Wish I could be your 100k subscriber, but I subscribed years ago. My reward is being an original member from long ago, and enjoying your content all this time. Happy Distilling, George!
Yup here's that one George... 89' to 92' coming out of my cold faucet in Glendale Arizona from July thru August, water heater bills are low in the summer and you never need on the Hot when taking a shower either. Thanks for the great videos!
This just helped me out a lot. I've been running my pump at full blast and my output is a lot lower than I'd like. It's too cool coming out the top so it's condensing higher up in the arm and not allowing enough to get in the condenser itself. Thanks George.
Hi Mr George, I'm what you will call a nuby at distilling. I'm extremely excited to start my new hobby. I cooked up my first whiskey mash today and can't wait to start to distill it. Thank you for all the videos you make it is very entertaining and help full. From South Africa
Christopher, I am also new to the hobby and this video was sent from above as I am busy designing my new still. I am also a South African and I must say this truly fun. Thanks, Mr. George your video helped a lot.
Hi, I must just say, your knowledge and ability to teach is simply amazing. I do have a question regarding the lab grade glass condensers, being attached to the pot still, instead of the copper tubing type condensers, what are your thought? Keep up the good work...
I added a small car radiator with the electric fan between the lieberg return and water tank. By far best system addition with no more ice or high water bills. Depending on air temp in the shop, water is usually a couple degrees cooler at the end of a 3 hour run. This is on a pot still, haven't tried with a dephlag yet.
I use my 5 gallon cooler jug and freeze about 6 plastic gallon jugs of water and use 2 at a time and change it twice during the distilling process, the melted jugs going back into the deep freeze and I never have a problem
I copied your air conditioner idea and it works perfectly! Added a simple inkbird thermostat that kicks on and off to keep the water cool without me paying attention. Thanks! You rock!
I got a worm that's 24 feet long I got the copper pipe real cheap and I always heard more the better the flavor were the impureties stick to the copper but that's only reason why it's so long but I pull water from a stream to keep it cool even thow it's ina 50 gallon drum it gets the top foot and a half very hot so I do that to keep fresh cold mountain lime water that' stays cold year round but in August I was loosing proof and George just told me why without me asking
Subscriber! Great video, George. Another alternative to condensers is air! If you buy copper tubing with fins attached (like a baseboard radiator) the fins will dissipate the heat if you blow a fan across them. Meets your rule of thumb too. This method has no equipment except a fan and no water, coolers, ice etc.
I have a 30 inch by 3 inch shotgun condenser an use 15 pounds of ice on a 20 gallon batch that takes 6 hours to run and still have ice left when I'm done. Right now I'm working on converting a water cooler to chill the water so i can skip the ice. Thank you for another great video to help us be better and safer at our thing and as always #HappyDistilling George
Very very cool. I wished you would have show how you hooked the AC to the ice chest. thank you i know what i got to do now. Thank you for all your videos.
9:50, i use a 15gal storage container and i freeze water in gallon milk jugs and add them 1 at a time to my container and let the hot water run over the jug as it comes out. its worked quite well for me. then i just reuse the same jugs with the same water, virtually no waste except the 15 gal i toss at the end of the run.
George, did you ever in your wildest dreams, when you started this channel, think you would ever get 100,000 subscribers? I hope you are planning something real big and exciting for the day the old odometer turns to 100,000! Happy distilling!
Actually I did not. My initial intent was to help in what I thought was a small community and it turned into something very different. I am impressed daily with the number of people involved and appreciate the support.
hi Mr. i use to work in a foundry years ago , my cooling water on a die caster was well water at 54 degree , i would tweet my input to where i had 85 to 90 degree on my outlet. if not it was not picking up heat and the metal would stick due to hi temp, or not set solid. that was 1600 degree aluminum. i rum my still same way , i cut my cooling water down so my outlet temp is about 80 or so, warm outlet .good heat exchange, and a great drip drip spurt. oh yea.
George, I’m very jealous of your homemade and very efficient chiller. I remember when you first built it and I wanted to build one myself so badly. But alas, it wouldn’t work in my situation because having to vent out the hot air expelling from the AC unit; through one of my kitchen windows just wouldn’t work out too well. Perhaps one day I’ll try it. But for now, I start up with a half a bag of ice, then proceed to my frozen 1 L bottles of a salted water. This set up works pretty good, whether I’m running in pots Still mode or in a reflux mode. It keeps up pretty well, so I guess I’m happy. Another great video though, keep up the great work my friend.
Mr. Pig, I do the same, except I don't start up with a half a bag of ice. I have some jugs of frozen salt water in the freezer and use them in an ice chest filled with water, to chill the condenser cooling water. I would suggest using 1 gallon bottles instead of 1 liters because the surface area of the larger bottles is greater. As the ice melts from the outside, inward, the rate of heat transfer at the bottle's surface declines. The difference is not all that great but it reduces how often you need to replenish the ice. Having George's chiller would be nice but my limited space and AC power makes the reusable blocks of ice a better option for me.
So good to now have a clue for the water temperature... I ASSUMED I was trying to chill the water to 40F in order to have efficiency. Especially after the chiller video 😄
I freeze 4 -2.5 gallon plastic water jugs and fill up a 150 quart cooler with about 15 gallons od water. I went with building a stand and putting the cooler up high then in the middle of the stand i have a shelf for catch jars and still parts. So its space efficient for me. I have a 30 in shotgun condesner and a dephlegmator. I just have to crack the valves to get enough water for my reflux and condensingA 10 gallon run takes me 9 hours and I have plenty of cool water to get threw.
George Just finished my shotgun condenser and put both the inlet and outlet for the cooling water on the same side. Does it matter ? Working on my dephlegmator now. great videos thanks
Hey George ! Yep, It went BING ,and I build me one of a broken de-humidifier. works like a charm in a 80l. foam insulated tank. Plan on putting a stc-1000 on to control it. Soon i have everything to run, just missing time :-( Looking forward to the reflux video. I'm putting a flow meter with a needle valve in after the pump, and a thermometer on the return line. Hope to get some data that I can use in all my reflux runs. Good day ad happy distilling/brewing to ya all :-)
@@johncummings9740 Hey, and sorry, I haven't had the time to run that setup yet. To much work, at work and home :-( but if you get some data, please post it .
If you are not condensing all of the alcohol vapour, it does not really change your proof, it changes your waste percentage. If your water is too warm, your condenser to small, you loose alcohol vapour meaning you are just throwing away the alcohol you worked so hard to create. - looks like you got 100k subscribers.... congratulations.
Hi George, so just wondering if the "PID GUY" would think about doing a double build control unit in one box. By this I mean heat for the still, and cool for the AC controlled condencer. would make the cool points go up. Happy distill....👍👍
You don't really need a PID for the AC. A simple temperature controller would do just as well and be cheaper. STC-1000's are ubiquitous and would possibly be able to run the AC.
Hi, I am from Iran, your channel is my favorite, your channel taught me a lot, please help me to make a condenser like this device. What is the size of the pipes for the condenser? How can I have a plan size? Sorry, my English is not good. I used Google Translate Thanks
I was gifted a bunch of brewing & distilling equipment from a good friend. I am going to be distilling my first sugar wash in a couple days when it is done fermenting...One of the pieces of equipment is a glycol chiller..would that be an option to hook up to the condenser?? Thank you for all the videos :)
Sorry misspelled distilling. Hey George have you thought about using your cooler for a water cooled TIG torch? Or if someone has a cooler for their TIG torch, would that be adaptable to a still condenser? #HAPPYDISTILLING from NOLA!
I use a cooler and pump,with frozen reused bottled water,I probably go through 50 - 60 bottles. Tried two liter bottles to start with,but they didn't cool as well, I think when they were half thawed, they didn't exchange the heat as fast?
I've always wondered why most "store bought" stills use the inefficient liebig condenser instead of the Graham condenser which is more efficient and similar to a worm.
Really wish someone would sell an AC mod like you made. I can get an industrial chiller like that but they are hugely overpriced for what they are. $150 AC compared to $1000 chiller. Same thing with 600% markup. Biting the bullet and running poly tubing all the way to my kitchen. Tired of lugging buckets of water to cool the closed loop.
Thanks George. Fantastic! This is the video I've been waiting for you to share. Looking forward to information about dephlegmator (column condenser) running temperatures. Q. Water temperature in or out, to which one do we pay attention? Happy Distilling from Australia.
I would control the temperature of condensate out of the condenser, that way you can choose what temperature the condensed vapour comes out at. You can change the temperature out of the condenser by manipulating the flow rate of the water through the condenser (or change the temperature of the water by adding ice, if you use the pump set up). Also note, most alcometers are calibrated at 20 c, therefore having a condensed vapour out at 20 c means you can test the concentration right away.
@@MicahWeb Aah I forgot about that. If you are using a parrot you should be getting the distillate temp close to the alcometers calibrated temp. I don't use a parrot yet but will be soon. Thanks Micah.
