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Author: Subject: Moonshiners' 'Thumpers': Myth or Reality?
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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:11


Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
Aga, I think you have the right idea. Moonshining is a batch process and the boys will shut the still down at a certain point to maximize the product to their specifications.



100% YES!:D




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:15


Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Someone mentioned that this could be solved with a can of beer.

I think i just did.

At the very least, the basis for a definitive experiment is now available.

Distillation, EtOH conc of distillate measured say every 10ml or so.

Distillation with Thumper, EtOH conc of distillate measured the same.

Results would show one way or the other what the Thumper does or does not do.

Get on with it !


That was me, and yes. That is all that needs to be done.

In all fairness the process must match real world application. Meaning no supper heated flasks, and uncontrolled output rates.

The goal is to reduce temps to manage water vaporization, and maintain the highest ABV output through the run.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:18


Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  


You keep forgetting that you're blowing EtOH impoverished primary still vapour into the enriched thumper liquid.


It depends on which part of the batch process you are in. In the latter part you are right and that is likely where the boys will shut down the still.

In the beginning of the distillation the vapor from the pot will be richer in ethanol than the thumper liquid.



From the very second one atom of alch vapor passes into the thumper is is always a matter of the thumper being ahead.

The run is stopped at 20% ABV from the thumper, and the thumper , and boiler should be fairly close in ABV because most everything is gone but the thumper will always be higher during the run




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:23


Quote: Originally posted by aga  
More than that : they developed a Time Function, where they collect distillates at differing Times into the distillations.

Each Timed portion represents a different EtOH concentration.

Heads, Flow and Tails were the billyclue.

Yeehar !

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by aga]


Correct.
Fore shots are the most volatile. Acetone, and like compounds
Heads are a mix of fores, and Ethanol
Hearts are mostly pure ethanol / water
Tails are les volitle Keytones, fusel oils, ect

Fores are used around the house, de-greaser... heads are for lighting camp fires, ect... Hearts is where the money is... tails are for flavoring or modifying flavor profiles or just dumped in the dirt.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:26


Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  

In the beginning of the distillation the vapor from the pot will be richer in ethanol than the thumper liquid.


How much richer?



Wrong. For our purpose they start of the same. Once the first vapor leaves the pot, the thump is richer, and always will be.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:27


Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Experiment.



It seems to be the only way out of the quagmire. Let this not be another Vietnam. ;)



:D:D:D:D:D:D:D




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:29


Quote: Originally posted by aga  
Thinking about it, if my drunken theory is right, the Levels of the distillation pot and the thumper are irrelevant : they need not be at the same height at all.

A quick search on moonshine thumpers found a few images of 'stills where the thumper pot is suspended in the air, above the output of the 'still pot.

Heating of the Thumper should also be undesireable, as you'd want as much of the EtOH from the 'still pot to reach it, and condense in there before Thumper starts boiling, which rules out thumper heating being desirable.



Yes sir. No extra heat is required. Heating it negates the partial condenser effect.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:39


Quote: Originally posted by Crowfjord  
How do you guys plan on measuring ethanol concentration in your experiments? Depending on how small of a scale you're working with, it might be too little for a hydrometer.

I think I might join in on conducting an experiment. Maybe. I've been considering making some rum the past few weeks anyway.



If you're gonna make drinking liquor of ANY decent quality you need at least a 5 gallon boiler, and comparable thumper.

Anything smaller is just going to give yo raw liquor, and little separation of fores / heads / hearts / tails/.

Nasty stuff.

For this experiment perhaps a liter or 1000ml / 500ml rig will suffice. 750ml wash in the boiler, and 250ml in the thumper.

That should produce around 8 ml if stopped at 20% from a pot distillation, and 6ish ml from a thump distillation.

Tough to say.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:41


Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Quote: Originally posted by aga  

The actual accuracy would not be too important, as it would be a Comparison of straight distilled w% vs thumper distilled w%.



Correct. The absolute values are less important. Relative but statistically relevant numbers are far more important.

Absolute Values opens a can of worms like the use of Absolute Material Standards. Not easy. Big Science territory.

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by blogfast25]



Agreed. Comparative numbers are all that is required.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:44


Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  

The run is stopped at 20% ABV from the thumper, and the thumper , and boiler should be fairly close in ABV because most everything is gone but the thumper will always be higher during the run


If the boiler is charged with 10wt% ethanol (0.043 mole fraction ethanol) then its vapor will be 0.33 mole fraction ethanol (56wt%) according to the VLE diagram.

56wt% >> 20%ABV

Did you misread my earlier statement shown below?

"In the beginning of the distillation the vapor from the pot will be richer in ethanol than the thumper liquid."

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by Magpie]




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:46


Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  
You will have a boiler / 1/2 size thumper. The boiler should be 3/4 full, and the thumper 1/2 full.




