Loony bin and crazy ideas

googe

Lloyd

Yes, I stumbled on that on another forum, @googe
How is it working out for you?

I could see it if the "top" was rigid corrugated metal and sized at about 5/8's instead of covering most of the bubble surface of the available plate.

The corrugations should radiate from the center to the outside edge.

Almost like combining a giant bubble cap with a perf plate.

googe

Working very well @Lloyd, did a rum run on the weekend with 3 plates, steady 92~93%, more flavor carry over than my single caps and faster. I can't get my head around what you mean lol, I'm bad with written explanations!, I'm sure it will come.to me in time.

Law_Of_Ohms

SD Lazor gun....

Peew Peew....

Your dead!

cunnyfunt

** adds a 2" tee to his order so cunnyfunt can play with a SD "laser" gun too **

Lloyd

Loony Bin entry...
I'm playing with SPP and hope to report the experience soon.

irishman

Anyone ever considered making a stilldragon version of a RIMS tube?

I would think you could make a nice one and do it cheaper than other commercial examples.

irishman

Nevermind, I see that Australia has one.

punkin

There's a few very nice setups out there in operation too.

irishman

Punkin- Ever made one with triclamp fittings for the beer in/out?

Seems backwards to have the beer go through a threaded fitting but put the element and temp sensor through the triclamp fittings.

punkin

No mate, i asked the beer guys here what they wanted in a design and that's what the consensus was. It would make sense (although at some further expense) to have sanitary fittings on the beer side, although you have to realise that the element and the temp input both have threads, they are just inside a triclamp fitting (so no longer sanitary anyway).

irishman

I hear you. Not many brewers use triclamp fittings. Wish I knew why. By the time you get those fancy quick disconnects you can get triclamps and get rid of threads, and make it easier to clean/sanitize.

Solutions can be found for the RTD/Thermocouple sensor pretty easily to keep that as a sanitary triclamp. The heating element is harder to find, but you can find them. Not sure how you guys feel about links, but things like the attached image are around, although not as easy to find.

crozdog

As brewers use a wide variety of fittings to connect their individual brewery components together, I think that screw thread provides the most flexibility. Using TC fittings would see most brewers I know have to buy 2 TC to threaded connections so they could connect their hose barbs / camlocks / garden hose fittings to connect it to the rest of the brewery. That just increases the price & means there is another part to clean - it doesn't eliminate the screw thread issue.

As the rims is preboil & can be easily pulled apart for cleaning (something all brewers should be anal about anyway) I don't see the use of threaded ports as a big issue.

punkin

That's pretty much the consensus i got from the community i asked when designing it Croz.

That's a neat looking bit of gear Irish.

Lloyd

Do not use a SD filter disk to hold back the SPP. It flooded the column from the bottom all the way to the top.
The supplier sent a few 2" pads and by cutting one and wrapping it to another I fashioned a 3" pad. The retaining grid was fashioned from a rejected gin basket stand. No flooding at ~4600 watts.

Sadly I could only get about 44 inches of packed column before bumping into the ceiling. A 6x4 short reducer on the boiler would give about 5 more inches. Shamefully I don't have that reducer in stock.

I was able to get 95.4% from a 25% boiler charge of feints but production was a bit slow. I didn't record it but guess it to be about 2 liters per hour. The heads were very compressed and the hearts taste "soft" - almost no heat at all.

Next up is to play with a 5" plated x 4" SPP packed hybrid.

irishman

Crozdog/Punkin,

I totally understand you selling what people want. Afterall, you can only make money on what the market supports.

For what it's worth, I have heard the argument for not caring about pre-boil fittings as much since the wort gets boiled. I've read and heard mention of certain problems in the mash related to unsanitary conditions not allowing full conversion or resulting in awkward aftertastes in the finished product. I'll have to dig those articles up.

