12" Copper Modular Continuous Column

CothermanDistilling

I picked up my 12" CMCC from @Smaug yesterday and assembled it in the shop this morning. He did a great job helping to turn my ideas into reality... There is 1 plate in the base, 3 48" sections with 3 plates each having 16" spacing, a 6" window, and fairly small open area that can be enlarged if needed. Not a turn-key still, just the column for now. I have to design and build my HX setup, and this will be a continuation of the research I did with my 8" CD but that had foaming problems due to plate separation. Looking to start at 1GPM with a max of 4GPM, and looking to use 16.5kw/1.5bhp of boiler steam and have an enormous amount of heat recovery for efficiency, with no glycol chiller involved, just air-water HX's...

Smaug

Pretty sexy stripper.

SingleMaltYinzer

That is a pretty setup. One day I'll be able to get into something like that for our clear spirits program.

punkin

Phenomenal.

grim

What is this!!!!

CothermanDistilling

@grim said: What is this!!!!

@grim come visit and find out!

@SingleMaltYinzer said: That is a pretty setup. One day I'll be able to get into something like that for our clear spirits program.

This is just a stripper, this will make whiskey all by itself, but better with a doubler..... if you want clear spirits, you put one next to it with 3x the plates and 1/3 the spacing to feed it into... @Smaug can build it for you too..

jbierling

Nice! 1-4 GPM input or output?

Smaug

@jbierling said: Nice! 1-4 GPM input or output?

Beer feed Joel.

Its capable of 265 GPH with a 10% beer.

Low wines typically would come over at about 50%.

But all of that will be predicted upon how much heat @CothermanDistilling can muster and also how well he'll be able to cool the distillate.

CothermanDistilling

I want a perpetual motion machine... who doesn't? Physics calcs that I do say that 1000/hr like @Smaug says need a 15hp boiler to run with no recovery, 8.5HP to heat, 7.5HP to vaporize. I will settle for one that recovers 50-80% of the energy and I have 16.5kw (~1.5HP) electric boiler now, but could increase, so 1/2 to 1/4 that rate should be doable with good recovery. I can add more heat, but will run what I have at first

3 HX stages:

1. Stage 1 uses 212F bottoms to preheat the RO/DI water feed to the steam boiler... I will do some real-world tests of the needed steam feed rate though various HX's on the drain of my 1000L pot still after a stripping run. Run the drain at about 13.67l/min to simulate the column bottoms and run water at 2L/min (the 3l/min output rate pro-rated to account for pure water vs ethanol/water mix) and see if I get 212F and add more HX capacity until I do..
2. Stage 2 is the same bottoms through beer feed... math says if I take about 6.7l/min of the beer feed through his HX at 50% efficiency, that I will get 89.2C beer feed temp (this may be 2-3 1Meter 2" sanitary shotgun condensers)
3. Stage 3 is the product condenser, and math says if I put about 10l/min of the beer through this HX at 50% efficiency, I will get the 88.2C beer feed temp... this will be the above with a safety condenser running water after it.

The above is is the easy part.... venting the CO2 out of the feed at a point where I do not lose ethanol is my biggest expected hurdle... Abbot did this with vacuum... I may do that or maybe steam traps or a vertical tube water column and condenser at the top, or a combination.

For those that do not know, I attempted this before 4 years ago with a 8" CD and had foaming issues and was limited on time and funds... after buying this, I am back to that.... so it will take a few months to get the pieces in place.,.. here is a from one of those runs back in 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty6eY9VUIgI

Smaug

Michael, with grain in solids Adam's beer column bottoms is discharging at right around 229F.

I'm not clear how any suspended solids in a rum beer may increase temps beyond 212F ? But I would bet it's a bit better than 212. My point being that your beer will be nicely preheated.

ASPEN modeling shows 172F to be the optimal preheated beer temp.

Back to bottoms,,those temps will ensure that all usable alcohol gets flashed. Mo money, mo money, mo money!! Lol.

Smaug

Forgot to mention that the modeling does show that bottoms temps exit at 218. So there is definitely a margin of error for those numbers.

In any case, 229 in practice and 218 in theory are still hotter than 212 so you'll have plenty of recoverable heat to further exploit.

