Spirit Stills and Reboilers?

[Ralph Katzenell]

Greetings all.
I think I've completely lost the plot of this thread.

>From the point of view of common-sense, if a still is heated to cause boiling evaporation, the temperature of the vapor coming off is the same as the temperature at which the liquid is boiling. Nothing in the downstream heat-exchange chain can ever get to a higher temperature, unless heated by another heat supply at higher temperature (excluding discussion of vacuums or rapid volume compression here). Even with a 99.999 % heat exchange efficiency, nothing downstream can boil unless its boiling point is lower than the original upstream still contents.

>From a common-sense view, how much heat at vapour temperature can you extract from the condensing vapours? And is the tranferable heat content at that temperature sufficient to boil up low wines + feints etc? Doesn't sound likely to me.

What am I missing here, or am perhaps just wandering away with the faeries? Is senility setting in too fast?

Ralph

----- Original Message -----
From: Fredrika Gross <fredrika at PACBELL.NET>
Date: Thursday, August 3, 2006 9:49 am
Subject: Re: Spirit Stills and Reboilers?

> Hi Horst,
> 
> One of the distilleries used a copper wash still (with reboiler), 
> the other
> used a stainless (with alembic).
> 
> In the latter case the second distillation certainly provided 
> contact with
> copper.  In both cases the second step was performing a distillation.
> 
> I'm intrigued by the double/thumper, however.  I'll need to look 
> at that.
> 
> Brian
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE [MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE] On
> Behalf Of Horst Luening
> Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 11:07 PM
> To: MALTS-L at LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE
> Subject: AW: Spirit Stills and Reboilers?
> 
> Hello Dave!
> 
> We already talked about this here and came to two different 
> conclusions.
> This is my thinking of it and how I understood this during 
> explanations in
> several Bourbon plants:
> 
> The doubler/thumper is no distillation device. Because a lot of column
> stills are now made of stainless steel, you need some time of contact
> between the raw whiskey (white dog) and copper. This is to have the
> necessary catalytic processes going. Because you loose some energy 
> over the
> pipes to the doubler you need some heating too. This has nothing 
> to do with
> distillation.
> 
> Perhaps this is also the answer to the question? May this device 
> be only in
> place for more contact of the alc. fumes with copper?
> 
> Regards,
> Horst
> 
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE [MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE]Im
> Auftrag von djrussobik at AOL.COM
> Gesendet: Donnerstag, 3. August 2006 01:47
> An: MALTS-L at LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE
> Betreff: Re: Spirit Stills and Reboilers?
> 
> 
> Is this (or could this be) how the second distillation in a 
> doubler/thumperin some Bourbon distilleries also is accomplished?. 
> I never quite figured
> out how this step actually was implemented -- it certainly seemed 
> to be
> distinct from both the traditional pot-stills and column-stills, 
> and not
> obvious if there was a direct source of additional heat.   Any one 
> know how
> THAT distillation/step is performed?
> 
>  Thanks and Slainte!
>    Dave in Boston
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ake.j-son at BREDBAND.NET
> To: DJRussoBik at AOL.COM
> Sent: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 7:12 PM
> Subject: Re: Spirit Stills and Reboilers?
> 
> 
> Hi again,
> 
> Another speculation: the liquid of the second step may also be more
> volatile due to higher alcohol contents thus boiling at lower 
> temperature.
> Åke
> 
> --------------  https://www.lists.uni-karlsruhe.de/  --------------
> 
> 
> 
> Check out AOL.com today. Breaking news, video search, pictures, 
> email and
> IM. All on demand. Always Free.
> 
> -------------- https://www.lists.uni-karlsruhe.de/ -------------- 
> 
> --------------  https://www.lists.uni-karlsruhe.de/  --------------
> 
> --------------  https://www.lists.uni-karlsruhe.de/  --------------
> 

--------------  https://www.lists.uni-karlsruhe.de/  --------------