Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi to all on this balmy 36 deg day where I am and they call this spring.

Couple of questions
I am (or rather I will be) running a 4" bubbler, I have a 6000L water tank behind the shed and a pump up near the house, the water is sucked up through 25mm poly-pipe that runs underground (hopefully will help in cooling on a day like this) then I have a 19mm takeoff line running to the shed and at the still there is a 1mt (at most) of 1/2 garden hose on the inlet. The output goes via garden hose (drinking water approved) up to the guttering of the shed and back to the tank.

The pump can supply water to the whole house or I can run the house on mains with a single drinking water tap hooked to pump via a filter. The plan is to have the mains water supplying the house and ban usage of the drinking water tap while running the still. The pump is rated at 2800L/min Head Max 38Mt Min 10Mt so it does have a bit of grunt.
The pump is one of those ones with an electronic constant pressure control head, has anyone tried to run a still on one of these pumps?
I am concerned that the cycling will be a concern with the still or that it may go into "I have a leak" mode if it is running for a prolonged period and cycling. It works fine having a long hot shower (and the hot-water is on the roof) you don't notice any cycling but you will still know if some turns on another tap.

Day time temperatures when running the still, I know cold windy days can cause issues if the still is exposed but what about hot days (35 - 40) in a shed under a tin roof? b-(

when you plumb in the still put a tee in the supply line and bleed water back to the tank, this will avoid over pressure and will keep the pump running which will give better controll of the still.

NFI wrote:Hi to all on this balmy 36 deg day where I am and they call this spring.

Couple of questions
I am (or rather I will be) running a 4" bubbler, I have a 6000L water tank behind the shed and a pump up near the house, the water is sucked up through 25mm poly-pipe that runs underground (hopefully will help in cooling on a day like this) then I have a 19mm takeoff line running to the shed and at the still there is a 1mt (at most) of 1/2 garden hose on the inlet. The output goes via garden hose (drinking water approved) up to the guttering of the shed and back to the tank.

The pump can supply water to the whole house or I can run the house on mains with a single drinking water tap hooked to pump via a filter. The plan is to have the mains water supplying the house and ban usage of the drinking water tap while running the still. The pump is rated at 2800L/min Head Max 38Mt Min 10Mt so it does have a bit of grunt.
The pump is one of those ones with an electronic constant pressure control head, has anyone tried to run a still on one of these pumps?
I am concerned that the cycling will be a concern with the still or that it may go into "I have a leak" mode if it is running for a prolonged period and cycling. It works fine having a long hot shower (and the hot-water is on the roof) you don't notice any cycling but you will still know if some turns on another tap.

Day time temperatures when running the still, I know cold windy days can cause issues if the still is exposed but what about hot days (35 - 40) in a shed under a tin roof? b-(

I have the same set up as you, only my tank is 5,000L.

As you said the pump does have grunt, i run mine at 3/8 of a turn, its low enough that it never cycles on or off. I then use the needle valve on my defleg and pc to manage cooling.

I find if the water pump is any more than 3/8 it is a tough job to take the still out of full reflux, winter its even harder. The defleg and pc are super efficient.

You will have no problem cooling the still, even in a stinker like today.

I have run my still the last 3 days back to back brisbane north. My temp is 39c outside.

I use a 5,000 gal tank as my cooling water and running my still yesterday I still had water vapour coming out the spout, I did check and on tasting yes it was water and my ol' 3" shotgun condensor isn't playing up so by using a water tank if you do see puff's out of the spout it just means your supply water is nice and cold

Make a header tank topped up from your tank/ house pump via a ballcock valve (Like in a toilet costern or cattle water trough), grab an additional small pump and run the still from that.

House and significant other has water and are happy.. Life is much better....

Thanks to all for your input.

BigRig wrote:As you said the pump does have grunt, i run mine at 3/8 of a turn, its low enough that it never cycles on or off. I then use the needle valve on my defleg and pc to manage cooling.

I find if the water pump is any more than 3/8 it is a tough job to take the still out of full reflux, winter its even harder. The defleg and pc are super efficient.

Do you have any idea of what the maximum flow rate required would be. You can get different sized discs to put at the hose tap end that can be changed to give say 3, 6 or 10 L/min so I guess you can get or make ones for higher flow rates. That way I can just turn on the tap on and know that the max flow rate is going to be.
As you are running the same set up as mine, any idea of how many liters of water is used on a standard run?

RC Al wrote:Make a header tank topped up from your tank/ house pump via a ballcock valve (Like in a toilet costern or cattle water trough), grab an additional small pump and run the still from that.

I wasn't really sure if a gravity feed tank setup would have enough flow rate to do the job. We do have another 6000L tank up on a stand (probably 5ft off the ground) boths tanks feed into the pump but generally I keep the high set tank as backup water and we feed off to lower tank (Just means that like back in the floods when there was no power, water etc we still had a gravity fed supply - wasn't great but it certainly helped).
So I could try connecting to that and see if they gravity feed is enough, would certainly save on having the pump running continuously. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Dude wrote:when you plumb in the still put a tee in the supply line and bleed water back to the tank, this will avoid over pressure and will keep the pump running which will give better controll of the still.

This , although you might give thought to a pump just for cooling

atec77 wrote:This , although you might give thought to a pump just for cooling

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yeah, in time I'll get there just being a bit impatient at the moment but eventually I will probably set up a standalone pump in and out of the pool. should have plenty of cooling capacity. It all takes time. :doh:

Just be careful of the salt and chlorine in the pool mate I am not sure how good it is for your still.

A pool is ideal , a quick run if fresh water and your gold
Some people actually say that the chlorine in the tap water is worse than the amount of salt in a pool.

The Stig wrote:Some people actually say that the chlorine in the tap water is worse than the amount of salt in a pool.

I can vouch for that. :text-+1:
I have tested our town water (just sucked up out of the Burnett river and injected with chlorine) and on pool test strips it always comes out with higher levels than are recommended for the pool (chlorine levels and has a high EC level). The smell when you turn on the tap is a good indicator - we certainly do not consume it, hence the tanks. Andrew also assured me that the still will be fine, just flush it out at the end of run (with tank water in our case).

Scary what they put into our water hey.
Glad you have this covered mate, Andrew is definitely the one to advise what is best for our babies. He was the who told me I was going to far over the top wanting to put powder on mine to make sure it was nice and dry and no rashes developed :laughing-rolling:

Anyone using a radiator cooling setup to cool your bubbler?
Short of setting up a 1000lt IBC in the shed, I'm looking at using a 220lt drum & running through the radiator.
Photos would be a bonus.
Cheers

We used to have a member (long time ago) who used a couple of radiators with 12volt fans blowing on them and he had no problems

The Stig wrote:We used to have a member (long time ago) who used a couple of radiators with 12volt fans blowing on them and he had no problems

Thanks Stig.
Space in the shed is at a premium & a 1000lt IBC will take up too much of what's left of it. I need something efficient with a smaller foot print.

If I remember correctly he ran a 200L olive drum and pumped up to the still then out and up to the first radiator , that fed into the second radiator and that fed back to the olive drum
Found his username : db1979,