Double thumper run

[rubberduck71]

Foreshadowing warning: LME is a foaming BEAST!

So a buddy of mine occasionally loans me his rig. It's a 15 gal SS Brewhaus rig w/ a thumper & 2x1500w 120v elements (3" triclamp lid). My personal rig is a 35L Digiboil 120v & I have the alembic dome & both pot & reflux heads, a 36x2" column stuffed with copper mesh, & a Brewhaus voltage controller.

I've done several thumper runs & got intrigued by the thought of "if 1 thumper can do a 1-and-done run, how about 2 thumpers?" The thought being a single thumper is akin to a 1.5 distillation, so double thumpers would be 2+, right???

There's a lengthy double thumper thread in the Thumper/Design heading that I've been following: viewtopic.php?t=89605

I ordered the larger thumper Brewhaus offers (~6L) to duplicate the one already on hand, with a 2" triclamp adaptor so it can be used on my rig.

This past weekend, I did my first run:
~7 gal LME barley/wheat wash in boiler + ~1 gal stripping low wines (learned hard way that 10 gal LME wash in 15 gal boiler will hot-break & puke!!!)
1.5L of wash + 1.5L low wines in 1st thumper
1.5L of wash + 1.5L high wines in 2nd thumper
(thumper charges were inspired by another thread that mentions Caribbean rum distillery protocols)

It took less than 1 hr for temps to come up to 180F. About 20 min more to push over to 1st thumper, another 20 min to push to 2nd thumper. I reduced power to 1x1500w element ~85v on my controller (117v is 100% for reference).

As I mentioned above, LME is a foaming beast. The boiler puked into 1st thumper & the LME in 2nd thumper just wouldn't stop puking lightly into collection jars. Note to self: don't do that again... Shut everything down after 4 jars & no signs of stabilization. Both thumpers full ~90% with liquid.

Drained 2nd thumper completely back into boiler & refilled with the 4x500 mL collected jars (all ~80% ABV). Drained 1st thumper halfway into boiler, then restarted.

Be careful when cracking triclamps with thumper rig! Hot vapor & even some back-pressure liquid spewage!!!

2nd attempt was much smoother:
Collected 10x500 mL jars starting @ 90% (!!!???!!!) down to 68% & shut it down. 12 hrs in basement & getting tired... Jar #8 was 82% but 9 & 10 had significant drops so figured I was at the end anyway.

Looking forward to next run of hopefully rye or bloody butcher.

And it was encouraging to see that just 1x1500w element throttled to ~75% had enough power to push 2 thumpers.

Key takeaways:
Did I mention LME likes to puke? Even with 33% headspace?
Only fill thumpers 1/3
Impressed with elevated ABV & duration it held for most of the run. As a comparison, the single thumper run of same wash started @ 83% had dropped to 66% by jar 6.