Southernhighlander

James is right about the output. Also, you are going to need an agitator. I have several different models and sizes for sale at good prices. Email paul@distillery-equipment.com for pricing etc.

I agree about the filter package. That is always a good idea. Are Ion Exchange Softeners always the best way to go when it comes to distilleries?

If they have 65 degree water I normally suggest that they purchase a chiller to chill the water in a chilled water holding tank and that they run the output from their cooling processes into a hot water holding tank for mashing or CIP. That way they utilize the heat energy in the cooling process output water and since the water is used a 2nd time it is like using no cooling water at all. I have several customers who have 55° to 59° well water and they really have it made because it costs them nothing to chill their water. They all use a hot water storage tank for the output from their cooling processes for recycling as mashing in water and or CIP water.

Since, I sell to the public I must design my condensers for 65° water because that is what some of my customers are going to use. Also, I designed the condensers on my pro series stills to handle a 2 hr stripping run with coolant at 65°. That way I know that my customers are never going to be limited by their condensers. If, due to the size of my condensers, my stills cost more, then that would be a problem, however the fact is that when comparing apples to apples my stills cost around 1/2 as much as my competitors. That is not because they are cheaper to build, it is because I keep my overhead low and I am not taking nearly as much profit as my competitors. http://distillery-equipment.com/300_gallon_still.htm

Three 4"x24" product condensers stacked, will not condense the vapor from a 700 gallon still in 5 hrs.

HedgeBird, 8' x 6" should be good enough but I would be inclined to go 8" x 7' if you really want to handle anything that you can throw at it with 320,000 BTU output boiler. You could do a stripping run in less than 2 hrs if you wanted to do it with the 8"x7' with the baffle spacing every 12" or so. I have 6", 8" and 10" stainless tubing in stock. It is mirror polished and we can engine mill it for you if you like. I don't have any 3/4" tubing, but I have some 1" stainless tubing that is 7/8" ID. I also have plate and sheet in 304 and a very good selection of tri clamp fittings and parts. I buy in bulk from the manufacturer so my prices are really good even with shipping. paul@distillery-equipment.com http://distillery-equipment.com

Hedgebird. If you do not have a baffle in the top of your condenser then your vapor is only going through a few of your tubes (the ones that are directly below your line arm input). If there is no baffle then the vapor will not spread horizontally outside the diameter of the line arm input pipe. If you don't have a baffle then take the top off of your condenser and lay a piece of perforated stainless plate cut a little smaller than the ID of your condenser on top of the tubes. This will spread the vapor out evenly and it will go down all of your tubes instead of just those within the diameter of your line arm input. The plate should have 3/32" holes on 5/32" centers. I can sell you a piece cut to your dimensions. Call 417-778-6908 ask for Paul. Another option is to pack some 304 stainless steel scrubbers (make sure they are 100% stainless) in there or some copper structured packing material or copper scrubbers. If you use scrubbers, you will have to clean them from time to time. I would be glad to sell you a couple of copper tri-clamp ferrules and a tri clamp so that you can weld the ferrules to the condenser shell so that you can take the condenser apart and put it back together at the top for cleaning. The perf plate is the best way to go. Try baffling the top before you try anything else, because it can save you allot of money over building a new condenser. If you already have a baffle in the top of your condenser then this is not the problem.

I have a Chromalox Controller, in stock for a heating system of that size, industrial grade, UL listed with all US parts NEMA4x enclosure PID programmable temperature control. You won't find a more professionally built controller and the price is right. Give me a call at 417-778-6908 or email me at paul@distillery-equipment.com We are a Chromalox distributer. Chromalox has been building industrial grade heating systems and controllers right here in the good old USA since the 1950s.

I didn't build the condenser in the picture, I was just using it as an example. We usually build stainless condensers for our larger stills and columns. Below is a picture of some of our copper work. I tried to add more pictures but it would not let me. I must be over my limit, I guess. We have sold equipment to over 40 legal distilleries. You can check us out at http://distillery-equipment.com

In the picture below, there is an example of a small, well built, well designed shell side condenser. Without the baffle plates this condenser would be no were near as efficient as it is with them.

Stumpy, In my opinion the 8" diameter 5' tall condenser that you are planning to build is to small the way it is designed. Considering that your still is 700 gallons with a 16" 4 plate column you will always be slowed down because of your condenser. If it were me and I was going to have the vapor go through the tubes I would build it at least 12" in diameter by 6' ft tall with as many tubes as I could fit into it and I would baffle the top. This will allow you to do a 5 hr whiskey run at 135 proof. My figures actually show that a 12" x 4' condenser in that configuration would do the job but I like to make sure. If you put the vapor on the shell side I would probably go with an 10"x 6' condenser and that would be oversized as well. These sizes are for stainless.

