Poor man's flow control valve

[stilly_bugger]

Needle valves can be expensive, so I thought I'd post a version of a poor man's flow control valve that is used in one of my still heads. It's a Pure Distilling liquid management reflux condenser.

Okay so this is what the take off assembly looks like:

PD_flow_control_2.jpg

The internals look like this:

PD_internals.jpg

Distillate take off is controlled with a simple stainless ball valve that has a calibrated brass fitting screwed into the valve outlet. The 'calibrated brass fitting' is simply a brass nipple that has been filled with soft solder and had a ~1mm hole drilled through it. When the ball valve is fully open, the 1mm hole lets through 1.5L/hr. Here's a pic:

PD_flow_control.jpg

This works pretty well, and is quite satisfactory for the main collection during a reflux run of low wines on 2,200W, giving you a reflux ratio of 3:1 during the early part of the run. The collection rate is higher than I would like when running a wash straight from the fermentor. And it's a bit quick when you're pulling off heads. I've found that I can get enough control to slow collection to ~900mL/hr, or 3 drops per second, which is about the rate I like to take off heads and to collect ~10% washes. If you wanted the flow to be slower than 1.5L/hr, you could also drill a smaller hole. You can get drill bits at 1/32" (0.79mm) and 1/64" (0.40mm) from hardware stores.

I'm not completely wrapped about (a) the brass fittings, and (b) the soft solder plug. Although both are safe enough, I'd prefer stainless and copper only. So I'm going to modify the calibrated fitting, replacing what brass I can with 316 stainless and the soft solder plug with a drilled piece of copper. More pics to come.

Anyway, this is one method of getting slow flow through a ball valve for those of you who can't afford a needle valve. It's non-adjustable, but it will do the job.

[zwagerman9]

Thats actually a decent idea. Better than ones I've seen on HD. Other option is a patience issue, order a heap of cheap needle valves from ebay

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Nickel-Plate ... 3f0c4e1518

Patience though.

[stilly_bugger]

You would have to check that nickel-plated brass is safe enough (by your personal standards) for high % abv alcohol. But if it is, then they're a good find. I would prefer something in stainless with Teflon seats. But we are after a poor man's option here.

Other option is a patience issue...

What do you mean by patience?

[zwagerman9]

Postage times lol

[hoppy]

Hi Stilly I also have a Pure Distilling Condenser and am going to swap the ball valve out for a needle valve,there is a vent hole drilled into the top of the compression fitting on the take off pipe do you think i would need to drill one into the compression fitting on the needle valve, is it realy needed, or should i leave it as is, not sure which way to go.


Cheers Hoppy :mrgreen:

[crow]

Wondering this myself Hoppy , thinking maybe not as a lot of fellas are running needle valves and I haven't heard of them using a vent . In fact this seens to be the only rig I heard about using the vent making me think that perhaps its not imperative

[hoppy]

Yeah might suck it and see Crow, give it a run without the breather the worst i could see it doing is maybe spit & spurge a bit :angry-steamingears: :))

Cheers Hoppy :mrgreen:

[stilly_bugger]

...do you think i would need to drill one into the compression fitting on the needle valve...

Like Crow said, there are lots o' fellas using needle valves with no venting and they don't have any problems.

[hoppy]

Cool, will give it a go guys thanks for the info :dance:


Cheers Hoppy :mrgreen: