce the size of the arm and shortening the length from 32 1/2 inches as I have indicated in my diagram, thinking, maybe it would help charge and heat up the thumper faster.

[Dnderhead]

You could try a shorter "arm" mite help but I'm more inclined to thank that the accumulated alcohol is left after still is shut down
delayed action , as still runs out of alcohol - you shut down still--thumper shuts down with alcohol still in it (i would thank running into tales
further world confirm this ( when running take down to 5-10% and see if that isn't what your thumper "juice" is

[hoochinoo]

I'm more inclined to thank that the accumulated alcohol is left after still is shut down

Absolutely not. I had a marker on the glass thumper before the operation and observed the operation all the time. Here is what I observed in the thumper and how it was bubbling:

Since I have a thermometer at the top of the main column I see about three styles of bubbling:
a. while the temp in the boiler is rising to reach 165 degrees f, big bubbles come into the thumper with breaks in the intervals
b. once the temp indicates 170 to 180 degrees f, the bubbles change form into small and rapid discharge from the pipe, this is where the accumulation of liquid is happening.
c. maintains the temp 178 to 185, I adjust the temperature to the boiler, lower it a bit and once the system is going, you can bubbling where the water in the thumper is being thrashed around. This the stage that I start getting distillate and continues on till my ABV% output drops.

[goose eye]

how much time you rekon you gonna save cutin it shorter. by looks you gonna have that doublein keg
dam nearbout on top of the fire an that is boocoodinkydow. you ever seed a likker fire. if you gonna play with fire put that doublein keg in a pot of water an heat water doublein keg an all.


so im tole

[hoochinoo]

how much time you rekon you gonna save cutin it shorter.

I don't know? That is what I am hoping that someone has tried this among us.

I use electric. If I was to cut the arm, the thumper would be about 15 to 18 inches away.

[punkin]

I can't see the benefit in shortening it, not that i know any thing about thumpers.

I do know that if you try to keep ahead of your inch copper thumper arm coming up to temp, you'll be running your hand along it pretty damn fast
Try it yourself, wait till it comes to temp half way along then hold your hand along it as long as you can...
Cutting six inches or twelve inches of it will probably save you about 8 seconds of heat up time

[theholymackerel]

Why not just insulate as much metal as possible?

[Dnderhead]

What I meant was that after shutting down the still the tumper no longer gits heat to work so the alcohol stays there . if you want to git it out you will have to heat the thumper after still is shut down and as far as having alcohol in it , they always do, ( it wont work until it does) just keep using same "juice" (if you want) or dump it in next run (if you want) otherwise you will not git read of it ( you can thank of it as two tanks if you pumped from one tank to another ( especially if it has a head start as still does)then out when first tank emptied the second tank would still have water in it. you would have to keep pumping the scened tank to empty it ( the big boys have multiple stills they have wash still -low wine still-and spirit still and all heated ) and I'm shore
that they have to do the same thing (as, shut down wash -then shut down- low wine- then shut down spirit still

[Dnderhead]

Hears some reading http://distillers.tastylime.net/library ... tm#thumper" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[hoochinoo]

Hears some reading

Thanks a lot. It makes sense now.

[Alsgood]

20 gallon pot still with 5 1/2 gallon thumper and worm condenser. I,m trying to add more flavor with the thumper with NON-formited pulp with added low wines. I have herd about shooting your thumper after fors and heads. But has anyone tried to remove fors and heads from the boiler thru worm/ condenser then turning off boiler and then add your thumper with PRE-HEATED pulp and low wines?