That black rectangle is my brazed plate heat exchanger that condenses the vapor.
Those two black pumps on the plywood are explosion proof pumps for pumping in and out of the still.
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so the small keg is the collection vessel ?
And, youāre running cold water through the brazed plate heat exchanger?
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Yes, the 2.5 gallon vessel is ethanol collection/ vacuum break.
I now use a 55 gallon vessel as a collector so I dont have to stop as much to drain ethanol.
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Hereās my rig! I produce my own ethanol at a rate of about 5-6L/h from a sugar mash (costco special as I like to call it). Ends up costing me about $2.70/L to make. My ethanol pumps out at 95.8% at sea level. I can go from a 10% mash up to azeotrope at that flow rate. I run it on 11kw with an ambient temperature condenser system. Just use a fan and an old car radiator for cooling the deflag lol.
If I was doing an ethanol recharge run I could likely get the throughput to about 10L/h. However I just keep putting new Ethanol into my system so with losses/water content it tends to balance out at 94-95% which Iām more than happy with for extracting.
Whole cost on the system is about 30k
I run a small scale craft distillery so Iām all up on the ethanol craft 
Larger size Pomeranian for scale/disguise. The column+base is about 14ft tall. I run 7x 8" bubble plates and a raschig ring base on the first column portion.
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This is the frankenstill or āfrankā as we like to call him.
We use this for solvent recovery at atmosphere temps. Itās got a single propane burner underneath. Presently pulls about 12-13L/h of solvent off at a cost of about $3k going in. Itās jacketed with a glycol/water blend receiving the heat.
Iām going to get my welder friend to pop some angle iron reinforcements on to the lid and base and run it under light vacuum. Itāll run in a more continuous style at that point, Iāll probably put a fine mist spray nozzle on the intake and have it in a constant feed going instead of batching like I do now. Hoping itāll be at around 20-30L/h at that point. Will double up on the condensers and get that thing rocking. Got about 160L basin size on the inside.
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nice work.
all I see are the bicycles youāve sprinkled on top for decoration 
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Haaaaahhaa yeah we run a burning Man camp of about 50 people. We seem to keep gathering bikes as we go. We supply about 100L of booze for giveaway at our parties there. I swear Iām not just a bike thief who only likes shitty dusty bikes! (There is a marinoni from 1978 in there though if you like bikes!)
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Whatās this sprayer setup I hear ppl talking about
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I think someone might be able to shed more light, but just increasing surface area by injecting the etoh via a mist instead of a more traditional method.
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No pot? Just a feed into a chamber?
Or you heat the pot and spray into it for instant evaporation?
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Yeah the latter is my plan. Evaporation is function of heat and surface area. The more surface area/heat the more evaporation. So I got a hot jacketed pot
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Isnāt that the basic concept behind a falling film evaporator? Are you thinking of doing some kind of hybrid of that design?
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Iām really just retrofitting current equipment to up my yields. Itās a FFE but less efficient lol.
Iām in the process of building a FFE at the moment too but its a month out Iād say.
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Would it keep your chilling power lower to do this design. What do you use for a chiller when under vacuum?
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I work in a chillyass warehouse and just use water cooling, keeps it around 4-8c. Not sure if it would keep my cooling power lower, I think its pretty straightforward thermodynamics on this one.
Iād likely move to using my chilled etoh (-18c to -40c) as the coolant before running it into the evaporator, but Iād need to do some equations to make sure my temperature difference stays in the right range. Always a good idea to use the energy youāve put into the cold end to help on the condensor side.
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My bottleneck is everything chiller related
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Whatās your current output/desired evporation? And are you evapping under vacuum? I can probably help you out in scaling up your cooling for cheap. Otherwise thereās plenty of great threads on cheap cooling.
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What is a nice clean wash you use to start from if all you are after is clean azeo?
For a 25 gallon wash Iād go with 35 pounds of sugar, 2 pounds of dry malt extract, yeast energizer (I canāt for the life of me remember what amount, maybe @tweedledew can help here), and EC-1118 yeast (4-5 packs). The malt extract and yeast energizer will help with the nutrients and PH of the wash. Alternatively you can use the cheaper yeast nutrient, but keep a close eye on PH and be careful not to use too much if youāre using a copper still, as it can lead to copper salts carrying over into your distillate. Keep temps above 75f for fastest results and to reduce risk of stalling.
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