Arseys Pot Still

Pot still design and discussion

Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 15, 2020 9:27 pm

Soo after many runs fighting this setup, I worked out what was happening, Ultimately it was too much heat in 2 wrong places.

I got a needle valve finally and it did help somewhat, but plenty of huffing late run remained an issue.

As I was just doing my juggling act one run and I was having a good listen to what was going on in the boiler, I noticed what must have been the wave action inside flash boiling as the wash rocked around and hit the very hot side of the keg above liquid level

Another thing that was occurring was with the long tubing that I was using to try to get the angle of the dangle good, it was condensing some reflux up top, unfortunately when that reflux decided to flow back down the 45* angle all at once, it was hitting a "super heated" part of the column directly above the gap between the shroud and the keg and also flash boiling there, what survived that also made a noticeable sound when it dropped into the boiler and caused more turbulence

Hence the instability

Solution? Moved things around a bit and now I only use the riser with a 90* on it and ensure theres no path back to the boiler or much of anywhere to condensate that isnt pointed downwards out the spout.

Also I am now using boiling chips too to stop the turbulence in the boiler, A handful of scoria did the trick, will chase up something less fragile soon. In addition filling to 45l hasn't caused any dramas yet, only have run sugar grain washes so far though

So now its running well, even on a 20l spirit run, no dramas, woot

Stripping seems to be limited to 8.5-9l/h with this condenser, tried a bigger pump on it, but water the extra flow decreased the dwell time too much and couldn't get it past about 6-7 on max flow, the liebig was hot to 1/3 instead of the usual half, but venting steam, So inadvertently I had a near optimal set up already.
RC Al
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Location: Sunshine Coast Area
equipment: 3 plate 4" glasser
2" Potty

Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jun 30, 2021 6:21 pm

Bit of an update on this rig, it really was a success in the end - a gate vale and a needle valve got me into the zone with the cooling for the liebig, needle for spirit runs and gate for stripping.

A high pressure/volume gas regulator has a strip run going pretty fast, with 40-45L in the keg, it gets up to temp in 30-40 mins depending on the day and be done putting out 10-12L @ 37% an hour later (stripping down to 10ish %). I never hooked it up but with a preheater in the mix, I recon below 4 hours to rip through 3 lots.

A spirit run seems to go arround 12 hours including a crawl through heads a 1 - 1.5l an hour, hearts around 2lph or so and a cranked strip of the tails. This yields arround 20 litres of cuts to sample, with keeps an average of 11l @ 74%

Sadly, with many irons in the fire, plater, steam, all grain etc, I rarely get to run this way now, I do miss it :-|
RC Al
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Posts: 1568
Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:58 pm
Location: Sunshine Coast Area
equipment: 3 plate 4" glasser
2" Potty

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