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Comparing Power to Output
Ok, so may be somewhat of a stupid question but….I’ve got 7000kw worth of elements in my 100l jacketed pot.Now its got legs, is off the floor and will be a pain in the ass to insulateObviously. I’m loosing a lot of heat externally to the still.Starting with a 100l of 10% ABV wash, 4″ 4 perforated plates with no reflux, how long should i take me to do a run ?Also, I’m thinking my shotgun condenser is undersized, distillate is coming off above 50 degrees with both elements at 100%even with 5l per minute of water through it.I’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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20 Replies
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Why are you running 7000w to run 4x 4 inch perf plates?You should be able to run half of that imo.
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Was wondering the same Salty . 4×4” under normal conditions would be hard pressed to make anything drinkable ( didn’t taste like tailsy shite ) with much more than 3Kw . BB , you mention no reflux ,are you doing a stripping run ? I don’t have a jacketed boiler but with 6Kw , I’d be stripping @ 12-13 l/hr on a PottyMy recommended goto .wiki/index.ph … ion_Theory
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I’m confused by a few things in your post BB.Could you start again with more info? And when you say you have a jacketed pot with elements in, what’s the jacket for?Make Booze, not War!
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I believe your still is double jacketed, meaning it is already insulated pretty well – does the outside get too hot to touch while you’re running it? I’ve heard that these types of stills run at around 80% efficiency, so your 7kw into the jacket is closer to 5.5kw into the wash.
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Using the pot still calculator on the parent sight, assuming you’re running a strip at constant power and no reflux @ 5.5kw into the wash, it would take around 1.5hrs to heat up and another 3 hours to strip down to under 10% ABV off the spout / 30% ABV total combined low wines.
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What are your shotty specs? Coolant temp and flow rate? Recirc?“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”- W.C. Fields My EZ Solder Shotgun My Steam Rig and Manometer
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Just trying to push it through.Figured with a more flow through the condenser it’d handle it Yummy, Yes, purely a stripping run.I figure I’m loosing a lot of energy somewhere…..Details…..100L of TFFVmeasured as approximately 10% ABV (couldn’t find my glasses)heatup was close to 2 hours, Refluxed to compress heads, took half a liter then shut off coolant to dephlegRan to about 17L of product then added small amount of reflux to compress the last of the tails.about 19L in total @ 57″ ABV Shut down after about 7 hours total at 10% ABV off the spout with reflux.Still is as follows100L capacity.Jacketed with 25 litres of SAE 30 heat exchange oil in jacket.2 x 3500w elementsYes the outside does get hot, jacket temp can exceed wash temp by about 20 degrees with full power.Variable speed agitator(Agitator speed seems to affects jacket temp as a Molly wash needs to have low speed or to much foaming)4″ perf plated column as shownCondenserthe one used here, 2″ x 4 tube about 18″ long,Yesterday with new pump was running about 5l per minute with coolant temp at around 30 ish degreesProduct was coming off at around 40-50 degrees (pipe was to hot to hold)Plates were loaded, but only lightly, maybe 5mm of liquid on each plate
I’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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Sorry, thought you were trying to do a spirt run that way.When I strip using either my 4 plate 4inch or the 6 incher I add an extra long 1 inch over 3 liebig to the end of the shotty, the shotty does the hard the liebig finishes the job.You can put a lot of heat into them that way and still knock down all of the vapour.You can plumb them up in line if you want as far as water goes.I’ll hunt around for a photo.
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BB , what was your takeoff rate once you started the stripping run ?That boiler is without a word of a lie , sexy as fuck . But there’s no reason you can’t wrap it up . Make her a fur coat I have no experience with double boilers and oil but I would have thought there would be more temp difference than 20°C between the oil and the wash .Are you running the elements at full power or via a controller ?My recommended goto .wiki/index.ph … ion_Theory
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Don’t really know Yummy, stripped straight into a keg this time so as for temp differential, with a full load there’s usually not much temp difference with agitator running, running less than 60-70l I’ve noticed I need to keep the power input downThere’s a massive area for heat transfer, (think just about the entire inner surface)Most of the heating comes from the bottom third, by the time it gets up to the top edge of itthe jacket its pretty much the same temp as the wash.I do have a controller which is pretty basic, I want to upgrade it, I’ve got some PID’s and thermowells but my brain seems to be mush these days, having trouble making heads or tails with wiring diagram
I’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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Trying to run my stills using PIDs and STC-1000s would turn my brain into mush. They are the wrong tools for the job.
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Mainly looking for over temp cutout (oil in jacket is flammable if it gets hot enough)and to be able to have a set temp so I can pre-heatI’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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The wash should keep it safe unless your setup is capable of putting much more heat into the jacket than the walls can transfer to the wash.I use a PID for Bain Marees, but not for distilling, and I require a set temperature.
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this is true, it’s more of a safety thing, I have, so far once 1/2 Filled it up with water and turned it on, not noticing the drain was partially open, still ran dry oil overheated and puked all over the floor.Only took 1/2 hour whilst I was mowing lawn. I’d expected it to take 45 mins to get to the boil I’m usually trying to do 50 things at once. Ideally I’d like to turn it on, set a temp and have it cut out once reached, then I can load the plates, pull fore shots and start the runthe last reason, those stupid knobs for the control, there’s no fine tuning, it jumps all over the place, mostly just run 1 or both elements at 100%I’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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That’s why we don’t advocate the suggestion of leaving a running still unattended. It’s very unsafe. If you’re going to leave it, remove power until you can actively monitor it. Cheers,jonny————i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred————
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Increase your PC coolant flow rate a bit. I pot strip at 35k BTU’s (11kw) with 10.5lpm and my shotty doesn’t blink. I believe it could handle much more at that coolant rate but haven’t more power. The shell remains cool and only gets hot up to the first baffle, ~2″ of shell or so. If yours gets hot over its full length it might be from absence of baffles. (With the knockdown from your RC, I’m surprised your shell got so hot).Yummy nailed it – your kit is really sexy. “Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”- W.C. Fields My EZ Solder Shotgun My Steam Rig and Manometer
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For startup I use a latched relay that cuts the power to the element when the temperature reaches a setpoint that is lower than the calculated boiling point. If I dropped dead, the still would turn itself off.
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That’s why we don’t advocate the suggestion of leaving a running still unattended. It’s very unsafe. If you’re going to leave it, remove power until you can actively monitor it. Cheers,jonnyI would never do that with alcohol in the mix, it was only an acid solution to clean the boilerGot any more details on that NZChris ?I’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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A latched relay uses Stop and Start buttons rather than a switch. The stop button is normally closed, so when pressed it breaks the circuit holding the relay on. You can daisy chain as many devices into the Stop circuit as you like, temperature, pressure switch, timer, Dead Man Switch, micro switches (use on valves that must be closed). I sometimes add the temperature out of the condenser, so that if something goes wrong with the cooling water the still shuts itself down.
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Ah.Copy that.Just like the deadmans we had on the drilling rigs.They were painful, electronic 240VAC, 415VAC, Neumatic, Hydraulic, pressure and 12v Dc all on the same system 2000KVA worth of generators die and a 400t drilling rig with well over 1000 electrical connections that get unplugged and plugged back in every move,shuts down in the middle of the night, you and the sparky start at one end and meet in the middle…Thank fuck I don’t deal with that shit any more I’m not fat, I’m in shape….Round is a shape Getting old has whiskers on it !
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