Spirit Still Cooling System

[No13Distilling]

4 minutes ago, MG Thermal Consulting said:

The temperatures for this chiller operation, (20-30) read from set point of 20 to 30F are typical for brewery chillers, since this is a 1.5 HP (nominal) unit, I would say the output is going to be about 9,000 btu/hr.  If you raise the output temperature to +50F, output capacity will be around 18,000 btu/hr.

Help?

I was meaning for use with spirit stills, to run through the condenser - you had recommended a unit about 2 HP.

[MG Thermal Consulting]

These small chillers usually have a small reservoir to feed the internal pump.  Still return water may be too high, so you may have to add an external reservoir with a separate pump and disable the chiller internal tank (it is atmospheric and water will come out the top on you).

I purchase similar chillers and buy them without the internal tank.

 

[Hudson bay distillers]

MG you sure know your stuff ,,,,huge asset to this forum 

tim

[MG Thermal Consulting]

I've worked for a few chiller manufacturers, so that helps

[Tony_Noble Cut Distillery]

We have been having trouble with our defleg return water hitting 140 to our glycol chiller. Since this will kill the chiller, we are looking into getting a cold water tank pumping chilled water to our condenser and defleg with the chiller only cooling an immersion coil inside the tank. 

We have been getting bad advise from sales people in my first attempt at a distillery. Everything they sell is the "fix". 

Is there any advise on a closed system? 

Our distillery has a 200 gallon column still and a 35 gallon chiller. Our city water is not free. 

Cheers!

[MG Thermal Consulting]

If you are running a spirit run, your chiller should be around 3 HP.  If the chiller has an internal tank (35 Gal?), perhaps if you crank down the steam if you can.  The result should be cooler return temperature.

If you don't have a bypass line around the upstream of the inlets to the still, you may get some cold water around the still to precool that hot return water.

Depending if the reservoir inside the chiller is Open (atmospheric) or Pressurized, you may or may not be able to install a auxiliary chilled water reservoir to have as a blending tank for the return water that won't shock the compressor resulting in an eventual burnout.

I have some photos of a typical set up like this, so shoot me an email and I'll send them along.

Good luck.

Mike G

MG Thermal