Arseys Pot Still

Pot still design and discussion

Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 30, 2019 1:06 pm

Finally stopped dragging my butt

First time non electrical soldering in 25+ years, lots of waste :)

A couple of leaks on the column with a water fill test but the pc seem all good so far
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby bluc » Wed Jan 30, 2019 1:10 pm

Awesome :clap: any reason for the extra long riser?
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 30, 2019 1:24 pm

Cause the end of my pc is only about a foot off the ground as it sits, going to add a triclamp at the top of the riser so i will have a usable 2" spool
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 30, 2019 2:16 pm

Stuff i learnt
That torch is bloody heaps for 2" and bodes well for larger stuff
Just buy the roll of Aquasafe, i cheaped out and got the thick stick, i even made some wire out of some of it initially :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: . Even the roll of wire looks too thick to me now that i got the sweating thing under control. I used a full 120g stick, wasted about 20% or so
Dont clean a thing till you go to join it to something else
Buy extra small cheap fittings, they are painful to pull apart if you change your mind or stuff up
If you need a pol bbq bottle adaptor at big green shed, go to the bbq section and save $5, the only difference is the dearer companion one has the two piece head allowing faster disconnect, have to undo the hose on the basic one first
and cause we all love pics
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby hillzabilly » Wed Jan 30, 2019 7:42 pm

May I ask why you made the condencer soooo long ?.Some dimensions would be nice too .cheers hillzabilly :think:
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:02 pm

Ok, the 2 riser sections are 2" a bit over 70cm ea, the liebig jacket is 170 of 19mm over 12mm, it's attached to a 32-19 air con reducer (it's a cut off of a bigger specialist bit) over a 50-25 reducer then ss ferrule.

On the shortest keg I have it's roughly 2m tall and the pc misses the ground by roughly a foot

It's that long as that was the longest bit of 19 I had and I'm going to throw 88,000 btu at it, equivalent to roughly 25kW minus losses, it might not be big enough yet
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby woodduck » Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:12 pm

Is it soft solder? Looks like it and if it is your getting it a bit too hot by the looks. May be why it's not running properly and going everywhere? When I soft solder the copper barely changes color. You only need to heat the copper enough to get the solder to melt when it touches it.

Good job though mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:57 pm

I had the hang of it by the end and needed very little for a joint, initially I was using way too much so it randomly went everywhere, it's aquasafe solder
I wasn't using a consistent flame joint to join either, should have had a bit more patience, next lot should be much better
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby hillzabilly » Wed Jan 30, 2019 11:24 pm

The good thing about electric is that you know how much power ya running,25 000wt is a freakin lot for a 50lt boiler,would not use more than 5000wt in my opinion,ifn its for stripping wich is were you would use max power and on heat up,then again I would not go over 5000wt,the risk of scorching and violent pukes down a small tube make it a danger in my mind ,not good for gas flames nearby,then having the extra long riser tubes will allow more passive reflux that will rob your spirit of flavour and that's not what a pot still is about ta me even more with the extra expence and time for grain mash's or rum gens ,the struggle is to get the most flavour possible ta me,most running a 2inch pot still on a 50lt keg would use about 1200-1500wt for a spirit run wich is were most of the condencers time will be running,even a 1inch over 3/4inch may be more practical ,guess I am a worrier at heart mate and just want you to be very careful I love copper but have switched ta stainless for most of my building because its forgiving for my odd butter fingers moment's I have ,and a condencer that long would not stay straight for long with me .cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:19 am

Appreciate the concerns hilz, I know the burner I'm getting is way overboard for a 2" pot/keg, have a 80l waiting for a ferrule and no doubt a 200l like plumby's is going to happen at some stage.

