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I do not totally agree with Rick on the Raschig rings suggestion. Go to www.homedistiller.org there are very good equations and explations on the design of a home still. The scrubbers have a better performance than the Rachig rings to achieve a better alcool purity. The size of your column is a little bit off. It is better to have at lease 3 feet to achieve 90% and up. You reflux could be the problem also. Even with a good reflux still, you will achieve only 70% if you do not keep a proper equilibrum in the column. Don't be too fast on the collection ! Wait at least 20-30 minutes before you start collecting. You absolutely need a thermometer at the head of the column. Numeric thermometer are cheap and very good. Get a oven thermometer for about 20$-30$ canadian dollars. They work great and they even have an alarm when you reach the proper temperature ,78C,.
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if you run at lower power you will generate more reflux at the same cooling water flowrate.
say you supply 2kW and the cooling tube absorbs 1kW then you are running at 50% reflux. if you lower the power to 1.5kW you increase the % of reflux and hence will get higher % alcohol
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decrease power with a constant cooling flowrate and your RR will increase
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Good to hear that the extra height has helped. Now at 48' you should be able to reach the 95% mark or so. Gees, many are happy with 90% there. Just a matter of experimenting around with the amount of reflux you use, and the type & use of packing.
Tony
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Im looking to build a reflux still..need some suggestions for a 'pot'
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stainless steel milk jug is great.
nat
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Ok So no need to reduce heat just keep it on setting 3 and Keep the water pump running as fast as it will go and lots of Ice water!! Ill try this and see what happens no doubt should see some improvements as all your advice pans out well!! Thanks!
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<font size="+0">HAAAAAAAA!!!!! I did it!!! By decreasing the heat slightly after warming up I brought it up to 172 SLOWLY anf it stabalized beautifuly with a good deal of reflux. same time ran the water pump fast as it would go with water at 37 degrees constant. the result was small slow drops of PURITY!!! Thnx Rick U the man
</font>
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I am really happy that this worked out for you. You should be able to keep the hotplate at the max, but if the tiny bit of cycling that you would have gotten did not affect you ,and if you are using the diffuser plate, then you should have leveled this out,, then that is what matters. Good job!
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Rick, Ilive in an areia that water is at a premium. Have you any ideas on cooling the condenser water by useing a a ccoling tower,runing the water through an old rfreg or maybe even radiator with a fan?
thanx jimmy
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Although I have not done this personally, anything that will cool the water back down to allow for re-circulation of cold coolant is fine. Probably the easiest and most effective would be to use an inline water pump and have a coil surrounded by ice to cool the water. It will allow for the least amount of cooling water to be used because you will need basically just what is in the line plus your ice bath.
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I am currently running a standard Still Spirits 5L Super Reflux still, which I am happy with it's performance to an extent, but would like to see if there is a way to reduce the amoutn of water I used by recirculating. I am thinking about a 50ltr drum with a water pump.
My plan is to mount a digital probe thermometer in the top of the stack with a high/low alarm and have it decrease/increase the speed of the water going through pump to keep the stack at a constant temp. Does anyone know if there is an off the shelf product that can do this / or...has anyone got any ideas if it works or not and the best ways to go about it???
Cheers
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Hay all good read. I myself just started on this reflux thing. I am liking it though. beats my dads old pot still hands down. But I built my collum before I found this site. And when I built it I made it with 1 1/2' copper at 2foot 6 inch
from the middle of the T to the bottom of the collum. Both the cooling tubes run through the top the top tube is 4.5' below the center of the T and the bottom one is at 6.5' that puts 1.5' between them. I run two thermometer's one at the top of the boiler and one at the center of the T at the top of the collum. I run my boiler temp at between 175 and 180 and reflux slow. I use a 20gal drum that I fill with bags of ice then with water works nice and stays vary cold. And I use a circulating pump off of a hot water furnace. I don't know what the proof of my shine is BUT it will keep you warm on a cold nite. I don't know anybody that runs a reflux still so I guess I am looking for any input on this am I doing this right or is there something I need to change.
Thank's for taking time to read this.
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Thanks for the great tips!<center><table border=1><tr><td>  casino.html (9.7 k)</td></tr></table></center>
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COOLING, I have been using water from my well to cool my condenser, but just purchased a Via Aqua 2300 and have an idea and was wondering if anyone tried to set it up by just circulating the water between the condenser and a copper coil that is in a ice chest then pack the cooler with ice.
I know it can be done with water but I want to make a closed system, purging out the air, keeping the pump out of the chest and sort of just it as the old time bars did with running the beer through coils that were in ice.
Any suggestions before I start manufacturing it this way.
msmike
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Mississippi: Yes I tried that first before going to my modified system. The warm water exiting the condenser just kept melting the ice. That's why I designed the modified system. It gives the water a chance to cool a bit prior to returning to the cooling tank. In that tank I just use reuseable frozen 2 liter bottles. Check it out : http://www.tvbeer.com/cool1.htm
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