Ok, welcome back.

No gripes except with that quote. We'll be using say a V (volume) pot still and a V/2 (half that volume) thumper. If the total feedstock was say A, how should we allocate that over both? Example: 75 % in pot still, 25 % in thumper?

It'll be a small set up, probably 500 ml pot still, 250 ml thumper. Insulation on the primary vapour line, slow distillation.

Final distillate condensing will not interfere with anything, I guarantee you that.

Set up will be revealed before any distillations take place.


[Edited on 18-2-2015 by blogfast25]



That sounds fine. I would say 400ml in the boiler, and 125ml in the thumper.

One practice run to learn the rig, and I think this will do the job.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:56


Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
Thank you.
Lobster for breakfast! That's awesome. (You are 7-8 hours ahead of me (PST), right?)



And because we're contrarians in this part of the world, I now have to go to bed, stomach full of lobster! :(

'Hostilities' to resume tomorrow.

Night night. Don't let the thumpers bite.



Sorry I missed ya!

See you in the am.. Hey... who am I talking to?

Never mind.




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 20:57


I'm wondering if that because of the huge scale down factor the still outlet piping and the thumper should be well insulated?

Did you miss my previous post/question?

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by Magpie]




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 21:04


DeltaH, thank you. Extremely useful to have graphs. It's probably a personal deficit of mine, but I hated even using the lever rule back in school, so as soon I need to start correcting for activity coefficients or the like, I am not the best person for that at all. I should definitely get that software and learn how to use it.
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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 21:09


Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  

The run is stopped at 20% ABV from the thumper, and the thumper , and boiler should be fairly close in ABV because most everything is gone but the thumper will always be higher during the run


If the boiler is charged with 10wt% ethanol (0.043 mole fraction ethanol) then its vapor will be 0.33 mole fraction ethanol (56wt%) according to the VLE diagram.

56wt% >> 20%ABV

Did you misread my earlier statement shown below?

"In the beginning of the distillation the vapor from the pot will be richer in ethanol than the thumper liquid."

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by Magpie]


Yes I did mis read that. You are correct. The vapor leaving the pot WILL be richer than the liquid in the thumper.

There will be a point where this equalizes, and reverses. That is approx 3/4 of the way thru the run, and nearing the end or "tails" production




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 21:14


Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
I'm wondering if that because of the huge scale down factor the still outlet piping and the thumper should be well insulated?

Did you miss my previous post/question?

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by Magpie]



I'm not sure about this.
The scale may play a factor...
I'm too burnt out to learn thermo dynamics tonight so maybe, if we keep this in mind for after the results come in.

I'm fairly certain the issue will be minimal and, the results if even 2 - 3 % should prove out the idea.
I expect to see around 25% increase in ABV




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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 23:39


Quote: Originally posted by deltaH  
Quote: Originally posted by macckone  
To answer a couple of blogfast's questions. The usual ratio is 1:3 from the original link. Assuming
that the starting and final abv are the same for the pot and thumper that would give 33% enrichment.
note that is simple mass transfer and doesn't account for heat transfer. Starting off with a cold
thumper seems to make more sense thermodynamically. Initially the stream will condense in the
thumper producing a higher abv in the thumper. Then the stream will start to pass through with the
water condensing out and alcohol being absorbed into the vapor stream. Once it reaches steady
state, the amount of water condensed must equal the amount of alcohol evaporated at a heat value
level. Note this is lower than when the thumper is absorbing heat. If the thumper is losing heat
to the environment the enrichment could be greater but never more than the mass value. Hypothetically
the thumper could be alcohol depleted at the end of the run yielding a higher gain than 33%.


My simulations showed that a cold thumper does no enriching, enrichment only starts from about 73C under my conditions where it peaks rapidly, then decreases with increasing temperature. In really, the thumper would operate somewhere above 90C I would imagine and reach that pretty quickly. I would't proof a distillate sample before the thumper gets hot and reaches pseudo steady state.

[Edited on 17-2-2015 by deltaH]

Enrichment when cold is of the liquid in the thumper not vapor, because little vapor will pass through until the thumper reaches the azeotrope BP. Then you get an enriched mix that falls rapidly to steady state. Basically we are saying the same thing.
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[*] posted on 17-2-2015 at 23:49


Magpie and others asked about the x-y diagram a while earlier.

The x-axis refers to the mole fraction of ethanol in the liquid phase, the y-axis refers to the mole fraction of also ethanol in the vapour phase.

*********************

The curve is the phase equilibrium for ethanol in the ethanol-water system between vapour ethanol and liquid ethanol.

The y=x diagonal line refers to the operating line for distillation under perfect conditions (infinitely large still or a multistage fractionator operating at infinite reflux/boilup ratio's and infinitely big).