Mr. George, can you tell me the brand and series of the column/condenser that you showed in the video? I looked back in your videos and couldn’t find it. Love the channel!! I’ve learned a lot sir!! Thank you
I was thinking about putting a bucket inside a spare countertop refrigerator.and running the water pipes and electrical cord for the pump through the walls. I just might have to take a look to see if it's condensing unit might be an easy as a conversion as this was. Probably not and I don't want to get into purging freon and soldering. I got to wonder how a 10 gallon aquarium chiller would do.
OK I looked at that little countertop frig and it's even more perfect for this than George's window AC because the tube to the evaporator is nice and long so it should be easy to bend. The evaporator is a neat little plate serving as the freezer bottom with the tubes stamped into the top side and somehow bonded to the bottom layer. That looks very hardy and easy to unbolt along with the thermostat. . Only thing is I got to saw the inside of the box apart if I don't want to have to recharge it . . . and I don't . . . because that tube comes right up from the compressor in the condensing unit through the inside. But that's not a problem for me...Maybe even I got enough tube length between the high and low sides to to put the condenser on the counter and the evaporator will still reach inside the water source. Maybe mount everything on plywood together. . Thanks George ! Your videos are answering all my questions and informative about things I haven't yet thought to ask about, so as to keep me from bad choices otherwise.
My worm is 8in coil 10 ft of 5/8 refer soft tubeing sitting in a 7 gallon stainless steel liquid oxygen tank I re purposed. All it takes is a trickle and it stays cold. I'm also going geothermal for cooling
Your water charges must be higher than your electric bill. Burry some copper tubing in the ground and control your heat more precisely using a PID to turn on your heating element, and controlling the volume of water you are pumping through your heat exchanger.
@Vesko Ruychev, yes they do. I will work with George to see if we can make a video on this. I use a PC liquid cooling radiator (120mmx240mm) with 2 each - 120 mm fans and a very small pump and circulate water through it and I can run a 2" still with no problems, and no refrigeration or ice is required and the power draw is very very low. I think this would be a great video idea for the future. I hope this helps and #happyDistilling
Hi George I was wondering on what your thoughts on using a glycol/water mixture instead of just a cold water system? Also another thing which I think would be good to put thermal insulation on the cold water outlet to keep it cold before it gets to the vapour condensor As always thanks for your video
Not sure glycol would be an economical adaptation. If we were trying to prevent freezing it would be appropriate. Its cooling properties would not be much of a benefit for a condenser although using it would not hurt anything.
@@BarleyandHopsBrewing What you say is correct and incorrect and wanted to provide some additional background. Unless you are concerned about freezing occurring in your liquid mixture, it is actually detrimental to use a glycol water mixture because the specific heat of the mixture is less then the specific heat of water, therefore you will transfer less heat per unit volume of the liquid. www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/attachments/specific-heat-glycol-water-gif.3097575/ As can be seen from the graph the specific heat is highest when the glycol concentration is 0%. Heat transferred (Q) = m-dot * Cp * Delta T where m-dot is the mass transferred per unit time, Cp is the specific heat (which is higher for pure water), and Delta T is the temperature difference between the inlet and the outlet. The higher the Cp, the more heat will be transferred. Sorry for geeking out but thought I would provide a scientific explaination based on my many years of thermodynamics :-)
So George, taking it to the next step.....would you say there is a regulated or required flow rate? Even the little pump, if pushing 200 gallons a minute, does it matter only that the input is less than 1/2 of the vaporizing temperature?
Flow rate is something you'd find out in practice. If your cooling water is of an appropriate temperature and you're fully condensing the vapour, the flow rate is fine. If you're spewing vapour out the end of your condenser, you either need more flow or a cooler inlet temperature. An alternative way is to feel the condenser. It should gradually get warmer closer to the outlet, if it gets hot half way up and doesn't feel like it gets any hotter, your flow rate is too low and you're under-utilizing your condenser. Condenser outlet temperature will also tell you this. The lower it is the better your condenser will perform. However, as long as you're not spewing vapour out the end of your condenser, increasing flow or decreasing inlet temperature won't improve performance.
I have a question maybe someone can help me with. Can you have too much water flow through the lieburg condenser ? In other words can you cause a vapor lock?
what do you think about using a car heater core and a fan for cooling? put ice in your cooler and use the heater core unit to drop the discharge water temp so the ice would last longer
Air-conditioners work best at higher temperatures. The lower you chill the water, the less cooling capacity it has. If you want to run multiple stills, take the condenser outlet water, run it through something like a car heater core or radiator with a fan. This will dump most of the heat to the air. Then through the chiller, however depending on your ambient temperature and the size of your radiator, you may not need the chiller at all.
