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Howdy fellas

I’ve been reading this great site for a while now and have found lots of information about distilling. I’ve built a reflux still and in about a week I’ll be ready for my first run with freshly pressed grape skins. I have most of the information I need to get started, however there’s one detail I need clarification.

The question is about scrubbers, how of it is necessary and where in the column they should be placed ( top or bottom).

Thanks

Scrubbers are generally run the full length of the column. However, if you are wanting to run the grape skins to make a grappa, then you want little reflux. In that case you might run with no scrubbers at all, or just a couple higher up in the column.

Now, FOR the scrubbers, be absolutely sure they are 100% stainless steel, or better yet, 100% copper. Be wary of copper "colored" or copper platted scrubbers. They are usually just simple steel, with a copper plating. Those are NO GOOD at all for distillation. If you buy copper scrubbers, then use a magnet (strong one). If there is ANY reaction from the magnet, then the scrubbers are not 100% copper.

Before running this still with anything you are thinking of drinking, be SURE to run a test run with water, looking for and patching ANY vapor leaks (or leaks in the condensor). After you have successfully done that, then do another run with some cheap wine (you can water that down just a little). You can also ferment a cheap sugar wash, and distill that instead of the cheap wine. You are doing this, to clean out the still. There is a lot of junk in a freshly made still, and it will NOT be cleaned out, until a good ethanol run has been done. If you do not do this first cleanout run, then all of the junk will end up in your first run, and then be injested by you. Not good.

Oh, btw, welcome, enjoy yourself, and be safe.

H.

Thanks Husker

I’ll take your advice with the first runs, in fact I will sterilize it with potassium sulfite and just distill water after that.

I have some very thin stainless steel wire cloth that if crumbled, looks like a scrubber, I actually plan on forming two large scrubbers made of this stuff and insert one on top of the column, (between the top cooling pipe and the condenser tee) and another on entire bottom part of the column.
With two ½ cooling pipes running through the 2 inch column, it seems impossible to fill the area between these cooling pipes (center of the column) with scrubbers, unless I cut them in strips and shove them down in place loosely. Another option is not to pack this center area or use glass marbles, would that be a problem?

Also, how do I prevent scorching the grape skins when distiling the whole pomace? is there anything one should place on the bottom of the boiler under the grape skins like a layer of scrubbers or something?


Thanks

Yeah, those cooling tubes cause many problems and just plain don't work well... Any chance you could remove them and patch the holes...??? It would be well worth the effort...

some use marbles in the column, you get a little more concentrated product without loosing too much flavor

Thanks

Sounds like it won't be a problem packing the column with two distinct products; the bottom and top ends with stainless mesh and the center area between the cooling pipes, with glass marbles.
I figure by next wed. my wine will be ready to press and I'll have plenty of pommace (sp) to experiment with.

Am I right in thinking rad14701 is talking about the flow and return pipes for cooling that pass through the column. Should they not be run there at all then? You see so many designes like that. Or am I cunfused?

harllequin1971 wrote:Am I right in thinking rad14701 is talking about the flow and return pipes for cooling that pass through the column. Should they not be run there at all then? You see so many designes like that. Or am I cunfused?

Correct, you should not use them at all... The style of column you described, with reflux tubes in the lower column, is more difficult to control than columns without the tubes... As you have found, it is almost impossible to get structured packing above the tubes... I have never used this style of column but I'm sure several members who have would agree with my advice... If they truly worked well then more people would be using the design rather than building something else... This has been discussed many times in other threads here in the forums...

What exactly is more difficult to control, destilate output or reflux percentage?

Thanks

rad14701 wrote:

harllequin1971 wrote:Am I right in thinking rad14701 is talking about the flow and return pipes for cooling that pass through the column. Should they not be run there at all then? You see so many designes like that. Or am I cunfused?

Correct, you should not use them at all... The style of column you described, with reflux tubes in the lower column, is more difficult to control than columns without the tubes... As you have found, it is almost impossible to get structured packing above the tubes... I have never used this style of column but I'm sure several members who have would agree with my advice... If they truly worked well then more people would be using the design rather than building something else... This has been discussed many times in other threads here in the forums...

They are interconnected.
If you increase the reflux, your distillate collection rate will drop.
If you speed up your collection rate, your reflux rate well drop.


Cheers.

joed wrote:What exactly is more difficult to control, destilate output or reflux percentage

I'll attempt to give a better explanation without science and physics... The basic theory behind this design was to produce reflux by cooling the distillate vapors as they move up the column... However, due the the lack of ability to separately control coolant flow through the tubes and top condenser the operation becomes clumsy and inefficient... True, those tubes do create reflux, but you only get reflux and not fractional distillation in its truest sense... A packed column causes a variance in temperatures from bottom to top by having distillate condense onto the packing, getting heavier as liquid, and returning further down the column until it returns to a vaporous state or drops back into the boiler... You can't achieve this efficiency with two cooling tubes... I consider this design to be little more than a pot still with limited reflux, not a true refractioning reflux column...

I hope this helps... Like I said, this has been discussed previously...