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Thinking of purchaseing a sight glass for my 2in column but there’s several of sizes to choose from. Looking for adviceJackfire
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11 Replies
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I would advise to narrow the selection and show us what your looking at and price. I saw a 6″ on a 3″ column that worked as a sight glass, mini gin basket and a boil ball.
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Is this what you’re looking for?4″ VM Build
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In your welcome you said …May I suggest you slow down just a bit before buying stuff ? If you can describe what you have, your distilling environment, and what you hope to make, perhaps you can avoid buying stuff you don’t need (either yet or ever).That said … I love my sight glass.________________I drank fifty pounds of feed-store corn’till my clothes were ratty and torn
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Me too, I have two of the exact one Salt posted. I have one above the pot riser and one above the thumper head. I’ve learned you can tell much more about where you are in the warmup from the site glasses verses a thermometer. Starting to fog up; you know you’re getting a little heat into the wash, water beads up on the glass; you’re starting to simmer, ton of reflux; you’re getting close, it’s clear with very little moisture; you’re about to be running, if you’re not already.Rusty”Knowledge is a paradox; the more one understands, the more one realizes the vastness of his ignorance” – Viktor (Arcane)The Horny Goat Build Thread
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Me too, I have two of the exact one Salt posted. I have one above the pot riser and one above the thumper head. I’ve learned you can tell much more about where you are in the warmup from the site glasses verses a thermometer. Starting to fog up; you know you’re getting a little heat into the wash, water beads up on the glass; you’re starting to simmer, ton of reflux; you’re getting close, it’s clear with very little moisture; you’re about to be running, if you’re not already.RustySurging with foam – you’re about to puke…Very useful and not too expensive placed above my pot still riser just before the lyne arm. I wrapped the gaskets in teflon tape. Cheers,-jonny————i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred————
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Yep, exactly! The hardest part of that is putting everything back together with the proper alignment. If you take your time and work in a criss cross pattern with the threaded rods, that’s not hard either.I haven’t puked yet Jonny, so I didn’t think of that one. I haven’t run anything really close to completely full on my boiler and since I run propane, I start off really slow. It took me two hours for the warmup over the weekend in 31° weather. Thanks for the backup. Rusty”Knowledge is a paradox; the more one understands, the more one realizes the vastness of his ignorance” – Viktor (Arcane)The Horny Goat Build Thread
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what should I look for in a sight glass
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Jackfire
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Given your column construction, a sight glass isn’t going to be of much use. You can’t put it below the RC, there’s no use for it above, and it’s probably going to be a while before you’re running washes that are prone to puke such that you’ll use it at the base.My advice is to skip the sight glass for now, play with that column a bit to gain experience, and start accumulating tri-clamp spools and elbows to build a next-generation column.________________I drank fifty pounds of feed-store corn’till my clothes were ratty and torn
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The sight glass on a reflux column is typically placed under the RC so you can see the top of the packing and tell when the column becomes flooded. You can listen to it though without the sight glass in the meantime.+1 on greggn’s suggestion.Cheers,jonny————i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred————
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I have 46″ 2″ reflux column i put my sight glass right on top of the boiler. So i can see what reflux is actually dropping back into the boiler and see if it’s foaming up.Reefer1
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You could cut the column where I drew the red line and have a 2″ Tri-Clamp Ferrule welded the top of the column as well as one to the underside of the dephlegmator. Now you can install a 2″ sight glass beneath the dephlegmator. Doing this will also make your column modular so that it would be usable if you ever decide to go with a different still design. Tri-Clamp spools are the most expensive part so for the cost of a few bucks to have Tri-Clamp ferrules welded to it actually saves you money in the long run. Tri-Clamp ferrules are cheap too.
IF you do consider doing this, I find it best to be sure that the TIG welder guy has a nice band saw that he’ll guarantee that it will cut it straight. If it’s NOT cut straight, it makes the still wonky and crooked. This should be very easy for a competent shop to do correctly.4″ VM Build
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