Liquid Flow Explained

[Kimbo]

Here you go,
hope this helps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKNDVbQynqo

[emptyglass]

Thanks Kimbo.

That vid inspired me to fukc arround with no cups and mitred ends on downcomers. Trying to spread the downcoming fluid around the edges, not through the centre.

I wonder sometimes how relevent it is to us with smaller scale perf plates. You can't scale nature. And we usually have a bit of threaded rod in the middle to stir things up.

[Kimbo]

True,
Now as McStill said," sometimes the smallest tweaks can make a big difference".
and as for the threaded rod, it doesn't necessarily have to be in the centre does it? :think:

[emptyglass]

I don't believe they have to be in the centre. You could put them where ever you want.

I had thought of putting 3 rods in, equally spaced around the plates, but I'm probably too tight at the end of the day, and went for one down the guts. And 4 was going to work better than 3.

I could be wrong, but with 4" plates, and levels of 1/2 to 3/4 in most stills, I feel the bubbling action stirs things up enough. I don't think there is enough cross flowing of the fluid that it affects the performance and/or distillation cycles. Also. most of our hobby stills technicly should factor any bypass around the plate edges that the commecial boys don't have.

Nonetheless, that video is very useful. Food for thought.

[MacStill]

So EG,

Have you sorted out your flooding & plates not holding fluid problems & had a successful run yet?

[emptyglass]

Yes Mac, its all swinging now.

After about 10 succesful runs, its just working better and better.

Buy the way, the flooding problem only ever happened when charging the plates. With all the different hole combo's I've tried, it never flooded once charged. Last run I did was as perfect as I need.

I still have to try a feints run to give you a categorical yes, but I see no reason why it wont work. We have had very warm nights of late, my fermenters don't want to cool down naturally. Once some wash clears and its run, I should have enough feints to justify a run.

I'm tempted to double distill some whiskey, just to see how it goes on a high ABV boiler charge. I havn't found a need to do a strip and spirit run seperatly yet, the stuffs pretty good first time out of the still.

Next experiment is full mesh plates, unless you beat me to it...

[olddog]

The video link in the first post was what inspired me to build the weir downcomers in my Flute Mk11, they just don't flood at all. :dance: :dance: :dance:


OD

[MacStill]

Next experiment is full mesh plates, unless you beat me to it...

Nah you can have that one ;-)

I wont be building for myself after this last modular one, cant see how I could possibly make it better :mrgreen:

[emptyglass]

Next experiment is full mesh plates, unless you beat me to it...

Nah you can have that one ;-)

I wont be building for myself after this last modular one, cant see how I could possibly make it better :mrgreen:

You might not be able to do any better, but I'm sure in time you'll get the itch to do something different. :mrgreen:

The video link in the first post was what inspired me to build the weir downcomers in my Flute Mk11, they just don't flood at all. :dance: :dance: :dance:


OD

Is a good video, I'm sure it has inspired many others too.