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I have a 20 gal all copper reflux still that I cool with a 50 gallon barrel of water and a sump pump. The cooling water gets very hot during a run even if I am only doing a five gallon batch. Does anyone have any ideas how to keep my cooling water at an acceptable temp without changing the water during the run? My collumn is 36' and is 2' round and my sump pump is large.
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I had a similar problem. I then hooked up my cooling line to the community water supply and collected all the water I used for a 25 litre batch. It was a surprising amount. I then used enough barrels to have that amount of water on hand. That way I didn't have to recirculate as much water. Otherwise you may need to use a radiator ,like from a car,or other heat exchanger to keep your cooling supply cool enough to work with. It is sad to realize your brandy is comming out as steam and floating away.
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You just need to freeze some milk jugs with water in them to put in your water tank. When your done just refreeze the jugs and use next time.
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Risking sounding cliché here. I found that using a combination of both gives the best results.
Using an isolative material for your cooling water ,such as wood or Styrofoam,, have it chilled by frozen water containers like soda bottles or milk jugs, and have a radiator ,I use an old air conditioning radiator, to make sure the water doesn"t overheat.
Biggest drawback is tat you need a bit more space to put everything out. T will keep your water quite cool for very long though.
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I bought an Via Aqua 2300 which pumps 0 to 609 gallons per hour through its adjustible flow valve. It's just like the one that MileHi and Brewhaus sells except it has the capasity to push twice as much water. That can be a BIG factor if you are pushing it over five feet or more. I use two igloo coolers. The first is filled with cold water which is pumped through the Via Aqua 2300 into the columns and the condenser then out to a second igloo cooler that is filled with ice water and has my wort chiller in it. The hot water goes through the wort chillers copper coils in the ice bath and is then deposited back into the first cooler which stays nice and cold through the entire run. A bit of overkill? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that it works like a charm.
The Via Aqua 2300 sells on eBay for $19.95. The Igloo coolers were $14 each at Walmart, and the wort chiller I made myself and have used for years making beer. My wort chiller already had hose attachments that matched the hoses from MileHi, but I did invest in a couple of quick releases. So basically the whole system cost around the same as a couple of liters of rashig rings. But, like rashig rings, it's a one time investment and with the cost of water where I live paid for itself the third time I used it.
This is probably more information than you were looking for. I hope it was helpful.
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here's my two bits.... seperate the tower and condensor return(like 2 cooler). the condensor is where all the heat is coming from. you cant touch the tower water during a run or it will effect the vapor temp. After you reflux for an hour you do not want to mess it up. I have a radiator but if i turn it on during the normal run then the vapor goes crazy. now...during reflux you can add cold water to the process and it will be fine. During the run and not in "reflux' the tower temp increases very little (if you have it to a slow drip as required). My Still is on an Allen Bradley plc and i have pulled data to prove these points. during a run I read tower temp, keg temp, cooling water temp. I collect the data every 5 seconds (over 5800 points of data I import in excel). I have only have it completed for 3-4 runs but its all coming together....
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