I had a 6000w element coming, but the freight gods said no. My power availability is crap, so it was going to get run from 3 different circuits, will get back to that for a reflux column, but gas is the go atm

I 've seen liebigs longer than this one, seen them added to the end of a shotty too.
One thing I did pickup on is that our 1/2 & 3/4 pipe is very different in size to the USA stuff, the "recommended" sizing that I have used is not even close. The US stuff is measured by internal diameter vs outside for oz, the US 1/2 has 25%+ more flow area and the water jacket thickness ends up at about 1.5mm vs ours at over 2.5mm, nowhere near as efficient

I may try a bigger bore one in front of this one, but I'll crawl a bit first and see how far I can push it first

I've looked into the passive reflux bit, not super concerned, some insulation would fix any major turn down if it eventuates - I get better cuts and a bigger hearts portion out of my little still with a dash of reflux vs less power
Last edited by RC Al on Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:22 pm

Impatient to run some product, I did an vinegar run to find a new leak (boo) but there's certainly plenty of heat there with my burner.... :o
Mundane life crap has been getting in the way, so I hadnt finished my lyne arm yet any way, so more torch work to go yet for stage 1
Configuration wise i'm adding some more clamps, it can still be made into a pelican, but i definitely want to keep product away from my burner of doom, so it wont get run that way till i get an electric boiler
Might have to cut some reliefs into the base of the keg to let some more heat up the sides?
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Last edited by RC Al on Thu Apr 04, 2019 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby hillzabilly » Thu Apr 04, 2019 3:59 pm

An old 44gal drum may help.cheers hillzabilly ;-)
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:30 pm

So got some free time to pull my finger out and got to finishing my soldering, found my worst sealing SS ferule was due to an out of round socket, result of a poor annealing job, ended up just putting the ferule on to the elbow, so theres bit of extra ss showing, meh. Got the bugger first go and now im more than happy with my copper soldering too, practice makes perfect, glad it wasn't a flash bubbler build i was trying this on

Worked out some half assed plumbing using my existing kmart pool pump and some garden hose, full 22,500L tank gravity fed to pool pump, garden hose 10-15m to dodgy stilling area and then back to the tank, its not doing the job too well, got a couple more tricks to try, but i might have to bust out a submersible pond pump i have stashed somewhere

Did a 12L vinegar run and then ran 20L of tpw heads @15% through, heat up time was 16 mins with the bottom glowing (roughly 70% energy loss, lots of work to do there), had to back it off a fair way though when product started, and took off 5L@55% in 50min, turned it back up at the end to try to blast it with some more steam and wasn't able to overcome the pc with water, might have had a air issue in the long hoses i was using, my whole block is on a 15-20 degree angle

So a successful outcome for the moment, some tidying and possibly some polishing to do. A fill and drain port is much higher on my list now, got an 80L keg for that though, some support for the lyne arm and liebig and some more juice for the water, the flow rate was really low, Also need to work out what im doing with the burner, i know yellow flame is bad and i should be going through the jets with a drill bit, going to investigate flame to pot height and whatever else i can do outside of a shroud, not sure if the bottom ring keeping heat in is a liability or not
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Thu May 23, 2019 5:57 pm

Sooo a while since i updated this

A few weeks back i tried to do a 30l 1.5 spirit run of NGW for a maiden voyage, found it wasnt the best thing to try straight up, by the time i had it running ok i worked out i was doing 5l/hour :angry-tappingfoot: I had massive huffing issues that i blamed on air bubbles in my extended cooling hose run and a lack of a valve other than a shifting spanner...

A couple of weeks later (life n stuff) i had another go with a valve (ok its a 19mm bung tap, but hey it works after a fashion) from my little still attached and attention paid to bleeding the water system. Also added a makeshift shroud that was sitting around looking ugly, just for the challenge of changing more than one thing at once... This was only a 20l @40% run, got the gas dialled down nicely and seemed to be on top of things, with the odd huff, heads taken off at 1.5l/h, minor pick up in speed for hearts - aprox 2l/h, once well into hearts the hufffing that was being intermittent previously came back hard and i had to dial down to about 1l/h to finish the hearts and abandon the some of the tails, hadn't had any home made for a month, i was thirsty damnit....

