Thumper candidate
Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2025 10:36 am
Ok gents, I've been hovering over this idea of a thumper for a long time.
I know I could use one for stripping the alcohol out of grain and pressed custard, and also for adding fruit to, when distilling my upcoming brandy runs.
But most of all, I want one to experiment with esterification in rum.
I have at my disposal, yet another tea urn (Commercial water boiler, a big one 30L I think) and it's virtually new and fully working. It has a great lid for sealing, handles fixed on with sealed SS bolts inside and a tap that has all SS internals. Even the knob on the top is on a welded SS thread, so I don't have to mess with any of the original build, just the lid connections. It seems like the perfect candidate for a thumper/infusion pot/esterification chamber.
Since there's loads of real estate on the lid, I'd like to do separate in and out ports as I may want to block one and use the vessel as a boiler now and again for smaller runs.
My main boiler has a 2.5" tri clamp connection for the riser, but I have the spare Tri clamp bits to step down to 2", 1.5" and 1" if needed.
(I go from 2.5" to 1" for my current Liebig anyway) I have copper for the down pipe, 28mm.
So, before I do anything with this, probably on the weekend, any words of wisdom or suggestions are welcome.
My loose plan, is to solder a 1.5" flange on, and use a drilled out blank to fit the down pipe in 28mm, so these sized bits:- Then 1.5" out on other side of lid, to a 90 then my condenser. I also have a pair of these, that I could use if I can make them work:- Tri clamp to threaded female, 16mm internal diameter.
So, what do you guys think?
I know I could use one for stripping the alcohol out of grain and pressed custard, and also for adding fruit to, when distilling my upcoming brandy runs.
But most of all, I want one to experiment with esterification in rum.
I have at my disposal, yet another tea urn (Commercial water boiler, a big one 30L I think) and it's virtually new and fully working. It has a great lid for sealing, handles fixed on with sealed SS bolts inside and a tap that has all SS internals. Even the knob on the top is on a welded SS thread, so I don't have to mess with any of the original build, just the lid connections. It seems like the perfect candidate for a thumper/infusion pot/esterification chamber.
Since there's loads of real estate on the lid, I'd like to do separate in and out ports as I may want to block one and use the vessel as a boiler now and again for smaller runs.
My main boiler has a 2.5" tri clamp connection for the riser, but I have the spare Tri clamp bits to step down to 2", 1.5" and 1" if needed.
(I go from 2.5" to 1" for my current Liebig anyway) I have copper for the down pipe, 28mm.
So, before I do anything with this, probably on the weekend, any words of wisdom or suggestions are welcome.
My loose plan, is to solder a 1.5" flange on, and use a drilled out blank to fit the down pipe in 28mm, so these sized bits:- Then 1.5" out on other side of lid, to a 90 then my condenser. I also have a pair of these, that I could use if I can make them work:- Tri clamp to threaded female, 16mm internal diameter.
So, what do you guys think?