Hi, What if water is to cold in both condensor and reflux? feels like nothing is coming at all, if im turn water off it begins to drop for some seconds the stop drop and wipe comes. then turning on water again and it stop wipe and nothing hapends and nothing is coming. any idea_
Perhaps a silly question but I’m gonna ask it anyway. Does the angle of the condenser make any difference to cooling? I see some have their condenser at 180’ to the column and others at 45’ or so. I guess the steeper the more the cooling?
@Markal, the angle of the condenser will make no discernible difference as long as the condenser is pointed slightly downwards to completely downwards so the liquid can drain out of the condenser. Also, you want to ensure that the hot vapors are coming in from one side and the cooling medium (water) is coming in from the other end (counter flow). This ensures maximum heat transfer. I hope this helps and #happyDistilling
Quick question,why send the water in the bottom and out the top of the condenser? because heat rises is my first guess but I'm a beginner so really don't know.thanks bud,awesome info here...
@Daniel Pahoundis, I wrote this same thing elsewhere, but thought I would answer you directly also. The reason for this is based on a principle of temperature driving force. Heat transfers more efficiently in counter flow then it does in parallel flow. So which ever direction the hot liquid is flowing, the cold water should flow in the opposite direction for maximum heat transfer to occur. In the case of a still the hot liquid is flowing down through the final condenser therefore the cold water should flow upwards. This is based on science and if you want the geek version you can watch ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3AJLNQJLZWA.html but just know that it is always best to have counter current flow through a double pipe exchanger. I hope this helps and as always #happyDistilling
@@cryptoponics thanks again and as a beginner things are going well thanks to your videos george,I love the hobby and your a very knowledgeable person on distilling....Happy Holidays
I am a nuby at distillation I have only been doing it since 1967, I am blown away at the baffling amount of science that is applied nowadays and think that it may put a lot of potential home distillers off, the way i see it is that any spirit given off in the first 10% is to be added to the wash next time through, I am not dead yet but I am trying hard.
Hi, George! I had the idea of using three or four 2 liter plastic bottles filled with salt water and frozen to keep the water cold. What most of us have a deep freeze that constantly runs, so there's no real loss of energy. What are your thoughts on this?
George, did I hear you say that the water output of the pump should be connected to the bottom of the condenser ? I always assumed it should be connected to the top of the condenser and let the water come out of the bottom.
@svanveer, the reason for this is based on a principle of temperature driving force. Heat transfers more efficiently in counter flow then it does in parallel flow. So which ever direction the hot liquid is flowing, the cold water should flow in the opposite direction for maximum heat transfer to occur. In the case of a still the hot liquid is flowing down through the final condenser therefore the cold water should flow upwards. This is based on science and if you want the geek version you can watch ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3AJLNQJLZWA.html but just know that it is always best to have counter current flow through a double pipe exchanger. I hope this helps and as always #happyDistilling
It will depend on the particular AC unit you use. Cut out a portion of the cooler lid wherever the pipes will be best to fit it, and bend it down. The evaporator just sits in the cooler, however adding some manner of support would be an idea to stop vibrations cracking the pipes.
In the process of building a chiller out of a dehumidifier. One thing I don't understand is how you can have over 2000 views and only (at the time of this comment) 291 likes of the video. What the hell is wrong with people? Another thing is RU-vid is putting too many commercials in your videos. I counted 5 in this one. BAH!
Hello my name is Tim I would love to be able to send you some pictures of my 20 gallon still maybe pick your brain a little bit. My condenser is what you consider a shotgun style about 27 inches in length. I’ve got a lot of time and money wrapped up in it. I would love Feedback. Thank you for your time. Looking forward to hearing from you
About the flow reate in the condenser. A rule of thumb is to check the temperature of the water coming out from the condenser. If it is hot, your flow rate is too low (or your cooling water is too hot, but that is harder to control). You should be adjusting the flow rate with simply adjusting the pump (if it is adjustable and it is not at max). You also can build a control circuit on that if you are a control freak. You need a digital thermometer at the output water and you need an expensive pump which accepts digital signals to adjust flow rate. But as George said, it has no impact on the flavours so fooling around this is kinda overkill. The only reason I would make a controlled flow if something happens with the input water or there is a leakage and you can set an alarm if the temperature of the output water exceeds a limit. Otherwise, no need.