So thinking the slow running was the issue i tried to confirm the idea, i ran 17l of uj through for a stripping run, Just to continue with the two changes madness, I also added a scrubbie in the bend, figuring that any reflux would go back down to the boiler.. nope, didnt work, more huffing, cracked it turned the burner off and quickly moved the scrubbie to the reducer to the liebig (hot potato, hot potato) got it back up running at a much quicker (unmeasured) rate and only got one huff out of it right at the end when i was down to 30% and pushing it through

So after chatting with a few friendly experienced people :character-oldtimer: Iv'e got the following to try on my list
An actually full charge of 40 litres - on top of this, about to put down 100l of uj
A real valve - - needle preferably
Pretty sure my cooling water was into the single digits - windchill on a hose on dewy grass, might see if i can do a run during the day, a smaller difference in vapour to coolant temp may help, will have to get on to some temp probes (yeah yeah pointless i know, but i like numbers)

I am confident that the burner can run slow enough now - 5 hours of spirit run was 2.5 kgs of gas, It wasnt running as slow as it could, havent done the hole/drill thing yet, a better shroud will happen soon too

I am thinking that my aircon reducer may be half the problem, im considering adding a extra valve to the liebig outlet and wrapping some 6mm around the reducer as an adjustable pre-cooler so that vapour hits a more gradual temp gradient as it goes along
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby bluc » Thu May 23, 2019 6:30 pm

Put a valve on pc output(dont ever close it completely :scared-eek: ) and close it off slightly ?half? it should stop the huffing :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Thu May 23, 2019 6:48 pm

Thats where its at now, Just cracked

Not sure if the needle valve will help or not, cant hurt, and will be useful on later stills too... think ill get a panel flow meter too just see if im getting any fluctuations in flow - i know i get a fair rollercoaster of power, i wonder how my 12 watt pump goes with 10% less power randomly, might put the voltage controller and power meter on it next run, i might be able to control water flow better with that

sigh, might have to find my bigger pond pump... I have a VFD too, that might regulate the voltage, have to look into that, dont want to stuff up my 3 phase settings on it though...
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby The Stig » Thu May 23, 2019 7:43 pm

Not a single bull clip in sight :laughing-rolling:
Well done :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Sorry I just couldn’t resist
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby bluc » Thu May 23, 2019 7:54 pm

Lol
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby hillzabilly » Sun May 26, 2019 12:23 pm

A small bit of copper mesh in the end of your condencer will help to reduce or stop huffing.cheers hillzabilly ;-)
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Re: Arseys Pot Still

Postby RC Al » Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:29 pm

Finally got to do a spirit run with the beasty

Am using a little scrubby in the end, dose make a difference

It would seem that 6-7 litres an hour is my stripping rate till i sort my liebig issue, Hooked up my power controller to the water pump in a effort to slow it down (its pulling a massive 3 watts now lols), helped a bit, just setting the water and upping the gas if it started to huff

Did 2x 40l strips of some sweet corn (no backset UJ) which gave me 16.5l @ 55% to which i added 5l of 9% wash - put me at 21.5l @ 39ish%
Slow take-off of heads @1 - 1.5l/h, came off at 83% which surprised me, wasnt expecting it to be that high
Hearts were done at 2L/h @80% - until roughly half or so the way through hearts i started to lose stability and had to fight with the gas, not sure if the liebig filled with air or if the small boiler charge was the cause, but i was having a pretty rough time keeping the heat right, even with the pump on full and tap fully open i was overpowering it on SFA gas
Last bit took way too long involving externally cooling the thing with a wet towel and I just abandoned the tails in the boiler..

Having the liebig almost horizontal is really just reducing the amount of water in it and leaving a big pocket of air for the first 1/4 to 1/3 of it, really not ideal

Needle valve ordered....

If that dosent work, i may have to just chop a couple of foot off and work from there
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