My new 4" Crystal Dragon Hybrid - Just Awesome

Heef71

Giday from the Top End Aust,

This has been months of planning but it has finally all come together. Many thanks to @punkin for his outstanding service and communication. My new toy, well it's hardly a toy but you know what I mean, is a 5 plate CD with a packed section sitting on a 50L keg with 2 2400W elements. Just beautiful.

I did a vinegar run first followed by a sacrificial sugar wash run the following day. Its amazing how much stuff this cleans out, got to admit though most of the crap was residue oil from the copper mesh in the packed section. Don't get me wrong I did clean and soak and clean and soak and clean and soak, put the rolls in the dishwasher several times but still some residue.

Anyway, this was a great test run, sorted 2 water leaks, tried one of a few plumbing ideas and found the sweet spot for bleeding off fores and heads.

Today I completely stripped the whole setup down, washed everything to remove and random oil spots and reassembled. Man I love the modular section, can go together sooo many different ways.

I ran a 25L all fients run today, didn't want to waste another wash. It was sort of a final cleaning run and also wanted to trial another plumbing idea after a quick trip to bunnings.

I am very happy with the way things went, bloody unreal!! It was all done and dusted in 4 hours. Very easy to operate and very mesmerizing to watch.

Ive been using a T500 for for last 6 or 7 years and with a few mods, swapping to TPW, stripping the wash with a pot first and taking cuts I have produced some great product. But to get the great product you have to run it low and very very slow, which sometimes has blown out to 11hrs. Hence time for an upgrade. This is an awesome machine !! Very time efficient.

So here is a pic. I know you'll all want to see. And yes...its in my bathroom, well....cause I live in a unit! Don't have a shed, well not yet anyway. This is why I had the the T500 for so long.

Its great to join the Crystal Dragon owners club. Any feed back or comments are welcome, always looking for ways to improve.

Cheers

Heef71

Smaug

Hi Heef71,

That is a good looking outfit.

Glad your here.

Chalmer

That is a nice step up from a T500. I did the same and my mate that bought the old 500 just got a 4" dash. They are a great work of art and fun to run too.

Sunshine

Wellness and distilling - I like it! :D

Moonshine

Looking great, @Heef71, that's what we call a Crystal Dragon Hybrid. :-bd

punkin

Looks fantastic mate. Glad we did all that measuring and that you didn't have to punch a hole in the ceiling like someone else round here did......

Love the wheels.

Smaug

@punkin said: Looks fantastic mate. Glad we did all that measuring and that you didn't have to punch a hole in the ceiling like someone else round here did......

Love the wheels.

:D .........what?

Sadi

Very nice looking. :)

It seems you won't have any cooling water problems. :))

Cheers.

crozdog

@Sadi said: It seems you won't have any cooling water problems. :))

Plus he can have a nice warm spa after a hard days stillin'!

Lloyd

Without a doubt the nicest towel rack I've ever seen.

punkin

@Moonshine said: Looking great, Heef71, that's what we call a Crystal Dragon Hybrid. :-bd

No mate. Not a hybrid. Just a standard Cd with the optional reflux extension or packed section for doing neutrals.

Good comment on calling it a towel rack Lloyd, dunno if everyone would believe it.

Maybe a bathroom sculpture?

Either way it's the cat's arse. ^:)^

captainshooch

That is one sweet rig, seems like more and more rigs configured to each ones preferences are popping up all the time. Gotta love the concept (modularity)! :-bd

Lloyd

@Heef71, you asked for comments on how you could improve your rig so here goes...

I wouldn't change a single thing. The keg and still are just tops.
You have the best bathroom still that I have EVER seen, its so very well thought out.
New housing construction should offer that as an option :))

So many clever options that you have selected. I love the 4" sight glass/fill port on the boiler (smear a bit of glycerin on the inside of the lens for fog-free viewing). Five bubble plates gives not only a clean flavor but excellent separation for the cuts. Super dephlem to save water and have complete control over the reflux. Packed section for neutral and copper rod covers for that snazzy look. 45 degree bends to kick the parrot out and away from your tricked-out keg. So many nice touches I didn't see them all at first view. Locking casters on that keg?

And a convenient place to pee during a long run which could also double as a comfortable chair. Truly a distilling throne.
Someday you may have that shed but you may miss your distilling throne. I would.

CothermanDistilling

watch from 1:00 to 1:35.... Friends Season 02 Episode 17 - The One Where Eddie Moves In @ Polly Streaming

Heef71

Thanks for the kind words gentlemen,

Great comments, and Crozdog I really did consider jumping into the spa with a rum and watch the kettle heat up!! Would of made a great pic!!LOL

@punkin said: Looks fantastic mate. Glad we did all that measuring and that you didn't have to punch a hole in the ceiling like someone else round here did......

Love the wheels. Yep! Me too, still have about 100mm to play with which is great, but i still have to take the top off to get it under the door, haha, awe well...the perils of living in a unit. Thanks again for your help mate, your advice and service has been awesome.

@Lloyd said: Heef71, you asked for comments on how you could improve your rig so here goes...

I wouldn't change a single thing. The keg and still are just tops.
You have the best bathroom still that I have EVER seen, its so very well thought out.
New housing construction should offer that as an option :))

So many clever options that you have selected. I love the 4" sight glass/fill port on the boiler (smear a bit of glycerin on the inside of the lens for fog-free viewing). Five bubble plates gives not only a clean flavor but excellent separation for the cuts. Super dephlem to save water and have complete control over the reflux. Packed section for neutral and copper rod covers for that snazzy look. 45 degree bends to kick the parrot out and away from your tricked-out keg. So many nice touches I didn't see them all at first view. Locking casters on that keg?

