Show Us Your Dragon

Smaug

@brewsmith said: Looks pretty similar to our auger piping at the brewery, but I don't see a motor or a need for grain there :-)

plus the 90 degree bends would not fare well.

solarpowerscott

halon fire extinguisher?

FloridaCracker

Sewer drain line from the floor above? :))

grim

Believe that is the communication down to the engine room. In order to be explosion proof, they decided to go with the old school voice pipe/speaking tube system that was popular in the 1800s instead of relying on fancy electronics.

Get the engine room on the horn, those boys need to keep the coals stoked, what are they doing down there?!?!

This way @Telluride can yell down to the lackies without getting out of the control room. I believe this is the photo of the other end..

TheMechWarrior

@grim wins! love it.

Anavrin

My Baby Crystal Dragon / new Keg Boiler is finally complete :)

bodhammer

Pot and reflux configurations. The rest is my homebrewing rig. Thinking about adding 4 plate baby dragon section.

The white tube is a home made swamp cooler so I don't waste water in the desert!

Thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

bodhammer

Pulled the trigger and a 4 plate baby dragon section is on the way!

rossco

Thats the way. :))

FullySilenced

Bodhammer.... you will be really happy with it i bet.... enjoy, be safe and

Happy Stillin,

FS

Kapea

Vollrath stockpots for a collecting table... fancy!

bodhammer

@Kapea said: Vollrath stockpots for a collecting table... fancy!

Well, sometimes I use them as a mash tun and boil kettle too!

Kapea

I've retasked mine as open fermenters when I do fruit ferments. Easier to punch down the cap that way. The loose-fitting lids keep the critters out.

bodhammer

Baby dragon in the house today, Emilia Clarke (Mother of Dragons) named sexist woman alive - coincidence or not?

Made a beautiful neutral from a cheap sugar wash on the last run's sour mash yeast cake. My friends were pretty impressed and I was voted as having best toys!

punkin

Nice bit of kit, no doubt.

bodhammer

@punkin said: Nice bit of kit, no doubt.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I'm impressed with the Baby Dragon, a great compliment to what I purchased before with Smaug's help.

Thank you also for making so easy to spend my money though my wife is not so sure...! Joking aside, "Legos for Liquor" has been great. I love the flexibility of reflux, pot, and now plate in something that fits in a tote when taken down. Beer is fun, this is almost funner except I don't feel comfortable drinking while distilling lest I join the Darwin Awards. Beer I can get away with a few.

I'm learning so much and thinking about going pro - seriously.

Anavrin

Moved all the procaps out of the Baby CD and fitted them into 2 extra 4" tees, then filled the Baby CD with Rachig Rings, I'm looking forward to watching the action in the packed section.

Sunshine

Baby has grown up to a teenager! ^:)^ :)

popcorn

@Anavrin just looking at your pictures. you may get more knock down out if the dephlamator lol I hate that word any way you may get more knock down if you switch the cooling line to the bottom also filling the vapor holes in it with cooper mesh is a bonus too

CothermanDistilling

If the air is purged, more knockdown power is had the way he has it, but it can be problematic for some people to purge the air... great, now you have me thinking about a 'reversing valve' from a heat pump to purge the air...

Kapea

Water mains employ air release valves. It's pretty slick how they work. The air release valve is tapped into the side of the water main. The vertically oriented air release valve has a moving ball inside a tube that is vented to the atmosphere. When there is air inside the pressurized water main, it is pushed passed the ball and out of the vent tube. When the air is gone, the more dense water pushes the ball against a valve seat in the vent tube sealing the water main shut. As long as the water main is pressurized with water the ball seals against the valve seat.

Perhaps a solution to air in the cooling water side of tube in shell (RC/PC) condensers?

Kapea

There is also another valve seat on the bottom of the vent tube. When the water main is not pressurized, or drawing a vacuum, the ball seals against this bottom seat to keep the atmosphere out of the water main.

punkin

You can get little cheap air valves from irrigation shops. Bloody heavy those balls from the DRV's

jacksonbrown

@CothermanDistilling said: If the air is purged, more knockdown power is had the way he has it, but it can be problematic for some people to purge the air... great, now you have me thinking about a 'reversing valve' from a heat pump to purge the air...

That's a common myth but it's actually incorrect.

There's no temperature difference in the vapour so counter-current is pointless. The condensate in that set up is actually flowing concurrently so if you after max knock down the other way is a tiny bit better as the cooler reflux will continue to work in the top of the column. You also have the problem that even after an initial purge you will have dissolved gas coming out of suspension when the water is heated and it'll build up in there. I measured this and posted the results here a while back. I think it was a about a 100mls every few minutes with my mains water.

CothermanDistilling

There most certainly is temperature difference in the coolant as it flows from inlet to outlet... and cooling transfer is dependent upon Delta T.. sure there is not much diff in the vapor and liquid temps, but is there? my unsheltered probe below the dephleg says there several degrees...

I can understand that there is mostly energy used to change vapor to liquid, but there are other factors, the liquid traveling down is what is in contact with the vapor, so if it is a bit cooler, it will cool more vapor that is rising....

There may be several other factors, but without evidence, I am going to pretend I am from Missouri... The "Show Me" state...

saying all that, unless you have a way to quickly and cleanly(dry, not spraying water all over), it is not worth it...

jacksonbrown

I explained your points in the the post above but...

Isothermal heat transfer - Suppose one of the two interacting fluids is undergoing a phase change due to the heat transfer (e.g. condensation of saturated steam), then both designs are identical. In this case, there is no change in temperature for one of the two streams and hence, no difference in the performance between configurations.

Why is a counter flow heat exchanger better than a parallel flow heat exchanger? @ Quora

If you want the condensate to add to the effect more then you need to swap the line too as per my first post.
I'd be surprised if those probes a giving accurate readings. How long are they? Is the bottom one dry?

jacksonbrown

@CothermanDistilling said: ... and cooling transfer is dependent upon Delta T...

That's deltaT across the two mediums not the inlet and outlet of the same medium.
Saturated vapour only has one temp.
Take any heat from it and it condenses. So because you can't cool it make no difference which direction it flows.
The deltaT is going to be the same.

CothermanDistilling

then how does my thermo below the RC read 165...?

jacksonbrown

How?!? I don't know. What do you want it to read?

CothermanDistilling

vapor cooled below the condensing temp... hence different delta T

basically what i am saying is there is a lot of crap going on over what we learned in basic college thermodynamics... the boundary layer is liquid and moving, etc...

I myself push from bottom to top, but would like to try both ways with some measurement going on.