StillSmart

Summary
There was no noticeable improvement in quality or ABV. There may be a reduction in sulphides due to the extra copper coming into contact with the vapour. IMHO It is not worth the extra problems that the packing causes.

Description
I've totally re-packed the column on my T500 with copper mesh and the T500 copper chunks to see what improvement it made.

I stripped the column, removing the coil and top cap.

I wrapped mesh around the coil to the diameter of the column and filled the inside of the coil with the copper chunks.

I wrapped 2 sausages of copper mesh around the coil output and slid this into the column. I then packed below the coil with 2 sausages of copper mesh.

I was very careful to ensure there was no excess packing above the coil.

The boiler was charged with 8 litres of 60% double stripped low wines which were then watered down to 30%.

Boiler on at 10 am @1.8kw, water on at 10:54.

11:00 powered down to .7kw for heads compression
11:45 powered up to 1kw
11:55 powered up to 1.2kw
12:00 powered up to 1.35Kw - start of foreshots
12.45 powered up to 1.8kw - collected 400ml of foreshots / heads
13:00 switched from foreshots/heads jar to first collection jar. Total 600 ml of foreshots/heads for my cleaning jar.
13:18 first 400ml jar collected. No acetone smell
13:35 second jar collected. No smell
etc etc
16.18 11th jar collected. Onset of tails ??
16.41 12th jar collected. Definite tails
16.59 13th jar 1/2 full. Stopped run.

Run notes.

Water output temp has to be run hotter than stock (62/65 degrees) - less water needed makes spirit output slightly warmer (24 degrees) and water control more fiddly.

Temp corrected 94% throughout the run. I tried increasing the cooling water flow to increase the ABV but it made little difference except the spirit flow was much lower.

Initial thoughts on jars. Jars 3 to 10 are good hearts so 3.2 litres of 94%. jar 2 is on the border line for hearts as is jar 11.

This was made from 50 litres of vodkastar with 12KG of sugar which in theory should have given 6.7 litres of 94% (45 litres of usable wash) but there were losses at both stripping stages.

Overall impression on copper packing compared with original packing.
Not worth the effort. Water control with a 'stock' T500 is not that bad, follow the instructions and it does what it says in the manual. Repacking the column with more copper might have removed extra sulphides from the final spirit but it did not improve the quality or the ABV and it just made the water control more sensitive.

I will run it in this configuration again but when I remove the packing for cleaning I'm going to return it pretty much the stock configuration.

great post. thanks

Excellent post. TVM for your efforts Mr Cat.

Been thinking about the possible merits of whether it would be a worth while idea for some time.

I changed the packing on the super reflux I used to have, there was some improvement on that, but not a great deal. Which was why it got me thinking about this in the first place.

Looks like I'll have to continue to look for parts for a home build after all, if I want to achieve the magical 95.6% ABV.

In the meantime, I've got to work out a "Heath Robinson" method, for both making RO water and re-using cooling water........as I got home on Monday to find that the bastards had installed a water meter !

I've been thinking about the packing and the results and although I'm sticking with my 'don't bother' I think it might need some qualification.

I might be wrong with this but as I see it there are two reasons for needing less water and having to run the column hotter

1. The water is removing energy from the vapour more efficiently
2. The packing is more efficient and by the time the vapour hits the coil it has less energy so the effect of the coil is greater.

It's most likely a combination of both.

The impact of this though is and from Phantom asking about getting 95.6% I was wondering how to really improve the efficiency of the T500 and I was wondering if an extension column fitted between the boiler and the existing column would be feasible. It seemed like a fairly simple idea. Get a stainless steel tube the same diameter as the T500 column, get a couple of stainless inserts made up (male thread for one end, female for the other) get them welded to the pipe, pack the column with stainless steel scrubbers or copper mesh, screw it onto the existing nut in the boiler, screw the existing column on the top.

From what I've seen though (and logically thinking about it) assuming a reasonable heat transfer from the copper cooling coil to the vapour you'd end up needing the output water to be almost as hot as the vapour - if the temp was lot less you'd end up with total reflux and nothing being able to pass the coil.

Water control would end up having to be incredibly precise as the water supply would need to be so low as you'd just be looking at the coil 'putting the finishing touches' to the reflux and making taking a couple of percent of the energy away...

Any thoughts?? Am I wrong with this??