And a convenient place to pee during a long run which could also double as a comfortable chair. Truly a distilling throne.
Someday you may have that shed but you may miss your distilling throne. I would.

Cheers Lloyd, This project did take awhile to come together, constantly researching and reviewing and it seems i'm still reviewing to improve the setup and the process. Thanks for the fog-free tip. I wanted a sight glass to see whats happening with the wash, not so bad with TPW but a rum wash is a bit more foamy, so why not double it up as a fill port as well. I do have 6 plates but due to the ceiling height restriction in the bathroom i have to loose one. Good to have a spare glass and plate though. That super dephlem is soooo efficient. It goes thru so little water which is comparable to the T500, that's why I blocked off 1 port and the bottom and one port on the opposite side on the top. Due to that I have changed the plumbing so the RC and PC are fed separately. Now the PC recirculates in the spa getting full flow from the pump . The RC, or the super RC, is now fed from the vanity tap via a 100kpa pressure regulator and back into a drain. Water usage is around 17 litres per hour, soo bugger all really. I do have 2" locking caster wheels to make it easier ti move around and they are all adjustable to level out the still on the tiles. This is one thing I will change because the whole setup feels a bit unstable. I'm planning on having 3 M12 connecting nuts welded to the out side edge and fitting 3" lockable casters, and where the 2" wheels are at the moment I'll remove them and use long bolts with feet that can be adjusted down to the floor for more stability. I'm glad you like my throne, I guess it is "male" bathroom bliss!! Lucky we have an on-suite that my misses can use.

Hey quick question for you guys. When I've finished I take the top off and stick a hose into one of the dephlem tubes to wash from the top down into the keg but the plates don't drain off, over the last 24hrs the tops plates have drained but the bottom plate has about 10mm of liquid on it. Is it supposed to drain off??

Lloyd

Won't happen unless you drill a 2mm hole, or smaller, in the plate under one or two of the caps.

All of our copper plates are all either mould punched or EDM (wire cut) so I can't do it here on this end because the hole is too small for mass production, it would about double the price per plate to you because of the tooling for such a small hole.
Always that... perfection vs crazy costs vs DIY.

If you let stanky tails sit on the plates for a couple of weeks they will turn black and need to be treated with some kind of acid to remove that crap.

I flush my plates after a run with lots of fresh water to prevent the nasty black crap (dilute the tailsy nastiness) and have never drilled my personal plates with the tiny weep holes, yet. I have water on my plates even now and haven't run in over a week because I'm too lazy to drill the weep holes. But since I flush with water after a run and before the next it does not seem to matter.

2mm hole in 1.5mm copper is not an EDM cut and folks that make our punch moulds want two times hole vs material thickness to avoid breaking tooling - so our 1.5mm copper plate would need a minimum of a 3mm punched hole which is a bigger diameter than I'm comfortable with.

Long story short, if you want a 1.5 to 2mm drain hole in your plate then you need to drill it. Expect to break a few drill bits but I figure it may be worth it. Its certainly something that I've been wanting to do but haven't yet.

One or two small holes in the plates has always been a problem because of the excessive production costs but even with the little holes you will need to flush the tails off of the plates or the copper will turn black.

Myles

Self draining plates is a nice (but as Lloyd has said, commercially unviable) option. My preffered solution to this is to put the weep hole in the downcommer cap, with a plate drain hole in the standpipe. That way the plate and vapour lock will both drain.

You have to do it yourself though. It would not be financially viable to do it in production.

Flush the column after use and every 3rd or 4th run blast some clean steam through the column would be my own operating method.

Simple steam will not remove the beneficial patina from the copper components, but will clean them of deposits.

Ak49er

Myles , How long dose it take to drain say 6 plates .

Heef71

No problem, that's too easy.

Myles

@Ak49er , well I suppose that would depend on the size of the hole. Just drill a 2mm hole in a plastic drinks bottle, fill with water and time it. In the ideal world you would back flush the plates from the top into the boiler. Many jacketed boilers use the hot jacket water to do just that.

If you were going to take it down for storage, or were not going to use it for some time (ideally) you would steam clean it. Fresh water in the boiler and heat her up again. Run for a minute or two to charge all the plates and get them all working with hot water. Then shut down, open the boiler drain, and let all the plates drain down. I suspect it would stay hot long enough to dry everything off nicely.

There has been a lot of talk over the years about hole size in perforated plates, weep holes and the like, relating to fouling and mineral deposits. It seems to come down to what sort of water you have, and what recipe you are using. I think it will have to be trial and error. However, if you position the weep hole correctly it will be practical to clean it through the sight glass port (if you ever needed to).

Manofconstantsorrow

@Myles Not to high jack but how would you envision drilling the ProCap for drainage, in the same manner?

Ak49er

Thanks Myles , I found the thread on drilling the 2mm holes, my next mod on the dash2 is going to be this. i just got a 180 with the 3/4" CIP and i have a on demand hot water heater that will get up to 175 degrees just need to drill the holes and get the h20 line hooked up for flushing

Smaug

Say AK49er,

In another thread can you talk more about your tankless water heating unit please?

FullySilenced

Temp of the on demand heaters is limited by temperature rise and flow rate... it may only get to 175 or 180 at a 6 oz a minute flow rate, depending on incoming water temp... 6oz not an actual rate but i was using it as an extreme example ...

FS

CothermanDistilling

many breweries team up several units for sufficient flow, the key is to get a commercial one, the residential ones will not go above 140.

I installed one in my house and it was able to raise the water temp to 168, and the flow was about half of full blast.

Also, I have friends who have mounted one a cart with an LP tank and have been very happy with it for their 2bbl brewery...