Anyway, not advocating that you change what you're doing. Just find it interesting that when designing a brewstand that most homebrewers don't look at the cost and go with triclamps over those threaded quick disconnects.

crozdog

@irishman, I think the issue is more to do with hose connections. Myself & a lot of others use cam locks (you can see them in the 2 pics @Punkin posted. Cam lock fittings to connect to vessels (male & female are screw thread). I don't know of any fittings to convert tc to cam lock.

You are right poorly cleaned equipment can lead to poor product - thats why i said brewers should be anal about cleaning, however I don't believe it necessary to sanitise your mash tun or rims before use.

punkin

Saw a guide to care of beer glasses the other day that said to wash rinse dry ect, then before use to sanitise and then rinse again.

Sanitise your beer glass before drinking?

NowThat'sAnalPunkin

irishman

@crozdog, I hear you. If you already have camlocks it doesn't make sense. But if you design your system to use triclamps you would use a 1.5' triclamp to hose barb fitting and you wouldn't have any threads or adapters.

@punkin, now that's a little ridiculous. I've heard of people not using soap so it doesn't hurt the carbonation...but sanitizing? Yes, it can all be taken too far. I might be taking it too far as well with the triclamp fittings. To each his own. I know there are many brewers out there making great stuff and winning competitions with the cam locks on their system.

Smaug

Little pub in my area does have a little wash out spray device on their tap/drain gutter set up to rinse prior to pouring.

dad

Lloyd, what you just did for an SPP retainer is exactly where I ended up. The scrubbie under the SPP works perfect. Add one to the top also to disperse the reflux.

Lloyd

Good idea @dad about the top scrubbie, hadn't thought of that.
The SD filter disk seemed to be a natural but I guess the SPP plugs too much of the holes and the flooding was severe. Removing that and adding the grid plus pad (or scrubbie) sure was the fix.

jbierling

Two GB4's mounted on top of each other for an extra large botanical load? Bottom with output port clamped off and the top with the input port clamped off.

Lloyd

@jbierling said: Two GB4's mounted on top of each other for an extra large botanical load? Bottom with output port clamped off and the top with the input port clamped off.

Never thought of such a thing as that but have thought of "Super Sizing" the Gin Basket.
That will require a whole new set of designs and mold fees and would definitely be directed toward the commercial distillers.

Wanting to get the GB4 (homeowner's size) perfected before venturing into the bigger stuff and that is why real life feedback of the GB4 is so important.

I know that there are folks that are eager to throw $$$ at SD for a much bigger Gin Basket solution but feedback on the GB4 has been scarce and I'm timid to commit the big bucks for a 12" solution until I feel more confident.

There really is no middle ground, the next step is 12" for commercial distilleries and I'm not ready to pull the development trigger without more GB4 feedback. 12" is scary expensive even if you get it right the first time. Its a nut crusher if you get it wrong the first time or two.

CothermanDistilling

for a commercial person wanting to run their 8" column faster through a carter head but limited by the cross sectional area of the GB4:

2 GB4's mounted on a tee, one on each side (so they are in parallel not in series like above)... or use a cross and put a tee on top rotated 90 degrees for quad GB4's a GB4x4...

CothermanDistilling

need to learn how many meters per second the vapor should flow through a carter head... m/s

then how many liters per second you are making with your still... l/s

the resulting liters per meter defines the optimum diameter of your carter head... (l/s) / (m/s) = l/m

Lloyd

I hear ya, m/(l/s)2 + 1/2 (l/s cubed) and twice on Wednesdays.
The calcs get both intricate and over my head quickly.

It seems to being able to push the vapor through the botanicals as fast as possible is the Midas touchband so far I'm not sold if the choke washers are needed or not.

I need to run another 50 units of GB4s and still I don't know if the choke washers are needed or should be dropped. If they are unnecessary then they should be eliminated to avoid confusion.

