Whats the highest proof you get??

jacksonbrown

That 1.5" ferrule on the bottom is a great way to flood the column at higher power levels too.
The return to the boiler is where the flooding starts but it usually only gets noticed once its reached the top.

Thomasedwin

From the bottom of the column to the top of the cone I have right about 31 inches and the copper plates fill the top 15 inches of the column. Right now if I run mash straight from the fermenter 2 times I get right close to 90% ABV or 180 proof. So it makes sense that I need twice that height, or a 6 ' column to get 90% ABV in a single run. The elbow at the top is not limiting the height it's the celling in the basement where I run the still. When everything is put together and running I only have about 8 inches from the celling. The only thing I can do is put my gas burner closer to the floor, that would give me 2 and 1/2 or 3' more column space. The other thing I need to take into account is that I'm waiting for my 15.5 gallon keg boiler to get finished and it is 6 or 8 inches taller than the stock pot I'm using now. It seems like I need to make a hole new column altogether or add 3 more feet with 3 inch ferrule fittings. Yes, I should have gone twice as long but I just didn't have the celling room. I'm not giving up just yet.

Unsensibel

Just like the others said, you want to generate the reflux on top only and have it trickle down through either your plates or packed section.

Why don't you use your plate and packed setup with a coiled condenser on top?

That should get you there

Thomasedwin

I'm going to put all those plates much closer together on the top of the column, all 9 plates in a 6 inch bunch and then a 3 inch space and then pack the bottom of the column with both chips an copper scrubbers.

jacksonbrown

Are you sure you understand what a plate is and how it works?
It's not just cramming a bunch of flat disks into a column less than an inch apart.
You should just add a coil and pack the column you've got. Learn to play with that before deciding to change it. If it falls short ABV wise after you know its gone as far as it can then all you need to do throw in another 1' spool in between the boiler and column.
I'm getting the impression from you posts that your tiring to reinvent the wheel without fully understanding what the wheel does.
Like others are saying, just go with a proven concept.

FloridaCracker

@TheMechWarrior said:

I'd be putting a dephleg on top of that thing just like a standard Still Dragon still, there's a reason for that.

+1 on this.

The dephleg will make a HUGE difference. You will have better control of what gets through to the condenser. Might not be the speed you want but it will help with ABV.

SBB_

whoops how the hell do you "quote" in this forum :( ...sorry folks still finding my way around

Harry

@Thomasedwin, a little food for thought. Separating high strength ethanol from water takes ENERGY. How much? Well let's take an arbitrary figure f'rinstance as a quantity of energy. Say X. Let's say to get 90% a.v takes 1X input. To get 93% takes 2X energy. 3X gets you 94% and to get to 96% azeotrope requires a whopping 6X or even more! Lot of energy input to provide (and to remove again) for little percentage point gain. That's why most spirits are drawn at 90% or even less. Costs. Great if you can afford it but costs really begin to add up chasing true azeotropes like vodka or GNS, especially if you're anyways bigger than personal hobby size.

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....

FloridaCracker

@SBB_ said: whoops how the hell do you "quote" in this forum :( ...sorry folks still finding my way around

Go to the quote that you want and look at the very bottom. Click on quote. Then in the new "leave a comment" box move your cursor all the way to the bottom then add your response. To only quote part of a quote, delete the part that you don't want.

punkin

@SBB_ said: ....

You can also use the quote bubble in the top frame of the response box. Cut and paste the typing you want into the response box and highlight it. Then hit quote.

After the quote you need to hit a double enter to make a double line break otherwise you'll have your words tacked to the bottom of the quote.

The little sideways V sign represents quote.

Thomasedwin

I decided to put all the water cooled plates at the top of the column to act as a coil and then put copper scrubbers in the remaining bottom of the column. I put all the copper plates much closer together and shortened the copper water feed tubes. I'm just waiting to get my keg boiler back and a batch of mash to finish working to try it

Thomasedwin

jacksonbrown

100 buck says it floods like a MF.
Are they meant to be perf plates or just fins for a heat exchanger? Either way it ain't going to work.
Trial and error can be fun but it gets expensive, the answers you seek have already been given in this thread.

punkin

I reckon it may work as a cold finger if you pack it with some scrubbers. One way to find out.

jacksonbrown

My guess is that anything over a moderate power level the vapour will just hold up the liquid like a normal perf plate.
There's no control or separation of vapour/liquid paths. Normally vapour goes through correctly sized perfs and liquid falls through down comer.
What's the total open cross section on that bottom plate? x kW of vapour flowing through it and on start up we need 100% of that to fall through the same area as condensate? I don't see it happening unless you run the 4" column like it's only 1.5".
At really low power they'll chance into different paths but it won't take much pressure to hold up a few inches of liquid.

grim

It'll work better than the previous design.

The plates will act to increase surface area, it's not bad. Worst case just increase the hole size or notch out the edges. Think of it as a finned dephlegmator, not as perf plates.

