Relative elevation of kettle, thumper, and worm
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2025 7:52 am
I am upsizing my setup from a 1.5 gallon kettle to an 8-gallon milk-can-jug kettle and I'll be adding a thumper. I don't have any column elements so far so this will be running as a pot still.
I'll be setting everything up every time I run on a work table in my shop, so I'm thinking of making an easily storable stand for the worm and possibly the thumper before I finalize the plumbing.
I have to elevate my worm because the outlet is close to the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket it's built in and the outlet has to be raised enough off the table to get a jar under. So a worm stand is one piece I have to fabricate. With the worm elevated, the outlet of the kettle and the inlet of the worm are almost at the same level.
The thumper could sit on my work table without a stand, but that would put a 20-ish inch vertical run from the outlet of the thumper to the entrance of the worm tubing. I'm wondering if that will have an impact on flavor notes carrying over to my product.
My small 1-1/2 gallon rig always seemed to deliver a fairly neutral spirit, no matter what mash recipe I used and I'm hoping my new setup will yield more flavor, especially if I run part of my mash in the thumper.
So I guess the crux of my question is should I elevate my thumper to minimize the vertical run into my condenser?
I'll be setting everything up every time I run on a work table in my shop, so I'm thinking of making an easily storable stand for the worm and possibly the thumper before I finalize the plumbing.
I have to elevate my worm because the outlet is close to the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket it's built in and the outlet has to be raised enough off the table to get a jar under. So a worm stand is one piece I have to fabricate. With the worm elevated, the outlet of the kettle and the inlet of the worm are almost at the same level.
The thumper could sit on my work table without a stand, but that would put a 20-ish inch vertical run from the outlet of the thumper to the entrance of the worm tubing. I'm wondering if that will have an impact on flavor notes carrying over to my product.
My small 1-1/2 gallon rig always seemed to deliver a fairly neutral spirit, no matter what mash recipe I used and I'm hoping my new setup will yield more flavor, especially if I run part of my mash in the thumper.
So I guess the crux of my question is should I elevate my thumper to minimize the vertical run into my condenser?