CothermanDistilling

NICE! I was thinking about that, but did not have numbers, currently I run my steam boiler unikeggle at 240-250F, so every degree helps when replenishing via stage 1HX, and more heat for stage 2 HX......

edit - mo-money, mo money, less(no) tails and quicker I can afford a sister column with 30 plates and 8" spacing!

jbierling

Ah. I thought 1 GPM input was about the speed of the 4" version so I was thinking 12" would be optimal for more like 16+ GPM. I'm probably misremembering.

My goal is to eventually do 3 GPM and I thought that was more like a 6" or 8" column. @Smaug, are you still working on slightly larger versions of your stripper on a skid system?

CothermanDistilling

I intentionally have open area of an 8" in a 12", so that is where the 1-4GPM comes from. The cost of the 12" is not much more cost (20%?) than the 8", it is more vertically stable, allows 6" SG's, WAY better looking proportions when 16' tall. It also has more 'cross-plate flow' than 6" or 8", and I think it will help with foaming as the foam liked to climb the walls of a 4" and even my 8" CD. I can add more holes or enlarge these small holes easily with access through the 6" SG's for more speed, but I do not envision it in our small distillery.

Smaug

The 4" processes 35 to 37 gph with a 10% beer. That is using the 408 watts per gallon, per hour input.

grim

@CothermanDistilling - I have a huge sanitary plate hx.

crozdog

@Smaug said: ASPEN modeling shows 172F to be the optimal preheated beer temp.

Wouldn't that depend on the wash ABV?

CothermanDistilling

I am more wondering why above 172 is not optimal... My goal was to have the feed under a bit of pressure with a venturi/restriction right before the injection point... not enough to clog, but enough to keep vaporization from happening before the restriction and tons of evaporation after, while keeping surging to a minimum.

Smaug

@crozdog said: Wouldn't that depend on the wash ABV?

All predicated upon a 10% charge.

Again there have been some discrepancies between the theoretical numbers vs the practical outcome.

The theoretical numbers gave us a very good starting point. Some of which gave better than expected results and some of which under performed.

For example heat needed is lower than expected which is a plus. Likewise yeild is also a bit low compared to the modeling outcome.

Modeling shows a 350 gph feed rate and in practice it turned out to be 265 gph as an example

Smaug

@CothermanDistilling said: I am more wondering why above 172 is not optimal... My goal was to have the feed under a bit of pressure with a venturi/restriction right before the injection point... not enough to clog, but enough to keep vaporization from happening before the restriction and tons of evaporation after, while keeping surging to a minimum.

I wouldn't get too jammed up on precise beer feed temps as we use a target low wines vapor temp to govern pump speed. The pump will keep order. This is why / how the system produces based on proof gallons.

Smaug

But also we greatly enlarged all of the heat exchangers in order to capture as much heat as possible.

Smaug

That Hungarian fellow uses his beer bottoms temps to run his little hobby system feed pump as an example.

But he only runs a stripper.

grim

How's this thing coming?

CothermanDistilling

It sits there and looks pretty for now. I designing a couple HX items and plan to do some real-world tests on the 4" and 2" 1m long condensers to see how much delta-T they can do at various flow rates between .8 and 4gpm, , going to use backset from pot runs, but have to get the rig set up to measure 4 temps and 2 flow rates...

Currently all time is dedicated to trying to get our 'bar' going since getting the right to sell cocktails, we have a walking trail on our back patio that thousands traverse every day and are building that out now... just finished a 20' bar, pouring a concrete patio slab Friday and doing a gate to the trail soon after, then tables.. once butts are in seats with a Rum Punch or RumRunner in their hand, I will have the cash flow to start throwing money at @Smaug again...

punkin

Looking good mate. i'd sit there for a mojito or ten.

crozdog

Looking great Michael

grim

Hell yes! Cotherman looks happy in that shot.

CothermanDistilling

Concrete finishing while watching the joggers go by..

Bolverk

I know its been a few years... Hows this coming along? Did you ever build a spirit column?

CothermanDistilling

it is still just eye candy as the tasting room has taken priority the last two years... but will order the condensers soon, maybe even this year...