The StillDragon User Group YouTube Channel

Smaug

I'd be nervous using J tubes for downcomers with grain in. Safer to drain straight down onto an "inactive" landing below the liquid level on the next plate down (pictured above).

Especially if you're looking to minimize your ability to observe every plate. Sounds like a recipe for disaster if a lazy operator were to ham and egg the clean up effort and did not duesche out any residual build up simply because the plate that was visible "looked clean". Or did not adequately mix the beer into uniform consistency prior to pumping/feeding and thus leave open an opportunity for any clumps to get lodged into the J tube.

I can't in good conscience put J tubes on a grain in rig.

CothermanDistilling

ok, landing in dead space should be as easy, swapping the bend for criticalness of length... just have to come up with a contraption for the very bottom plate.

Fiji_Spirits

I guess I’ve lost the plot. Thought we were talking about regular column sections not continuous stripping columns.

I will want to build a 4” stripping column soon but it’ll not be grain-in washes. I’d rather not make it all myself tho. Hopefully components like plates and feed point sections will be available.

I’m currently in the market for a 5 plate addition to my 4” with the continuous in another few months.

grim

Would a J tube even work on a perf plate with 1/2" holes? Suppose if you had enough liquid height.

richard

Use 1.2m of helical coil packing

CothermanDistilling

did you watch the corn mash flowing????

CothermanDistilling

@Fiji_Spirits said: I guess I’ve lost the plot. Thought we were talking about regular column sections not continuous stripping columns.

I will want to build a 4” stripping column soon but it’ll not be grain-in washes. I’d rather not make it all myself tho. Hopefully components like plates and feed point sections will be available.

I’m currently in the market for a 5 plate addition to my 4” with the continuous in another few months.

this is all about the continuous stripping side of the above video running grain in mash through it...

CothermanDistilling

@grim said: Would a J tube even work on a perf plate with 1/2" holes? Suppose if you had enough liquid height.

those 12" diameter plates with corn mash in them are 18" tall... that is a lot of head pressure that could flush liquid or even a bit of solids through... a 4" would be 8"-10" tall... mostly the downcomer will be handling liquid I would think, as the mash would be plopping down from level to level, you can kind of see this in the video... but would have to see a bit better detail of the action.....

Smaug

Working Continuous System

See the continuous still in action throughout the distillation process!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LngJEIzZ7qw

Moonshine

Stumpy's Continuous Rig

Larry visits Stumpy Spirits in Columbia, IL to see the StillDragon Continuous Rig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNff7gM8d1k

Modernity_Column

Great video, very helpful.

Wobbles

Nice little setup

SBB_

Very interesting.

Smaug

|Distillation Tutorials| 6 Things You Need to Know About TriClamp Connections (Fittings)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI-tGxqI4qI

punkin

One Q from that video Mr Taylor, Sir?

How come I'm getting younger and you are getting older, you shriveled up old man?

But a well done on the vid too.

Smaug

@punkin said: One Q from that video Mr Taylor, Sir?

How come I'm getting younger and you are getting older, you shriveled up old man?

But a well done on the vid too.

Aye sir, I was noticing that. You're like Dorian Grey.

Moonshine

Distillery Equipment Questionnaire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R241LQVAt8U

Moonshine

How To Add Another Revenue Stream to Your Winery

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGoSt25Tbgk

grim

Nice job guys!

Smaug

StillDragon Featured on Manufacturing Marvels on Fox Business Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O933ccuXUc

punkin

Nice ad mate, really well done.

grim

Awesome video - well done

Drywall_Dan

Bad Ass!

Moonshine

Distilling at Home: Check Your Local Laws | StillDragon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgSZK4RasQA

Smaug

4" Continuous Still

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNmIZaBNe3c

OK so what you are seeing here is low wines diverted to a collection bucket while previously low wines sent to the reboiler are enriching the spirit column in 100% reflux mode. This way when we divert low wines back to the spirit column, the spirit column can hit the ground running.

Low wines coming over here at about 45%. However, if you notice the temp split on the PID, there is a degree or so separation. Within just a few minutes the temp split will shrink to about a 10th of a degree. At that point low wines will start coming over at 50+% within a few seconds.

We have a few more things to do on this to help the spirit column aspirate more freely but fully expect collection speed to be 5 to 7 LPH for neutral spirit. Feed rate is rock solid at 35 gallons of beer per hour @ 10%

Just have to say that Auto Tune is a real mensch.

grim

Autotune is brutal when you have high dead time.

Smaug

@grim said: Autotune is brutal when you have high dead time.

High dead time?

Smaug

The original 12" system couldn't really be run in manual mode. Adam recommended some changes and now it's not bad at all dialing the system in manually before switching to automatic mode. The 4" system however is a bit more temperamental. John Tucker has been bringing his stripper on line in manual mode and I don't know how he does it hahaha.

grim

Time lag between the change in output value and a corresponding change in the input.

Autotune, very simplistically, is just making changes in the output, and monitoring the input to understand how the output changes impact the input. Some controllers have fancy tuning algorithms, some don't.

Dead time - the time between the output change and resulting input change, can confuse many PID systems. The larger the dead time, the bigger the error. What usually happens is the PID autotune overestimates the output change needed to adjust the input back to the set point. This almost always leads to wild swings, oscillation, unstable behavior. This is even harder when dead time has variability to it, like you might find in a batch distillation process.

How to Control a Process With Long Dead Time @ Automation.com

Good example of this is trying to control output proof with a PID using vapor temperature as the process variable in a cooling-management style column. The time between making a change to the dephleg flow rate and the column stabilizing at the new reflux ratio can be very high, it's also variable, shorter at run start vs. run end (in batch mode).

Smaug

Ah thanks. I do remember you commenting on the lag for cooling control in the past.

With respect to pump operation, the response time is significantly shortened after each over shoot. We experienced 3 over shoots. The first was basically 100% out put which of course flooded the top plate and caused beer to push over. The second was perhaps half of that. And by the third cycle there was a bit of over shoot but not so much that beer pushed over. After that the the PID dialed right in so that within minutes there was only a 10th of a degree split between target temp and actual temp. Pretty much runs that way for the duration with the exception of having to make a bottoms drain valve adjustment every hour or so which does affect the pressure in the column a bit.

Yeah, if you can't provide uniform, steady cooling for the duration I can see how manual control might be better than auto tune.