Video of my 10 Plate 8" Column with Vapor Bypass installed

SQD

HI Guys,

Thought I would share my latest experiment.

I installed an additional two crystal dragon plates on my existing 8 plate setup so I could more easily maintain 190+ proof for vodka. But this would probably make it a bit rough to stay below 160 proof for whiskey so I installed a 2" copper bypass from plates 2 to plate 7 by installing tri-clamp tees and butterfly valves.

I haven't done a vodka run yet but here is a video of my first run where I am doing a whiskey run at just under 160. You can see a nice visual of the vapors spinning in the top bypass sight glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FnC8vkhtJ4

Still working the kinks out but seems to be operating as expected.

CothermanDistilling

Exactly what I want to do to my CD8-24

CothermanDistilling

Vas ist Das? Vapors? get a ladder and a better pic of this ghostly thing!

Smaug

WTG Kevin! Happy with the whiskey?

grim

Tee on the sight glass port is a pretty nice approach. You could just eliminate the sight glass entirely to add the bypass, especially if it's below the first plate.

SQD

@CothermanDistilling said: Vas ist Das? Vapors? get a ladder and a better pic of this ghostly thing!

Yep, as soon as the valves are opened a spinning vortex of vapors forms in the upper glass. It does look pretty cool.

The whiskey on the strip run tastes a bit more 'tailey' then I'm used to but once I get all 6 totes stripped I'll do a combined spirit run at 160 proof to clean it up and barrel at 125 in 15 gallon # 3 barrels. Its 100% corn mash bourbon so its kinda hard to screw it up..:)

I'm on my second run with this setup and the parrot seems to want to settle at around 166 proof so I might extend the pipe to bypass an additional plate.......

SQD

@grim said: Tee on the sight glass port is a pretty nice approach. You could just eliminate the sight glass entirely to add the bypass, especially if it's below the first plate.

Originally I was going to go below the first plate but sometimes I get a brown/black organic 'crud' that forms on the first plate, Tee and sight glass during a grain strip run and I worried that if I went below the first plate the 'crud' would get up into the crystal section and be a real PIA to clean out.

punkin

Fantastic. Looking really good.

grim

On our 4 plate - single pass - our bourbons average about 147-153 proof on the combined hearts cut. This is with very little reflux and running the plates on the shallow side.

No way we could strip and spirit run with 4 plates. As it is the hearts cut starts above 160.

CothermanDistilling

He does seem to be running the procaps pretty hard... harder than I ever have....