Howdy

city_shiner

I recognize a lot of the handles on here from other sites.

Got a question to ask:

If I put a single bubble cap (or ProCap) in a tee on top of a stockpot a small dephlegmator on top of that and use a Liebig as a product condenser could I do small batches in one run?

Basically tunable thumper.

Would a regular gas stove have enough heat to run a single plate?

I'm under severe time constraints and everything needs to be very hideable. I'm looking to do just quick runs when i can.

TheMechWarrior

Welcome @city_shiner.

I guess anything is possible if you're desperate enough. Obviously you've done some reading so I don't need to tell you why we distill more than once. So yes, you can produce a spirit in a single pass solution using a level of forced reflux. Would you want to drink it though? Only you can answer that question. The other question you need to answer is what will you do with your fores, heads and tails left over from you hearts cut? Normally your first run is a strip, giving you your low wines. The strip run feed consisted of fores and feints from the previous run plus your wash. You then do your spirit run nice and slow and do your cuts to get your hearts.

What we do isn't an exercise in speed but an exercise in patience, perhaps this hobby would better serve you when you can give it the time it needs? When things are rushed in this hobby...bad things tend to happen ;)

Cheers,

Mech.

grim

What are you making?

city_shiner

Ujssm for starters

city_shiner

@TheMechWarrior said: I guess anything is possible if you're desperate enough. Obviously you've done some reading so I don't need to tell you why we distill more than once. So yes, you can produce a spirit in a single pass solution using a level of forced reflux. Would you want to drink it though? Only you can answer that question. The other question you need to answer is what will you do with your fores, heads and tails left over from you hearts cut? Normally your first run is a strip, giving you your low wines. The strip run feed consisted of fores and feints from the previous run plus your wash. You then do your spirit run nice and slow and do your cuts to get your hearts.

What we do isn't an exercise in speed but an exercise in patience, perhaps this hobby would better serve you when you can give it the time it needs? When things are rushed in this hobby...bad things tend to happen ;)

Yeah. Waiting is always an option.

city_shiner

Ive been on HD for about a year. I read every day. I also read emptyglasses forum and pintoshines. Just thought id ask here as its a flute site if one plate and a deflag would make a decent product in one pass. As with all things I guess, if it sound too good to be true.....

TheMechWarrior

Don't get me wrong @city_shiner, I'm not saying don't do it. You can do it and you may even be happy with the product you make from it. I've made single pass whisky on a reflux still in the distant past and with sufficient aging on oak I would have drank it without a problem, not as good as what I'm doing these days but I have the luxury of volume and time.

Just do it safely ;)

grim

I don't follow - what's wrong with this approach? A single pass single plate whiskey sounds just fine. I think a single plate is going to have tighter fractions than a doubler/thumper. Drinking it white you probably need to take a narrow product cut, but in a pinch, if you want it brown, just go for the nuke.

This is purely theoretical, and is not advice or a suggestion.

TheMechWarrior

My only concern was the haste. Rushing around doing this can result in poor practices and serious accidents.

city_shiner

Mech. It wasnt haste per se. I need to be veey secretive about it. As i have some people in my life that cant know about. So i need a small concealable still. I figured a single plate would keep the overall height down. Enhance concealability, and give me better seperation than a plain pot still.

city_shiner

Also i genuinely appreciate the advice on being safe. I have read probably 100 different threads over at HD and many more on other forums. Including the whole flute talk beast of a thread. The reason i asked the question here is its pretty specifically a flute forum. Thought someone might have some insights on a stealth approach like im trying figure out. Or at least get a good conversation going about it.

TheMechWarrior

What you essentially need is an ace of hearts, nice and small, compact and you can hide it when you need to. The thrust of your question was can I make a decent spirit on a compact reflux still and the answer is yes. You've no doubt seen a few stove-top stills in your time reading between the various sites?

grim

Five years ago you would be considered a heretic for merely suggesting to make a whiskey on four plates.

Smaug

@grim said: Five years ago you would be considered a heretic for merely suggesting to make a whiskey on four plates.

Hah.........No thanks to some well known authorities on the subject with big opinions and no actual experience running a plated column.

100% grim.

The "tunable thumper" or "micro thumper" will work just fine.

