StillSmart

Anavrin wrote:Just another thought, is there an ideal distance between the top plate and the bottom of the cooling coil?

I cut my top bit of 54mm pipe quite long at 43cm, I've got about an 8cm gap at the moment, is it worth shortening to make it 5cm?

I cannot think of a reason why a difference in hieght would be an advantage. I was limited with head room so kept everthing to a minimum, if I had more available hieght it would have probably been similar to yours.

I have just seen your signature about the pile of scrap copper, do not worry you will think of lots of projects to use it on.

First will probably be a parrot, followed by a 15 over 8 Leibig cooler for the distillate which will come out of the Bok quite warm.

Went to Lidl today and picked up 12, 1pint bottles of malt vinegar at 21p each and 5 bags of sugar, great idea to used the vinegar bottles for cuts :-)

I couldn't get away with 50/50 mix, I had to put about 12 litres of water in with the vinegar to cover my heating element, but it's now running on full power (3kw) and full cooling and there's no vapour I can detect coming trough the safety hole in the coolers end cap, once I've connected my power controller I should have no problem fully refluxing everything back down.

So far so good, no leaks from the boiler or any of my solder joints (very surprised) and when I open my valve LIQUID!!!! exciting stuff, shame the garage stinks of vinegar lol

Marc

Just ran it for 3 mins with the valve wide open and collected 175ml of moonshine vinegar!!! Does that sound about ok for a fully open collection rate?

Anavrin wrote: shame the garage stinks of vinegar lol Marc

......It's eye watering.... at least you did the run in the garage...I had to use the kitchen...swmbo was not amused.

ps..Well done your nearly there.

you have a pm anavrin

Done two vinegar cleaning runs now but was getting a bit bored so I decided to wrap some ptfe tape around the cooler end and push a 54mm end cap where the cooling coil goes, I then filled the entire column with the vinegar mix out of my boiler, left it for a few hours before rinsing out, hopefully that will do the trick :-)

Don't think my boilers looked so clean since new >:D

What's the best way to clean the outside of my column?
And what the best way to remove any excess solder so it looks nicer? (If that's a word)

I filled an old 30 litre bucket with warm water put about 2/3 tablespoons of citric acid in and put my column/liebig in for an hour or so.. then turned them over for the other end ..hey presto.

For the solder a fine file, light pressure and finish with fine emery...that's me at the moment. Then when I have the time to spare...buffer mop in the drill.

I think I'll get some citric acid to be double sure, will I need to use my column packing for the junkahol runs?

I got my citric acid...Here not a bad price.

If your packings new I don't see why...but then you'll know for sure that it's clean.

If your packing consists of SS scrubbers they will probably have an oil coating left over from the manufacturing process.

I would include them in the sacrificial alcohol run to get rid of the oil.

The sacrificial run is also a good practice run to see what % you can expect.

Don't forget that the distillate will be coming out hot and the hydrometer will need calibrating. My first runs were coming out 101/102 %ABV until I realised what was happening and made the temperature corrections.

Good Luck

Brian

I'm gonna use 6mm ceramic raschig rings, just under 2kg fills 1 meter of 54mm copper, think I might just rinse them in hot water to remove any dust and dry them off, I was thinking about it yesterday and I decided to use them for the junkahol run so I can fully see how everything's going to work, especially what temps I read and how quickly I can collect.

You were right about building a Liebig next, it's on my hit list, I'm gonna make one or two at the weekend, an 8mm/15mm about 2-3 foot for this one I think

Going from memory my Leiberg product cooler is just under 2'-0" and it is overkill, the product comes out cold.

I crimped the inner 8 mm tube every 2" alternating 90Deg every crimp. it slows down the flow considerably and therefore increases the contact time for the distillate.

I only need a very small flow of cooling water to get the output down to under 20deg.

We'll I've got 10 equal tee, 15mm copper fittings and 10 15mm male to 8mm female reducers, think I will make one tomorrow, I'm thinking a 50cm long, 15mm cooling pipe with about 10cm of 8mm tube coming out, if it works ok I might flog a few on fleebay :-)

I made my Liebig last week but only just got round to posting, I used 700mm of 8mm copper tube with 500mm of 15mm copper tube for the outer, then two equal 15mm tee's and two 15mm/8mm reducing bits for the ends, here's some pics





In position :-)