Bruukta's Big one

Perforated & bubble cap plated columns

Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby B-Man » Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:06 am

RC Al wrote:Coolant counter flow to the vapour is worth a many watts of knockdown, its not just the air thing

Oh you mean RC and PC
They are in at the bottom out at the top.
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby RC Al » Mon Jan 11, 2021 9:01 am

Swap the rc around, the vapour enters from the bottom..

If you put the valves on the outlets, it puts the pump pressure into the condenser which helps with removing air bubbles/pockets, I run an additonal purge valve on the outlets with some clear tubing to bleed any air pockets out, the tubing lets me know if there is air there, makes setup much smoother when you know theres no trapped air.

I think scythe was talking the cooler tower, but i hadnt noticed your stills condenser connections before he mentioned it.

With the tower, What diameter of pipe are you connecting to with the garden hose on the top of the unit? The manifolds look like 19mm? Dose it neck down from that at all? If it's 10mm or under, you might have to do some bigger piping in there to get the flow rate up.

Oh and if you go to the rural irrigation section (usually next to copper/brass section) vs the garden irrigation section at big green shed, they sell better quality hose clamps cheaper in that isle
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby B-Man » Wed Jan 13, 2021 5:37 pm

RC Al wrote:Swap the rc around, the vapour enters from the bottom..

ah ok I haven't read that before always saw in at the bottom out at the top. I always assumed it was for the bleeding the air out and the heat rising out the pipe. Makes sense for the RC since its an upside down PC
RC Al wrote:If you put the valves on the outlets, it puts the pump pressure into the condenser which helps with removing air bubbles/pockets, I run an additonal purge valve on the outlets with some clear tubing to bleed any air pockets out, the tubing lets me know if there is air there, makes setup much smoother when you know theres no trapped air.

ok I'll Remember that when I get it setup fully. It should work more efficiently if i can remove any more trapped air.

RC Al wrote:I think scythe was talking the cooler tower, but I hadn't noticed your stills condenser connections before he mentioned it.

Yeah I thought he was talking about the cooling tower either way it may have helped. Once I can start measuring the temps I might even swap the way it runs in the cooling tower and see what happens.

RC Al wrote:With the tower, What diameter of pipe are you connecting to with the garden hose on the top of the unit? The manifolds look like 19mm? Dose it neck down from that at all? If it's 10mm or under, you might have to do some bigger piping in there to get the flow rate up.

13mm connectors and fittings through out, One manifold is 19mm other is 25mm. It splits up into 7x 10mm coils between the manifolds. Haven't measured my flow rate but looks pretty similar to how it ran through the T500 Alembic Pot with a 380L reservoir and short length of hose. I have the pump quite high and will be higher when I get it setup properly so will be less head(m) so will have slightly higher flow. at a guess id say its running at about 15L/m being that I run in summer for solar to cover my usage the water and air is always a decent temp so unless I force chill it with ice or something I cant really change the water temp if its getting cooled to the same temp it was.

RC Al wrote:
Oh and if you go to the rural irrigation section (usually next to copper/brass section) vs the garden irrigation section at big green shed, they sell better quality hose clamps cheaper in that isle

Yeah it was a temp fix for cable ties just to get it all working. are you talking about metal hose clamps vs those plastic dripper fitting ones?
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby RC Al » Wed Jan 13, 2021 6:39 pm

Yeah the metal worm gear ones like (used to be) on your car

The plastic irrigation ones work ok and i have used them a bit while im working out my plumbing (things keep changing lols), but on hot bits the SS ones would be much safer

15l/ min should be plenty but it will come down to heat soak at the end of a long run i recon
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby B-Man » Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:37 pm

just been thinking about my RC.

would I be able to just block the top of one of the pipes in the RC off? or put a tapered cone on the top of one or multiple to limit the vapors going through?
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby RC Al » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:14 pm

Unfortunately no, it you start blocking things, the vapour speeds up in the other areas and you lose knock down power with the shorter interaction time

Less power or more water pressure
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby B-Man » Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:03 pm

So finally got around to adding a drain.
Tried to be neat and fancy.
All good until I had to TIG it.
Plan was to not have to put legs on it. But after welding it
It has warped and pointing down too far so the tap hits the floor which it didn't do in trial fitting.

Back purging doesn't seem to be working for me.
Blew a massive hole that just kept getting bigger
. Im thinking because it's not back purging properly I'm having trouble filling/welding it. Could not for the life of me get it to join the edges of the hole. And then had to weld part of it from the inside.... alot harder than I thought. It's my worst attempt at tig welding.
Then chasing all the pinholes I had and trying to melt them out.

Going to make a controller for it. Got the plans sorted just can't find a known not fake ssr scr. Thought about building my own ssr scr circuit... Anyone actually built their own ssr circuit or point me in the right direction for the ssr scr?
And then purchase a few other things. For the controller.
Was also going to make an element cover with sockets so I don't have the cords hanging off the still.

Also rearranging the shed to have a dedicated area for the still and water chiller plus some dedicated bench aswell. Beats using anything and everything as tables, streams etc. Currently have the tig box for the collection jars to sit on.

Pre welding trial fit
Snapchat-545949132.jpg

So ashamed of the weld that I'm not posting it
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Last edited by B-Man on Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby scythe » Tue Aug 17, 2021 7:50 am

Nah b-man, you gotta post the pictures.
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Re: Bruukta's Big one

Postby B-Man » Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:25 pm

Been busy in my free time

with the way the Drain is I don't need to add legs to the boiler although its at a weird angle as I put too much heat into it when welding and it warped it so do have to chock it off the ground slightly.

I have totally reconfigured my cooling setup to hopefully handle 2 stills at once. its in the final stages now just waiting on a few parts and then a re organisation in the shed.

Me and the missus can control one each and get twice as much done in half the time. and on top of that got most of the parts for my controller build so have that planned next.

still need some stuff to finish off my 2nd keg still build but in the mean time can run the old T500 or Alembic Dome pot. Was thinking about buying the adapter so I can chuck the t500 onto a keg but cant run one still until I have sorted the cooling and its basically the time to start running the still again, (run for 6 months of the year under solar) hence why id like 2 stills to smash out the runs in a short amount of time. also gives me more time to age it,
when making the second boiler im thinking about cutting the top off a keg 1. So I can weld it easier and 2. Adding a section in to increase the boiler size so I can do a decent rum run without it puking.
Not sure if I go another bubbler or try building something different so i have a few different options with the different stills. probably wont have the second still built before I stop for this year.

Got a good amount of red wine to 'dispose of' that ineed to get out of the shed thats taking up precious space so will have a fair amount of brandy and then need to crank out a heap of neutral aswell so lots of runs planned this year. slowly build up some stock to age longer and longer.
Also been looking into a weighted alarm setup for cut jars. seen one on Facebook and thought that would be a great idea. Can be right there but not have to be constantly watching the jar, Just jump up when the alarm goes.
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