Show Us Your Dragon

Brandedhearts · 9 May 2015 01:34PM

@grim said: You can imagine, vapor very quickly moving into the expansion chamber, slowing as it enters an area of larger volume, then immediately being subjected to pushes and pulls of flash vapor condensation on the walls, and then finally being pushed straight through the top. It's probably much more chaotic than the vapor droplets would indicate. Each time you have flash condensation, little vortices would form, and together, these vortices would add up to motion.

This makes a lot of sense. Made me think about the laws of conservation of energy:

For a simple open system (in which mass may be exchanged with the environment), containing a single type of particle, the first law is written:[11]

\mathrm{d}U = \delta Q - \delta W + u'\,dM,\,

where dM is the added mass and u' is the internal energy per unit mass of the added mass. The addition of mass may be accompanied by a volume change which is not associated with work (e.g. for a liquid-vapor system, the volume of the vapor system may increase due to volume lost by the evaporating liquid). In the reversible case, the work will be given by \delta W=-P(dV-v\,dM) where v is the specific volume of the added mass.

When mass changes from one state to another, a loss of energy is mandatory. That energy would have to go somewhere and creating a vacuum of sorts sounds very logical.

@grim thank you for the enlightenment.

Brandedhearts · 9 May 2015 01:44PM

@punkin said: I'm very glad you are with us.

Thanks for having me!

Anyway, I realize this is just one way to skin a a cat. I have often thought how it could be applied to the home distiller. A series of tri clamp expansions and reducers from 4 to 8 inches and then back down again would be similar, but I don't think the cost would justify the gains.

@Anavrin:

You have your dephlegmator set atop the torpedo, I think that is brilliant. Would work much the same creating that pre-reflux so your copper actually has some alcohol to bond with.

I think for the home distiller another good option would be to invest in a 4 to 6 inch tri clamp expansion, a 24" 6 inch spool, another reducer, and then a 4 inch 4 plate column. The 24" height and the 6 inch expansion proportionally (roughly) making up for the desired surface area. I would think that would only be about 100-120 bucks where more plate sections run close to $350.00.

This might save you from having to throttle your dephlegmator or just add more plates which can be expensive and rob you of flavor.

Only use where legal of course......

Kapea · 9 May 2015 05:36PM

@grim said: Using science to create the perfect brisket

16 reasearch students and not one figured out that plastic casters on a bbq smoker could be problematic?

That's what happens when business majors attempt engineering design projects...

Kapea · 9 May 2015 05:48PM

@Brandedhearts said: That energy would have to go somewhere and creating a vacuum of sorts sounds very logical.

The energy is absorbed by the metal of the bell and is radiated into the environment surrounding the outside surface of the metal, and carried away by convection currents caused by contact between the metal's outer surface and the surrounding air.

Kapea · 9 May 2015 05:58PM

Putting a deflegmator over a torpedo at the base of the column is an interesting configurational idea. I have the parts on hand to give that a try.
Hmmmm....

I recently bought a 4" deflegmator and figured my 2" Big Baby defleg would end up spending most of the time sitting idle on the shelf.

Anavrin · 10 May 2015 07:03PM

I had a sugar wash I stripped yesterday, I was tempted to try it with the torpedo and big baby under the column, but unfortunately I didn't have enough time to experiment, I'll try and get it setup for next weekend

Smaug · 10 May 2015 07:06PM

@Anavrin said: I had a sugar wash I stripped yesterday, I was tempted to try it with the torpedo and big baby under the column, but unfortunately I didn't have enough time to experiment, I'll try and get it setup for next weekend

You likely would have saved time with that set up.

Anavrin · 10 May 2015 09:38PM

Yeah, we had freinds coming round, and it was getting late, plus my Baby CD needed cleaning,

I did find a fairly quick way of cleaning the pro-caps / plates without taking it apart, I fitted a cap on one end and filled it with a solution of water and citric acid for 10mins before rinsing it out, looks brand new again :-)

Kapea · 10 May 2015 11:49PM

The patina that builds up on the copper is a desirable passivation layer. I'm not so sure removing it often with citric acid is a good thing.

TheMechWarrior · 11 May 2015 12:05AM

To back up what Kapea just said, think about how often the commercial distillers acid wash their rigs...