Still need the packing below.

crozdog

I reckon it'll work a bit better than before, but as previously advised it'd work lots better with a decent condenser on top of the column such as a dephleg.

if you don't wanna build a dephleg you can try winding a double helix out of annealed copper & stuffing scrubbers around / in it

Thomasedwin

Before I cut it down smaller and this copper plate setup was extending more than half the length of the inside of the column and I had direct coolant flow with no needle valve to cut down the flow it caused complete reflux, it stopped the vapor from passing through it at all, The thermometer at the top of the column only went to around 100 degrees F and no vapor came over at all but as soon as I disconnected the water lines it started letting vapor go into the final condenser. I used the same copper plates, I just melted the solder and slid them all closer to the top and re soldered them and cut off the exes copper tubing and completed the loop. Now they only take up 6 inches instead of 18 inches. I don't know if I showed this before but all the copper plates have random holes drilled in them to let the vapor pass through. If these plates can cause total reflux with full on water flow passing through them, being closer together and the water flow controlled with a needle valve I should get some good reflux action happening. I figure I can start up the still with the needle valve wide open and then cut down the coolant flow a bit at a time until I get vapor coming over and ajust it somewhere in the middle. I think I might have to replace the needle valve with a regular valve because the needle valve wide open may not let enough water through to cause a good reflux. I want to have enough water flow through the copper plates to cause a reflux vapor lock or total reflux and then cut down the water flow just enough to let some vapor pass over to the final condenser. I have seen setups like this called controlled coolant reflux but they used a full on dephlegmator and controlled the reflux the same way by controlling the coolant flow. In the photo you can see the holes in the copper plates and how the copper tubes are on each side of the thermometer stem in the center of the cone so that it tells the temp of the vapor getting past the copper plates. It may not work or could flood the column but if it works it will have been a simple fix. I'm just going to have to have a big catch basin to catch the over flow if the column floods and it barfs out of the leg end. I'm going to keep monkeying around until I get what I want and I'm keeping every ones comments in mind

Thomasedwin

I made a bit of a mess with the silver solder but it won't hurt anything.

Thomasedwin

@jacksonbrown said: That 1.5" ferrule on the bottom is a great way to flood the column at higher power levels too.
The return to the boiler is where the flooding starts but it usually only gets noticed once its reached the top.

Your right, it is a constriction to flow back into the boiler but my new beer keg boiler may fix that.

Thomasedwin

@jacksonbrown said: Are you sure you understand what a plate is and how it works?
It's not just cramming a bunch of flat disks into a column less than an inch apart.
You should just add a coil and pack the column you've got. Learn to play with that before deciding to change it. If it falls short ABV wise after you know its gone as far as it can then all you need to do throw in another 1' spool in between the boiler and column.
I'm getting the impression from you posts that your tiring to reinvent the wheel without fully understanding what the wheel does.
Like others are saying, just go with a proven concept.

Perforated plates or bubble plates are designed to cause a puddle of distillate and have the hot alcohol vapor pass through the puddle making the vapor more alcohol than water before it passes into the final condenser producing a cleaner end product. Every plate you have is more or less a tiny still inside the column making it cleaner and more proof.

Thomasedwin

@jacksonbrown said: My guess is that anything over a moderate power level the vapour will just hold up the liquid like a normal perf plate.
There's no control or separation of vapour/liquid paths. Normally vapour goes through correctly sized perfs and liquid falls through down comer.
What's the total open cross section on that bottom plate? x kW of vapour flowing through it and on start up we need 100% of that to fall through the same area as condensate? I don't see it happening unless you run the 4" column like it's only 1.5".
At really low power they'll chance into different paths but it won't take much pressure to hold up a few inches of liquid.

I'm using natural gas flame no heating elements.

Thomasedwin

I would like to say something about my background, before my dad met my mother, in the 1950's he had a garage in North Carolina fixing up the old cars and trucks. He had a shack out back running a pot still and customers would come in to get their cars fixed and if they wanted liquor they would pay at the garage and then go out back to the outhouse and find their liquor there. At the same time he would soup up the 1950's cars so they could outrun the tax man delivering the liquor to New York and PA. I can only guess that my grandpa made white liquor in the 1920's and I heard stories about it but in the end it's all legend. I think all Americans have a duty and a right to make home made shine.

grim

@Thomasedwin said: Perforated plates or bubble plates are designed to cause a puddle of distillate and have the hot alcohol vapor pass through the puddle making the vapor more alcohol than water before it passes into the final condenser producing a cleaner end product. Every plate you have is more or less a tiny still inside the column making it cleaner and more proof.

Yes, but those plates are not going to act in the way you describe.

They are functional however, they are adding a good amount of surface area compared to tubing alone, in addition they act as turbulators forcing the upward moving vapor into all sorts of contortions, ebbs, eddies and contact with the plates. But, the entire device is really just a dephlegmator with fins.

If it can put the column into 100% reflux, it'll do the job, but the fins are likely not going to add the equivalent of a single distillation stage (it will add a little bit).

FloridaCracker

+1.

What hasn't been mentioned is the fact that there is a lot of open area on the plates, not to mention the fact that they won't all be snug against the column. That will add MORE open area and I can't see much pooling of liquid for the vapor to interact with.

I think it will probably be fine but not as efficient as it could be.

Thomasedwin

People are saying I should have a proper coil in the top of the column or to have a dephlagmator in the top and then have packing in the remainder of the column and it will make a big difference in the proof output. These plates with a good water flow cooling them off and a valve to control the water flow should cause some kind of reflux to happen and then with copper mesh packing underneath to catch the falling reflux I'm thinking it will make a sort of cycle where the reflux will fall onto the hot copper mesh and rising hot vapor and then back to the plates over and over again and then when I limit the cooling water to the plates it should let some strong alcohol vapor to pass over into the output condenser. Before, when I had just the copper plates filling more than half the column with a needle valve to limit the water flow it increased the proof output by 1/3 compared to just having the column packed with copper mesh and rashing chips alone. All I can do is try it to see what happens.

Thomasedwin

The plates won't make puddles of distillate for the vapor to react with like a bubble plate but they should cause a reflux to drip down onto copper mesh packing

Kapea

captainshooch

I used to raise horses and learned early on, "ya can lead em to water, but ya just can't make em drink"... ~X(