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Does anyone run a continuous still?


trinacria

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Dear DR-

talk with Mr. McKenzie over at Finger Lakes. I believe he is barreling right off of his continuous still. No doubler. And there at least a couple others that I've stumbled across that do it the exact same way.

There are more and more of us out here every day, so be careful when you say a certain company is the only place in existence that does it one way.

just sayin, have a lovely day.

I believe that Distillery Resources is Thomas McKenzie at Finger Lakes.

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  • 8 months later...

It's a shame to see a great thread go a kilter over what appears to be a nomenclature issue.

I have great respect for Steve of ASD and what they are doing, and I hope DR continues to post. Also for Joe "dances with stainless" dehner.

Of course the Coffey continuous still is a practical implementation of Steins's patent still.

This classic still consists of two columns, and "analyser" column and a "rectification" column.

The original had a rather large number of plates IIRC (60?).

It should be fairly clear (as ASD says) that we can stack the 'rectification' on top of the 'analyser' (adds height, but removes a pump and some piping). In this case it might be useful to call the top part the rectification "section" and the lower part the analyser "section". The dividing point is the feed point where wash enters the column. Carrying out this mental exercise further - it's clear that we can split any still column at any plate/section and make it operate so long as we pump up the liquid reflux from the former 'top' to the former 'bottom', and plumb and insulate the system.

So whether it's one column or 5, and whether we split the column at the feed point or somewhere else doesn't seem terribly important to me, tho' any practical design will have issues with this sort of change.

I'll suggest that the 'analyser' section is what we would conventionally call a 'beer section' of a column. That is all the plates between the primary feed point and the 'bottoms'. The rectification section retains it's name in NA parlance I think.

Also as ASD notes, all the really good info on continuous stills appears in Chemical Engineering sources - the distillers & Vendome etc are pretty tight-lipped. But we can consider more ornate stills that remove 'stuff' (vapor or liquid phase mixtures) at various plates, and that also introduce various feeds at several plates.

So this Vendome diagram of a continuous still, shows 15 plates in a beer section and 4 plates in a rectification section (by my terminology).

http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401910498634f970c-pi

The doubler/thumper appears in the bottom right as an apparently optional step (note the valves between hi/lo wine tankage).

One of the configurations I've seen has excess (overflow) liquid from the thumper feeding back into the main column around the feed point !

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very good post

Now one point I will elaborate on, Cofey still was the first design out, Patent Still took Cofey and made some improvements and filed a Patent on it.

typical cofey still has at least 2 columns, Stripping and rectification (many different names used in place of these through the years) but also can have many more depending on the level of refinement required.

Patent typically had stripping and rectification combined into a single column, as stevea mentioned, seperated by the input point of the mash.

all continuous stills can trace their origins back to the cofey, thats why I use the term "Modified Cofey" so much.

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So a question.

I don't see any reason to consider a doubler or thumper as anything except a additional plate in the column.

Does that make sense ?

As Cowdrey's note suggests the point is to remove less-volatiles, not primarily to raise the proof.

That suggests a rather inefficient plate.

In discussions w/ one of the Vendome designers a few years ago, he stated that the proof does increaounds like a poor plate.

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I would agree that a thumper acts as an inefficient plate, but sometimes that inefficiency is exactly what you are looking for. What to do when 1 plate is too much, but zero plates are too little?

You see similar strategies to exploit inefficient mass transfer in a number of places, whiskey helmet, cooling lintel, true dephlegmation.

I don't think it's as simple as this however, take a look back at the old style rum setups with high and low wines thumpers, you have something very different happening. I strongly suspect there are additional esterification reactions taking place, but that's my 2 cents. I'm not sure I follow your note on Cowdrey, if not mass transfer/distillation, what is the mechanism? Look at a thumper and plate comparatively, and you see only a few differences, mainly that "reflux" is preloaded in a thumper, versus actively generated real time in a plated system.

All that said, I don't think that's a thumper on the bottom right of the Vendome print. That looks like a standard stripping setup that feeds some holding tanks that run into a batch still.

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  • 4 weeks later...

very good post

Now one point I will elaborate on, Cofey still was the first design out, Patent Still took Cofey and made some improvements and filed a Patent on it.

...

Wikipedia gives Perrier in Ireland made a crude continuous feed for the wash. Stein invented, implemented & patented the first "patent still" in 1828. Coffey, after observing the Stein still, made some substantial practical improvements in an 1830 patent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_still

Coffey was certainly the first one to take off commercially.

...

I'm not sure I follow your note on Cowdrey, if not mass transfer/distillation, what is the mechanism? ...

All that said, I don't think that's a thumper on the bottom right of the Vendome print. That looks like a standard stripping setup that feeds some holding tanks that run into a batch still.

It's certainly mass transfer. Cowdery suggested the removal of less-volatile congeners was the point of a thumper and not to increase proof (remove water) tho' proof increases marginally.

Your interpretation of the diagram seems wrong. That diagram looks very similar to a smaller 12" continuous unit I discussed w/ Vendome a couple years ago.

The "copper 4 tray rectification section on top of beerstill" in the column above the feed represents 4 nominal plates and is sufficient to pull high proof product directly off the column. There's a "column mount copper dephlegmator" at the top. The column is NOT a stripper, it's a conventional continuous whiskey still w/ rectifier over beer still.

They called the bit on the bottom-right "copper doubler/thumper with vapor onion".

With ..."Option to bypass low wine condenser and send vapor direct to thumper" (not shown) for whiskey use.

It can be used feed-though as a thumper, and then they pump some of the excess tank liquid back into the feed

stream (also not shown in that diagram).

The doubler/thumper it's own own steam feed, and can be used "batch mode" They suggested that's used to make cuts on low wine to produce vodka/gin as high wines.

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  • 5 years later...

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