Drawing the steps as I've done gives the thermodynamic minimum number of stages required to achieve a particular separation. Real life is typically twice that , as a very crude rule-of-thumb, because of inefficiencies. It's a really quick way to estimate if you want to go from say 0.05 mole fraction ethanol to say 0.5, how many stages you're going to need.

The boiler counts as a stage, thereafter each tray in a column also counts as extra stages. A thumper is at best only a partial stage, so still plus three thumpers does not equal three thermodynamic perfect steps (NB!)

For a column that operates with proper reflux, you can construct so called McCabe-Thiele diagrams for the seperation. You then get extra operating lines whose angles are determined by the reflux ratio, the boilup ratio and also a feed line (called the q-line).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCabe%E2%80%93Thiele_method


[Edited on 18-2-2015 by deltaH]




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 00:12


All of that is correct Delta.

If I may make one modification...
The thump IS another stage or distillation, in as much as the boiler is considered a distillation.
The exact same process is occurring in the thumper as is in the boiler.

The only difference is the thumper now contains a higher mole fraction, and requires less energy to vaporize than the boiler.




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 00:47


Oh yeah, it is a far cry from the efficiency of a plate by all measures.

It is the interaction of vapor / liquid that strips EtOH from the liquid (beside evaporation).
In my columns I uses a combination of sieve plates w/ 357- 1.5mm holes per plate, and .6 stainless mesh "structured packing".
Combined I run the equivalent of 18 stages or plates in a 7 foot tall combined concentric column / boiler. It produces approx 5.5LPH at azeotrope. Different beast.

It is all about vapor / liquid interaction. Thumpers do this in the most simplistic fashion, and I'm sure they ( operators) never quite understood why or more complex or efficient stills would have come out of the mountains / woods.




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 01:07


Oops I accidentally erased my post when I meant to erase the image in an edit, but basically the post above zom's should read something like:

Yes, it is a stage, I just want it understood that it's a much smaller step of the phase diagram than an ideal stage (and the still's step for that matter). So two thumpers and a still does not make three ideal steps etc.

I'm just emphasising this for those who do not have distillation knowledge and working with such diagrams. Not most of those participating in the thread though.




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 01:13


Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  
Oh yeah, it is a far cry from the efficiency of a plate by all measures.

It is the interaction of vapor / liquid that strips EtOH from the liquid (beside evaporation).
In my columns I uses a combination of sieve plates w/ 357- 1.5mm holes per plate, and .6 stainless mesh "structured packing".
Combined I run the equivalent of 18 stages or plates in a 7 foot tall combined concentric column / boiler. It produces approx 5.5LPH at azeotrope. Different beast.

It is all about vapor / liquid interaction. Thumpers do this in the most simplistic fashion, and I'm sure they ( operators) never quite understood why or more complex or efficient stills would have come out of the mountains / woods.


I get what you're saying fully.

The thumper seems an elegantly simple solution to getting the job done and if so, then hat's off (as I've said before).

Whoever carries out this experiment, please afix a cutout of the following image on the thumper jar as the official mascot of this thread :D

Thumper from Bambie.jpg - 18kB

"Thumper" from "Bambie"

[Edited on 18-2-2015 by deltaH]




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 02:43


I've been wondering who was going to post that Thumper first.

14 pages, and we get a real working thumper. Whew...:D




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 02:44


Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  
Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25  
Quote: Originally posted by Zombie  
You will have a boiler / 1/2 size thumper. The boiler should be 3/4 full, and the thumper 1/2 full.




Ok, welcome back.

No gripes except with that quote. We'll be using say a V (volume) pot still and a V/2 (half that volume) thumper. If the total feedstock was say A, how should we allocate that over both? Example: 75 % in pot still, 25 % in thumper?

It'll be a small set up, probably 500 ml pot still, 250 ml thumper. Insulation on the primary vapour line, slow distillation.

Final distillate condensing will not interfere with anything, I guarantee you that.

Set up will be revealed before any distillations take place.


[Edited on 18-2-2015 by blogfast25]



That sounds fine. I would say 400ml in the boiler, and 125ml in the thumper.

One practice run to learn the rig, and I think this will do the job.


Fair enough. Practice run seems fair.




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[*] posted on 18-2-2015 at 02:57


Quote: Originally posted by deltaH  
Real life is typically twice that , as a very crude rule-of-thumb, because of inefficiencies. It's a really quick way to estimate if you want to go from say 0.05 mole fraction ethanol to say 0.5, how many stages you're going to need.



A minor gripe. That statement is fairly meaningless.

Fractionated columns in industry are designed using fairly accurate design criteria to make them fit-for-purpose.

Actual column performance is then determined mainly as the Number of Theoretical Plates (as well as other parameters) (McCabe Thiele, in essence).




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