StillSmart

The last job in my still build is the soldering up of a condenser for using the pot head option.





i have prepared about 1m of 22mm copper tube to jacket a product tube of 15mm tube which i intend to terminate at the pot head end with a 45 degree bend and a short length of 15mm tube.

that tube will insert into the 15mm end feed socket terminating the pot head assembly.

I dont want to solder it in place and was planning on sealing on the fly with flour and water paste, the condenser will be supported (probably from a cord suspended form a ceiling joist)

Before i go ahead and solder it together is there a flaw in the plan???



this is the boka head and condenser section, also in this pic is a now redundant centering ring section




and the coil/cold finger prior to soldering

yes it ended up almost as dirty as the bot head solder job.. both are now a lot cleaner after a long filling session.. one day i may sus this soldering malarky, bit not anyday soon, i tend to panic when the metal gets hot dunno why..






the idea being i can opt to run either flavour runs or chase a-zero, and run easy stripping runs in advance of both..

the column attaches to the t500 boiler with a SS triclamp flange screwed onto the t500 column nut. its not a great seal and needs a bit of flour paste in the lid depression to seal.

Finally soldered the condenser (badly a few blobs still to clean off..)

on looking at it the water out tube could have pointed down or to the side



i still need to complete the stand to support the condenser, but will probably run vinegar through while i sort that out ....

getting there.. excuse the bad photography and messy brewshed, im in the process of 2 or 3 jobs at the moment..

It will certainly do the trick, I'm using a 2 inch column with a 15mm output through my condenser, I can strip a 25litre 11% ish wash down to 30% in just over 2 hours including warm up time, I previously used my boka head for stripping with the valve wide open but that used to take 4 hours.

cheers,

the column when packed and a wee bit taller (a foot or so) worked a treat with a boka head on it with its sacrificial run so i have high hopes for an easy ride as long as i seal up and secure it all ok, the water vibrated the smaller condenser i had on the boka output (500mm 10mmx 0.25mm SS tube inside 15mm copper jacket)
hopefully with the larger bore of this one i wont suffer the vibrations..

Ran it with vinegar to clean and it worked i wrapped ptfe found the 15mm tube on the condenser, rammed it into the 54mm to 15mm reducer of the pot head and wrapped more ptfe round the joint

to support the condenser i stuck a bit of 22mm tube in an old copper lamp base and gaffer taped the thing to the condenser the next step will be to add a 45 degree bend and chop a 22mm T in half to provide a more aesthetic solution.

Glad its leak free Fil, I cant say I'm keen on the condenser being connected by friction alone, it would be easy enough to add a union or some sort of mechanical connection.

One thing you don't want falling off mid run is your condenser

Cheers Cpat'n

Any suggestions, brass m/f threaded end feed connectors are no good as i cant spin em together due to my bad design of having water in/out at the top. and i cant find any
15mm end feed cone unions in copper or stainless?

I'm struggling to see how the water outlet would foul a brass union, but I'm on a little screen right now, could you not have the union on the bit of 15mm that is vertical?

Capt-Cudellez wrote:I'm struggling to see how the water outlet would foul a brass union, but I'm on a little screen right now, could you not have the union on the bit of 15mm that is vertical?

Ha - i had forgotten the column n head separate for a second - DUH!!


I have a plan.. I have a 1/2" bsp hex nipple onto which a compression nut will screw.. So with the hex nipple slipped over one bit of 15mm tube and fluting out the copper wider than the hex nipple bore (8mm 1/2" socket from the toolbox and a hammer)

then with a lil bit of 15mm copper soldered into the pot head and a copper olive for the compression nut to seal into the fluted end of copper tube with the hex nipple captured under the flute.

tried to implement my grand plan today HA in an attempt to have zero brass exposed when using a brass union i spent hours chasing my own tail, and finally relented and just soldered the pot head to the condenser.. managed to slip in a vinegar cleaning run too.. getting there..