Pisco comes off on a slow single run and it is more delicious than a pan of fresh baked cookies. More credit needs to be given to the distiller.

city_shiner

@Mech, i realize of course in retrospect that my question was didnt contain enough info. I have a tough time balancing all the info ive read with what i can do in real life. So sometimes i get and idea that pops in my head and kinda start researching and ask questions before i have the thought well laid out. I think im going to pursue a compact still with one plate. If it turns out bad then ill have one plate a dephlag and a product condenser. Which can obviously be repurposed for another more complete still later on. And yes the Ace of Hearts is slick. It looks really cool.

city_shiner

Smaug, a buddy of mine married a Peruvian gal. He raves about Pisco. Ive never had it. Going to have to now

Smaug

Imo, Encanto is so wonderful. They are out of California. But it comes in via Peru obviously.

grim

if straight single pass pot still isn't doing it for you, a single plate might get you closer to a strip/spirit double pass. You can't hide a big glass column, the thing looks like a nuclear reactor or that big bomb from The Rock.

Speaking of Peru - I am absolutely in love with Peruvian psychedelic Cumbia/chicha. Holy shit there is some good music down there. Where was this stuff all my life? Anyone who likes Floyd and other prog should check it out.

Unsensibel

@city_shiner when you're talking about timing constraint, how much time do you think you have? It's going to be hard to make a decent/drinkable whiskey without running slow-ish. If you're running fast, you're going to see smearing no matter what.

The benefit of plates are you can do single runs but using plates and forcing reflux will slow your run down (= more time). On the other hand, you can do pot runs as well (a buddy does that) but the get a good spirit you need to run really really slow. So either way, you're not going to get out of the time constraint

city_shiner

@Unsensibel said: city_shiner when you're talking about timing constraint, how much time do you think you have? It's going to be hard to make a decent/drinkable whiskey without running slow-ish. If you're running fast, you're going to see smearing no matter what.

The benefit of plates are you can do single runs but using plates and forcing reflux will slow your run down (= more time). On the other hand, you can do pot runs as well (a buddy does that) but the get a good spirit you need to run really really slow. So either way, you're not going to get out of the time constraint

I figure about 2 hours once a week when the kiddos go back to school. Thats why i originally thought of this idea. A single burner on my stove ( gas, so adjustable) will bring 3 gallons of water to boil in about an hour, then an hour or hour and a half run. My assumption was considering the small boiler charge a plate would help with smearing.

Unsensibel

It sounds do-able but you'd have to plan spending maybe double the time the first couple of times to get it dialed in first.

A couple of numbers:
3 gal = 11.4L
@ 8% ABV that's 0.9L alcohol in wash
Assuming your collecting your whiskey at an average of 60% ABV for the run, you're collecting 1.4L total
Then, you're getting about 55% of the collection as drinkable which is about 1.2L @ 40% ABV

That means you need to collect between 1-1.5L per hour. Not sure if the baby dragon (which is essentially what you're looking to do) can run at that speed and if you have enough heating power to push that speed with the reflux needed.

Did you also factor in set-up, tear down and cleaning in your time equation?

city_shiner

I have a few options as i see it.

1. small pot still with multiple strips and one spirit run.
2. pot still and one really slow spirit run
3. single plate stockpot still that sits on one burner low height to clear vent hood.
4. build a boiler that extends past the vent hood and sits on two burners giving me about 3000 watts of power on which i can mount a proper compact flute.

3 plate 3" flute with a liebig condenser. Little bigger boiler charge. More power more reflux better seperation with more plates. All the benifits of a flute and quit frankly my favorite of all 4 options. But, my step-daughter lives with me and she can't know im distilling. So if i build removable copper cap on a 4 gallon stock pot mount a single tee and plate on it builld a liebig and it turns out crap, then on to plan 4. Reusing the tee and the liebig in that scenario. The only thing ill have wasted is a little copper sheet and the deflag will probably have to be upgraded. But the stockpot could be left out. Lid intact. The copper cap for the stockpot will be low profile. And could be placed in a closet. The tee would not be recognizable as a still part and the liebig could be wrapped in a towell and placed under the kitchen counter storage place. So a stealth still that is upgradeable if need be.

city_shiner

@unsensibel, i didnt see your response before i posted my musings. If i got a quart of 40% out of a 3 gallon run id be stoked. A fifth was all i was looking for. The stockpot option setup and takedown would only be a few minutes. Now the power to drive a plate, have enough reflux to keep it full and collect the distillate in a timely manner...i have 0 clue.

punkin

@grim said: You can't hide a big glass column, the thing looks like a nuclear reactor or that big bomb from The Rock.

You could disguise it as a bong or a crack pipe?

city_shiner

Lol!!!!

CothermanDistilling

@punkin said: You could disguise it as a bong or a crack pipe?

I love it!

actually, make a baby dragon 'storage/shipping rack' that holds and fits all of the parts inside the milk can or sankey boiler with 8" TC opening... yup, just an old beer keg sitting int he corner.. with a padlock on the TC cap ;-)...