Yea, we learned about baffling the tops of our larger tube and shell condensers the hard way. The first large tube and shell condenser that we built was 12" in diameter with a 2.5" diameter line arm. The dam thing was barely working at 20% of what it should have. We figured out pretty quickly that all of the vapor was going through just the center tubes. We tried a couple of different baffle configurations in the top until we hit upon the correct one. I thought about changing the angle of the condenser from 90° to lesser angle to slow down the vapor but I decided against it because of the way it would have looked. My conclusions about the baffles, in the new design, were that they would slow down the vapor velocity enough that the interaction between the vapor and tubes would be increased dramatically. My figures showed at least a 4 fold increase in efficiency over my current desighn. But I did not get that. Now I think that I know why. We originaly cut the baffles so that each baffle would extend to the center of the column from the outer shell. Then after they were cut I decided to angle them down a little so that no condensate would pool on them. Of course we did not cut the holes for the tubes until after we decided to angle them down towards the center. Anyway, due to the angle of the baffles, they did not extend to the center anymore, so I think that allot of the vapor is coming off the first baffle and falling strait to the bottom instead of flowing over the other baffles. My new baffles will extend well past the center and we will keep the baffles level. I think that will do the trick but we will see.

Vendome has been building their condensers using this type of design (coolant inside the tubes vapor outside the tubes) for years. I think Artisan is building some of their condensers this way as well, or at least they appear to be built this way. It is simply a better and more efficient design. I am sorry but I will not get into specific detail about my calculations or designs. Cleaning is not an issue. Our current design (which is the design used on our 300 gallon Pro Series Whiskey Still, which is the one in my member picture) has the vapor going through the tubes and as you can see the condenser is oversized. I designed the condensers for my pro series stills to handle a 1 hr stripping run producing 25% low wines. That way they can handle anything that is thrown at them. No one is going to do a 1 hr stripping run but some of my customers do a 2 hr stripping run. Anyway, when we tested our new design with the same number of tubes and same diameter and length of the outer shell used in our current design, the maximum amount of vapor that the condenser was able to condense went up by more than 30%. My original calcs showed a greater increase, mainly due to the baffles. I think that I found the problem and so my employees are going to tear apart the prototype in a couple of weeks and sometime before the end of the month we will have the new baffles installed. We have several projects in the works right now so it's hard to do as much R&D as I would like to do. And I agree, a heat exchanger is a heat exchanger but that little pool heat exchanger will not condense the vapor from a 700 gallon still, not even close.

Stumpy, It is to good to be true. Don't waste time and money buying that pool heat exchanger. As a condenser it will not give you 600K of cooling for your situation. As a condenser it might do the job in a 100 gallon still, as long as you did not use it for a stripping still. Also please see my first reply to this topic. I made a typo. It should have read "If you run the coolant through the tubes and the vapor outside the tubes...... your condenser will be a great deal more efficient." It states that now.

Here is another tip. Use good clean water for all of your cooling processes and run the output from your cooling processes into an insulated hot water holding tank. Use the hot cooling process water for making mash and cleaning. The larger the mass of hot water the better it will hold its heat over time. This will save you a fortune in the long run. You get the heat from the water for free and its like you never even used any water for cooling. If you plan on doing tours and want something really nice, I can sell you a beautiful insulated stainless hot water holding tank at a better price than my competitors. However, you can save allot of money by using a polypro tank and some silver blanket insulation. You should always buy polypro tanks from a source that is close to you, like a farm supply or large feed store. They are large and they don't weigh much, so the freight class for them is a really high one, which can sometimes make shipping cost more than the tank itself, if you buy one from a few states away.

If you run your coolant through the tubes and your vapor outside the tubes with baffles alternating side to side every 8" or so vertically, your condenser will be a great deal more efficient. The whole exterior shell is heat exchange surface area (the outside air is the coolant) and your tubes have a much larger OD than ID, plus the baffles themselves are heat exchange surface area because they are in contact with the vapor tubes. Of course the heat exchange surface area of the baffles removes fewer BTUs per square inch than the tubes, because the tubes have direct contact with the coolant. If you are not going to be doing your own TIG welding and if you do not get your copper or stainless directly from the factory that makes it, I am sure that I can build you one for less and it would be TIG welded instead of brazed or soldered. Soldering or brazing this kind of condenser in copper can be a real Bear. Copper sucks the heat in so fast that you will have a really hard time soldering in those tubes without melting the solder on the tubes that you have already done, because the tubes are so close together. There are ways around that but keep in mind that soldering and brazing are inferior to Tig welding. I can build it from copper but it would cost less for me to build it from stainless and you would not have to worry about contaminating your spirits with copper salts. Copper is needed in the vapor path but not in the condenser. Email me paul@distillery-equipment.com It would not hurt for me to give you a quote and I may be able to help you with some of your other equipment.

I have a much better solution for him.

That's a good calculator, I have the formula programed into my TI81 graphing calculator. My calculations were based on well water or city water in winter with a temp of 55° F heated for corn mash to a temp of 212° F in an uninsulated vessel with a thermal loss of 1.15. Also we must account for the slower heat penetration due to the viscosity of a heavy grain laden mash which increases the time factor by around 1.3 and we must also account for agitation which decreases the heat up time. Using these inputs you would need 8 6KW elements to heat the vessel to operating temp in less than 2hrs. Plus, I usually oversize my heating systems by 10% or more to insure that I get my stated heat up time or less. If I say less than 2 hrs then my target is usually around 1hr and 50 minutes.

