Autopsy of a liebig.

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NormandieStill
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Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by NormandieStill »

So... I made a mess! (TL;DR for those who don't want to click through: I started trying to clean an imaginary spider's eggsack out of my liebig, got something stuck, went all caveman with a blowtorch and melted out the solder!).

After trying and failing to cleanly disassemble the liebig, I gave up and took a angle grinder to it. After removing the stubborn reducer at the end, I was able to unsolder the remaining sections of the shell. (My shell was made from scraps of 28mm tube joined with couplers so I can strip it down in sections). The plan was to strip back to the point where the solder blobs were, heat the inner tube to melt them out, and then rebuild my now slightly shorter liebig. But when I got down to the point where I should have been able to heat, I found this:
Broken liebig.jpg
My inner tube had (at some point) collapsed. I swear it didn't look like this when I built it. And now I'm wondering what catastrophic event I didn't notice that caused it to collapse. The only thing I can think of is that time I forgot to open the outlet valve and that the resulting pressure build-up coupled with an existing weak spot and collapsed the tube. In any case, it's clear that I'm not just melting out some solder. I don't know that I've got any tools that would let me anneal and re-open that tube, so best case I'm replacing the inner tube. Looks like it's going to be a little longer before I get any stilling done! :esad:
"I have a potstill that smears like a fresh plowed coon on the highway" - Jimbo

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Demy
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Re: Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by Demy »

Wow, I had never seen a collassed Liebig ....... I would have sworn that it was accidentally crushed before assembly. Thanks for the photo.
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Salt Must Flow
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Re: Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by Salt Must Flow »

I would say your guess is correct. With no water flow, it boils, creates steam and with a limited or restricted exit for the pressure to escape, it collapsed it.
NormandieStill
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Re: Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by NormandieStill »

Demy wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:59 am Wow, I had never seen a collassed Liebig ....... I would have sworn that it was accidentally crushed before assembly. Thanks for the photo.
You can see the shape of the wire spiral I put in to encourage turbulence. It was a flush fit to the tube when I put the shell on.

The current plan is to build my shotgun condenser, and see if I can't shorten the liebig which will then be exclusively used for spirit runs.
Salt Must Flow wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 12:14 pm I would say your guess is correct. With no water flow, it boils, creates steam and with a limited or restricted exit for the pressure to escape, it collapsed it.
Makes sense...
... and as I type I realise that there's another possibility. This winter, I didn't pack down the still one night and the coolant hoses froze a little. But it looks like the water in the condenser might have frozen more completely. I think I've solved my puzzle.

So for the what not to do forum (maybe a mod can move this thread). Do not leave your condensers filled with water in freezing temperatures.

Interestingly the condenser still seemed to work just fine. If I hadn't bothered to look down it I might have carried on using it for many years before realising.
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StillerBoy
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Re: Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by StillerBoy »

Salt Must Flow wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 12:14 pm With no water flow, it boils, creates steam and with a limited or restricted exit for the pressure to escape, it collapsed it.
There's no way a properly built liebig will collapsed without water flow.. as I've steam many of them, and to steam them, you have shut off the water flow, also similarly when using a dephlegmator, they don't collapse either..
NormandieStill wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 12:31 pm This winter, I didn't pack down the still one night and the coolant hoses froze a little. But it looks like the water in the condenser might have frozen more completely. I think I've solved my puzzle.

Interestingly the condenser still seemed to work just fine.
That's assuming that you didn't used it after the freeze up, because there's no way the liebig would of worked properly..

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shadylane
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Re: Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by shadylane »

Sounds like the damaged condenser had learned bad habits and wasn't experienced or educated enough to know it couldn't work properly. :moresarcasm:


What worries me is the damaged condenser could have been easily plugged by puke. :shock:
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Re: Autopsy of a liebig.

Post by NormandieStill »

Finally managed to align both the time and the parts for rebuilding my liebig. I took advantage of the situation to lengthen it a little further... an extra length of outer tube and some male-female 28-16 adapters (which mean that I didn't need to tack another length of pipe after the Tees) got me to around 90cm of cooled length (I was at 78cm originally).

The whole lot slotted together rather nicely and my soldering skills have improved to the point where cleaning up the joints with a file was worth it (it took about 10mins... I think I'd have spent a couple of hours of clean-up on my first attempt!).
Condenser rebuilt.jpg
Leak tested, cleaned-up, vinegar run, sac run (the nice thing about having been at this for a while is having a solid collection of fores + heads available for sac runs), and a litre of gin distilled and bottled... in the course of an afternoon and evening. Damn tasty gin too!

Now I just need to wait for the replacement element (I bought an element that I could mount low enough in my keg to run 10L batches and the damn thing was made of 201 stainless and rusted out after 2 runs!) to arrive and I can finally clear my "backlog" of stripping runs... in time for apple season.
"I have a potstill that smears like a fresh plowed coon on the highway" - Jimbo

A little spoon feeding *For New & Novice Distillers
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