Pope's 10-plate Continuous Column

[pope]

Thought I'd start with an overview.

Goal: Ten plates of steam-powered foamy madness to strip alcohol from grain slurry (a meal- or flour-consistency on-the-grain mash).

To do it I'm making plates like these, the red holes are where copper rod on a bottom plate will support the two plates above it... the two upper plates will be 3.87" and the bottom 4", so that the bottom rests on the rim of the pipe below it. This section will be 24" of 4" SS pipe, there will be three sections, and the tenth plate will be in a fourth, smaller section up top where the mash slurry feeds into the column and there's a take-off fitting that runs into the product condenser.

That's phase I. Phase II will add on a few heat exchangers or HX's (horizontal shotgun condensers) so the hot waste mash off the bottom of the column is recycled in.

Other conversations on the topic include:

Pope's steam boiler: viewtopic.php?f=92&t=77118

Yummy's continuous build: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=76761

Getsmokin's steam boiler: viewtopic.php?f=92&t=74628&p=7594499#p7594499

Getsmokin's continuous build: viewtopic.php?f=92&t=77453

Here's the plate layout, .25" perf with a 5/8" hole for the downcomer (no cap):

plate layout.png