1 6K element will not do it. You would need 8 6K elements if you want to get to operating temp within 2 hrs, Also, you cannot run that element in a mash with solids in it without scorching your mash and burning out the element on the first cook. Email me paul@distillery-equipment.com I can give you a viable low cost solution for mashing on the grain with indirect heat.

My vodka columns in that size are about 18' tall including the column stand. This way they gravity feed the reflux condensate back into the boiler. If you were my customer I would lower the column stand by 2' and the lower column stand would also be a holding tank for the reflux condensate. In the last couple of weeks I have figured out several different ways to pump the condensate back to the boiler that would meet code. email me privately paul@distillery-equipment.com and we will work up a quote for you.

I build direct steam injection boilers. I build them from 304 stainless so they are sanitary and you do not need filters. I designed them with built in stainless heat exchangers for increased efficiency. We have several of them in operation all across the US. Our prices are better than all of our competitors. Click here to see some pictures http://distillery-equipment.com/steam_injection_boilers.htm If anyone is interested just give me a call @ 417-778-6908, and ask for Paul or email me: paul@distillery-equipment.com

I usually stay pretty busy, so I don't get on here a whole lot and so I am just now reading this whole thread. rtshfd I don't know exactly who you are but that is the run time on my stills, so I think that you may be one of my customers. Here are the run times for my Pro Series Ultra Pro Vodka System. heat up = 45 minutes to 1 hr, stripping = 3 hrs whiskey run through the Scotch column = 3hrs at 130 proof average Whiskey through the scotch and 4 plate = 4 hrs at 150 proof average Vodka = 8 to 10 hrs. for 192 proof This system will produce them all: Moonshine, Bourban, Whiskey, Vodka, Rum and Gin. I have a customer in VA who has been in operation for about 1 yr now and his distiller has really tightened up his run times with good results. He does 2 stripping runs per day that take 2 hrs each, then he does a spirit run to 130 proof that also takes 2 hrs. I was in the sawmill business for over 20 yrs. I know the necessity of production. My distilling equipment, from fermenter to vodka column, is built to maximize my customer's production (if that is what they want). I can give my customers the ability to do 2 stripping runs and 1 spirit run per day in the same still which means that my customers have twice the production of many of my competitors. We have configurations with stripping stills and combi vessels that will give you even more production. I am sure that ASD can give you that kind of production, but my stills are almost 1/2 the price of his and just as pretty. I have to admit that Steve's web site is much fancier than mine, but I am all about keeping my overhead low so that I can maintain my incredible prices. Check it out, my pricing is right out in the open on my web site. http://distillery-equipment.com/300_gallon_still.htm If anyone is interested in my equipment just give me a holler at 417-778-6908 If you would like to see one of my 300 gallon stills do a 2 hr stripping run and a 3hr spirit run just let me know and we will make you an appointment to go have a look. Our 800 gallon stills heat up and run times are very similar to the 300 gallon. Something else everyone should know, my mash cookers have a built in cooling system that does not involve a coil in the boiler. You don't need an expensive heat exchanger with a pump and the cooling time is very short. Also my cooling design does not increase the cost of my Mash Tuns. If there are any questions email me paul@distillery-equipment.com

I agree with HedgeBird. Those numbers are really large. It would take a pot still of around 30,000L capacity to distill what you want. Personally I would not build a pot still over 4000L, especially a pot still with a vodka column. You would have to go with a large continuous feed column still to get that kind of production and the cost would probably be well into the 7 figure range just for the still not including all of the other equipment and the building which might put your total expenditure into the 8 figure range. Is your budget really that large?

Some of our equipment is built here at our facility in MO. and some is build to my designs and specs in China. Our self-contained steam jacketed stills are built here in the USA and they are UL listed. I will not be listing these stills on my web site for a while, because the information about them is proprietary. If you are interested in them you will need to email me privately paul@distillery-equipment.com or call 417-778-6100 We also have a great deal of equipment on our web site at http://distillery-equipment.com We also have lots of tri clamp and other parts for still builders. Soon we will have copper sheet and plate plus a wide selection of stainless and copper pipe.

Hello Everybody, We have just updated our web site http://distillery-equipment.com. We have lots of parts and equipment for sale, with all prices listed and a shopping cart for check out. We built the site ourselves, so it is not fancy. We also have equipment and parts for sale on Ebay www.ebay.com/sch/affordable-distilling/m.html Our prices are lower than our competitors, because we have very low overhead and slimmer profit margins. We have sold equipment to many legal distilleries and we would be glad to supply a reference list to anyone who requests one by email. If you would like to see our equipment in operation, then email us and we will make arrangements for you to visit one of our customers. We will be listing more equipment and parts on the web site as time moves forward. Not yet Listed: 80 gallon Backwoods Series Steam Jacketed Still with a 230VAC Single Phase Self Contained UL Listed Steam Heating System 298° @ 50PSI, 1/2hp 35rpm 230VAC Single Phase Agitator, 6" diameter 4 Bubble Plate Copper Column with Tube and Shell Dephlegmator and Tube and Shell Condenser Price = $7,995.00. Built in the USA? email paul@distillery-equipment.com for more details on this one.