Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey all, I'm building a 3" perforated plate column, I've started gathering materials for this project. One quick question for you's...
What is the shortest distance between plates for a 3" column?

A great question!
One I can't give a definitive answer to.
My gut feel was to tell you to go 125% of the column diameter.
Interestingly, the larger the diameter the shorter the tray spacing. I've seen trays spaced at 25% the column diameter in larger columns.

Are you building a whisky/rum column or a neutral column?
The reason I ask is you may want to consider a simple 3-4 plate design and use a removable packed section for the entirety of your available (remaining) height.

Cheers,

Mech.

The plan is to make removable plates, 5 plates all up as well as a removable packed section. That way I can configure for any kind of alcohol and strip down to basics for stripping runs.

5 plates plus a packed section is how I run mine as well.
In reality for me 3 or 4 fixed plates and a larger packed section would be ideal.
With that in mind I've been winding more packing to replace the extra bubble caps.

For your 5 plate section you're looking at roughly 95mm per section or 476mm total. Then add on whatever height you can managed in packing.

There are some members here that go way back, we have a living memory of still builds here. I'm sure someone has built a 3" and can chime in soon for you.

Thanks Mech, I was thinking around the 100mm mark myself, if I can take another 5mm off each section that would be even better

Oh magnus you legend. I'm about to embark on a 3" perf plate glasser journey, so if you don't mind, I might just sit back here and copy you!

Hey maddog my build will be a slow one im thinking lol, between work and family spare time is at a premium, but yeah I'll be no doubt asking more questions on the way. I plan on using some glass but not your typical glasser style.

Personally guys, if you have nothing invested at this stage I would strongly recommend you set your sights a little higher to a 4" build.

The work and effort you'll put in to the build is near identical but the reduction in run-times with a 4" compared to a 3" will make the small amount of extra cash outlay seem like a very distant memory.

Food for thought, PS, there's plenty of schematics and build logs for 4" rigs ;-)

Cheers,

Mech.

I agree with mech. i have 4 plates made up that im soldering in my 2" as it was left overs from my build so why not. ill make a 6" over a year or so. the time i put into my 2" bubble cap plates would have been better spent on a bigger build. only reason i am is it will b a while waiting for a 6" build and this is here now

I have a lot of stuff already for 3" so I'm going 3", no doubt I'll make a 4" at some point in the future aswell.. It's not about quantity of product or speed of the run for me, I enjoy the build and seeing it work so I'll plod along on my own course for now and see where I end up. To be honest even if I went straight for a 4 or 6 inch build now I'd still be wanting to make another lol.

All good :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Start a build thread for your 3", I look forward to watching it develop. :-B

Cheers,

Mech.

TheMechwarrior wrote:Start a build thread for your 3", I look forward to watching it develop. :-B

Cheers,

Mech.

Reckon we are already in it mate :laughing-rolling:

Finally started doing a bit on this project, long way to go yet and I'm sloooow...
Not sure if my down comers will work but they will be easy to change if they dont.
Anyways heres some pics.









Plate tree sitting in the 80mm borosilicate tube, still have to make the ptfe seals for each plate.

Glass tube looks ace! I don't understand your DC design? Is there a liquid lock?

Nice look forward to the next update :handgestures-thumbupleft: How do you seal against the wall of the glass if there a ready made seal you can buy or do you have to go custom?

Yeah it's a 3/4 to 1/2 inch reducer and a 3/4 cap under the plate

I'll be making the seals, still tossing up weather to turn them up out of ptfe or use silicon tube.

Second test run with 4 plates. First test run was a fail as the down commers were not holding a vapour lock. Havent finished building the large boiler yet so testing on the 30lt boiler.

Looks awesome like the look of the single long glass. Have you got a seal between the plate and glass wall or is it just a neat fit?

bluc wrote:Looks awesome like the look of the single long glass. Have you got a seal between the plate and glass wall or is it just a neat fit?

I got some 3mm OD, 2mm ID PTFE tube and split it length ways, then wrapped it around the plates.. Works a treat.