Good morning (early here).
EDIT: let me rephrase my convoluted question, guys - I blame not having had my morning coffee yet, basically I wasn't human when I wrote the post.
How do you "put copper" in the vapor path if all your still components are SS? Do you put copper mesh in the column tubes or do you use some other material? Are you also "putting copper" in the lyne arm and at the spout where the product comes out of the PC?
Background "talk" from a coffee starved brain below:
As I was packing my column tubes with copper mesh for today's run with the reflux still I started thinking about the other reason to why have copper in the still. Often repeated on this forum, distillers are reminded to have copper somewhere in the vapor path because of the positive reaction that copper have on sulfur impurities in the alcohol vapors, cleaning some of it up.
In my case, one of my column tubes is made of copper, all other components of the still are made of SS (304). This equates to half of the total height of my column is copper when set up for reflux distilling, more so when in pot still mode, as it is the only riser I use. I figure this set up is sufficient.
However, with all my column tubes packed with copper mesh for the run today, I realized have a lot of extra copper mesh lying around. I was thinking if I should, for the sake of the copper's cleaning abilities, also put some loose mesh ends elsewhere in the vapor's path, for example in the elbow/lyne arm where vapors are taken to the product condenser. Would it make any difference to put some mesh there or would it rather introduce unwanted reflux at the critical point where vapors are supposed to leave the still?
Copper mesh in the vapor path
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- PalCabral
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Copper mesh in the vapor path
Last edited by PalCabral on Sun Feb 16, 2025 1:57 am, edited 2 times in total.
Ongoing projects: Infinite Grain Whiskey Shine; Green Diamond Whiskey v4
Recently completed projects: Mirabelle/Apriplum Eau de Vie; Lovegrass Bourbon
Recently completed projects: Mirabelle/Apriplum Eau de Vie; Lovegrass Bourbon