A very competent distiller told me early on in the GB development that supplying very high pressure vapor through a small (3/4") inlet pipe would enhance the botanical extraction.
I could not supply 3/4" in modular style and safely hang the gin basket housing and condenser from a 3/4" pipe so I opted for 2" TC piping and a choke washer.

I tell ya, to do it right, you gotta run it hard. If you or anyone else can help improve the GB4 or the choke washer I'm all ears. Produced this 50 GB4's months ago and so far no user comments on the choke washer . So I now have to produce another 50 kits and I guess I'll put in the choke washers again. Was really hoping for more user feedback.

This is your product too, you know.

(Not complaining. First 50 units sold and next 50 need to be produced. It's entirely possible that the choke washer doesn't make much difference either way.)

Manofconstantsorrow

@Lloyd said: Do not use a SD filter disk to hold back the SPP. It flooded the column from the bottom all the way to the top.
The supplier sent a few 2" pads and by cutting one and wrapping it to another I fashioned a 3" pad. The retaining grid was fashioned from a rejected gin basket stand. No flooding at ~4600 watts.

I also learned about the the filter disk when I got my SPP, however when I spaced it off the filter disk by utilizing 2 scrubbies on the top and bottom of the SPP this resolved the issues. You are running way more heat than I need to in my 2 inch modified Nixon Stone offset, 1375W.

Sadly I could only get about 44 inches of packed column before bumping into the ceiling. A 6x4 short reducer on the boiler would give about 5 more inches. Shamefully I don't have that reducer in stock.

I believe we are using the same SPP from our friend in the Netherlands, I found that I'll I needed to use was 2 liters of the 3 that I had purchased which with 2 SS scrubbies on the to and bottom provides me 44 inches of packed column for a 2 inch. You can confirm this with DAD but with the proper sized SPP you really don't need more than 40 inches in any size column. This is the benefit of using SPP, however were most people are having issues is the are over packing it or using too small of dia. in regards to column dia. SPP is not a on size fits all.

I was able to get 95.4% from a 25% boiler charge of feints but production was a bit slow. I didn't record it but guess it to be about 2 liters per hour. The heads were very compressed and the hearts taste "soft" - almost no heat at all.

From start to finish I see 95.37% on a 11 to 14% charge with a production rate of 1600 ml per hour with my 2 inch set up.

Next up is to play with a 5" plated x 4" SPP packed hybrid.

It will be interesting to see if the small dia SPP gives you issue's in these column sizes, hope your planning on running the crystal dragons for this and can shoot some video. Looking forward to your results on the 4" SPP hybrid as this is what I described to you except with a BOK style condenser. Modeling with out the plates should produce around 7.5 liters per hour.

MOCS

Myles

You can achieve azeotrope from a fermented wash with between 50 and 120 cm of SPP. The HETP has dropped to between 2 and 3 cm, dependent on your operating parameters.

I know of 1 user that is achieving fast production rates with just 50 cm SPP in 2" (at high vapour speeds) but he uses a 50 cm void above the SPP to cope with the liquid being blown off the top of the packing.

Typically you can expect to reduce your packed length to 1/3 of what you would need with scrubbers.

fnulnu

I've been following the GB4 discussion. I do not have one(GB4), but I really like gin, so I felt I must comment and try and help.

@Lloyd said: A very competent distiller told me early on in the GB development that supplying very high pressure vapor through a small (3/4") inlet pipe would enhance the botanical extraction. I could not supply 3/4" in modular style and safely hang the gin basket housing and condenser from a 3/4" pipe so I opted for 2" TC piping and a choke washer.

So I thought I'd join the loony bin/crazy ideas and suggest possibly making a single shot type fitting for the GB4. Take your 2" TC piping and slip in a 3/4 inch TC inside of it and have the ends welded out(like a shotgun condenser, only with one shot and in 2" TC pipe). It will give you the 2" strength you need, and also give you the 3/4 pipe you require for vapor velocity.

That's my idea, unless of course someone else already thought of it and it was a failure, then it's their idea!