FullySilenced · 11 May 2015 03:42AM

OOPS its a blue moon... :D

Anavrin · 14 May 2015 06:24PM

Just added another 3 plates to my Baby CD, making 6 in total, I've also added adjustable downcomer extensions and bent the flow directors to catch any drips coming off the bottom nut on the procaps.

Anavrin · 14 May 2015 06:27PM

Here's a pic, a few glass sections are misty as the still warming up, I'll post a video when it's running

Moonshine · 14 May 2015 06:27PM

@Anavrin said: Just added another 3 plates to my Baby CD, making 6 in total, I've also added adjustable downcomer extensions and bent the flow directors to catch any drips coming off the bottom nut on the procaps.

Photos please (that's the SHOW part in Show us Your Dragon)! ;)

Anavrin · 14 May 2015 10:04PM

I had some trouble taking the pic for that post, my iPhone menory was full, there's one in the next post, unfortunately I can't upload a video from my phone :-(

Moonshine · 15 May 2015 07:22AM

@Anavrin said: I had some trouble taking the pic for that post, my iPhone menory was full, there's one in the next post, unfortunately I can't upload a video from my phone :-(

You can't upload videos directly to the forum, that's better done to YouTube and then posting just the link to the video here which makes it auto-embed. If not having your own YouTube account or you don't want to use it for that, you can also make the video file available to me (if you have the possibility to upload it somewhere from where I can grab it) and I'll publish it in our StillDragon® Community YouTube Channel if you like.

For reference, I have cross-posted an enlarged section of your photo showing your flow director solution to our Cleaning run Ace of Hearts - Observations, Questions discussion. Please comment your observations on catching the reflux there.

grim · 18 May 2015 12:53PM

@Anavrin - Just one comment on the flow director alignment in the photo you posted just above. Be careful that the flow director is not making any contact with the downcomer funnel. I'm not sure if they are actually touching, or if it's just the perspective of the photo posted. If they are touching, you will lose a significant portion of the reflux straight down into the funnel. The reflux flowing down the outer edge is going to transfer right to that lip and go down the drain.

Anavrin · 18 May 2015 10:30PM

@grim

The flow directors were not touching to start with but seem to have straightened out a little with the heat, maybe they need to be bent then annealed so they keep their shape.

CothermanDistilling · 20 May 2015 12:15PM

Here is my dragon ;-)

Article in the Tampa Tribune

CothermanDistilling · 20 May 2015 12:19PM

Print version has another pic

FloridaCracker · 20 May 2015 01:21PM

Awesome article. Nice shot of the Dragon as well

grim · 20 May 2015 01:24PM

Damn that is an awesome picture

punkin · 20 May 2015 06:13PM

Great stuff. I like that Larrys Monday Tuesday idea got a mention. :D

marcus · 22 May 2015 09:09PM

this is our 10 plate, 8" column and seperate 400L pot, this has 2 elements total 27kw, just finished welding the pipes. so will be testing it this week

FloridaCracker · 22 May 2015 10:02PM

Sweet rig @marcus.

FullySilenced · 22 May 2015 10:06PM

Smaug's new pet Dragon!

FullySilenced · 22 May 2015 10:06PM

OR maybe this one is @Smaug's

Smaug · 22 May 2015 10:17PM

@marcus said: this is our 10 plate, 8" column and seperate 400L pot, this has 2 elements total 27kw, just finished welding the pipes. so will be testing it this week

wow.

Brandedhearts · 24 May 2015 11:17PM

@marcus, that is a nice setup. I may add on to my system in a similar manner when it is time. I love the fact you can just change the knobs and run it like a pot still or run a neutral. Very efficient and likely a rapid heat up time.

Anavrin · 25 May 2015 10:53PM

@marcus

Nice looking setup, but! You might find you need to add some kind of return from the botton of the column back into the boiler, the reflux return down to column needs to go back into the boiler, if it has no where to go it will flood your column.

I know it's 8" which is far bigger than I run, and I can just about possibly imagine a finely balanced setup that might have just enough power / reflux ratio to negate the need but I think this setup as pictured will be impracticle in real life without some kind of return to the boiler.

@FullySilenced Nice Dragon Tits :-)

Welcome!

Categories

In this Discussion

Show Us Your Dragon

Comments