Tub Thumpin' X 2

[Dig Brinker]

So I'm sitting here, watching the column drip cos every time I turn the RC water down to get a fine stream the glasses fog & ABV starts to drop. Been back into full reflux a few times now, finding the quick drip output will keep the ABV steady at 92% on this corn flake wash.

A slow drip into the collection jars gives a man time to think.

And time to do some study.

Think & study some things he's had on his mind for a while...

Like building a thumper. Or two :music-deathmetal:

As I said above, I've been thinking thumpers. Traditional sort of thumpers, run on top of 3 or 4 plates. For flavour. And my research has led me to the 'new school' inline thumper, before the plates, to gather all or most of the ethanol, enabling faster take off speeds.

Hmmm... what if I could run a thumper at each end?? :think:

Maybe not at the same time, but maybe.

Bourbon with honey in the top thump.

Rum with molasses in the top tub.

Other ingredients.

Anyhoo, I'd been thinking about thumping.

The other night, I left a bottle of gin under my pillow & made a wish.

The next day I woke up and the copper fairy had been!!! :D

In my shed was 720mm of 6" pipe and a pair of 6"-4" reducers.

So I'm thinking a 480mm tall primary thumper with a 430ish tall 2" riser with either a 2.5 or 3 inch cap over that, held together at the base with a 6" Tri clamp, soldered at the top & joined to still & 180* at the 4" ends, and a 240 tall (or shorter) flavour thumper for the top, with a shorter, fatter cap to enable maximum flavour take up.

I think it will be interesting :think:

Gonna pump tails out now & think about it tomorrow :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[andybear]

I like the way you think Dig. And it looks like the thinking kept you awake most of the night. :?
I've been thinking for a while about including a thumper in my setup too. Can you include a sketch or two of your plans?
Also, it sounds like your column is getting very tall, is your ceiling height high enough?

wrt (every time I turn the RC water down to get a fine stream the glasses fog & ABV starts to drop.) Do you get a good enough yield from your washes? Mine only slows down when its close to the end of the run or when it didn't ferment out properly.

[Dig Brinker]

Wash may have been compromised. I didn't check gravity but it tasted ok. Happened about half way through the run. I'll try to get some sketches up tonight :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[hillzabilly]

If ya want speed I do not think a thumper will give it automaticaly,straight wash in the boiler will allways be a lot slower than stripping several wash's and then doing a spirit run with one primary thumper about a third of the boiler size ,as to wether the second thumper idear will work ,there is only one way ta find out ,give it a crack and find out for sure,but also consider if it could be desighned in a way that if it did not work out parts could be salvaged for a gin basket or packed section without being a total waste, maybe.And to anyone considering running a thumper on a 4inch 3600wts would be least I use with a 4.5lt-5lt /hour production rate on a spirit run.cheers hillzabilly ;-)

[Dig Brinker]

Thanks for the feedback, Hillza.
I'm only running a single 2400 at the moment but thinking about a dedicated 15 amp outlet for the shed and a controlled 3600 element. Will be seeing a sparky mate over Xmas so no dramas there :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Last wash wasn't fully fermented, lower than expected yield which explains the slow run, so speed isn't the driving factor for running one or two thumpers. I'm leaning more towards the flavouring aspect, using the top thumper to start with utilising different plate arrangements. :-B

Plan is to go as modular as possible with most parts joined via clamp, but free copper is good copper so I may as well just go for it and see what happens 8-} Can always get more :O)

:handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[warramungas]

Sounds like you need more power for what you have already. I ran mine this weekend for the first time with a 9ish percent bwko. At 2400 watts it kept fogging up the bottom window and by jar 5 (350ml collection) the abv was dropping. I added another 6 amps into the second element with a bit more rc water and it ran like a dream at +90% (compensated for temp). Just wasn't producing enough reflux.
The thumper I've got ran like magic but only used it at 2 liters capacity (no significant riser height) just to give it a proper run while I play with the tower. Looked like a spa through the sight glass.
I figure the extra 6 amps is due to me having a boiler and thumper with lots of surface area and no insulation. Next time I'm in Perth I'll pick some up.
Still new to this size gear so just my thoughts.