When the mash is heated, some of the heat goes out through the walls and lid of the distillation cube, which increases the distillation time, disrupts the stability of the entire system, and also increases energy and water costs. Insulating the cube effectively solves the listed problems, while the most accessible and cheap materials are needed, and the entire modernization process takes no more than an hour. In addition to the heat-insulating material itself, you will also need metallized tape and ties.

Advantages:

1. Save time. With an insulated still, the distillation time is reduced by 15-25% (the effect depends on the volume of the container, the type of energy source and heating power). Often, if the entire distillation took 6-7 hours, then after insulation it will take 4-5 hours.

2. Saving resources. By reducing the distillation time, energy costs for heating (very important for electric stoves) and water for cooling the coil are reduced.

3. Comfort. The heat of the cube does not heat the environment; as a result, it is more pleasant for the moonshiner to work, since the temperature in the room is stable and almost does not depend on the moonshine still being turned on.

4. Stability. Due to the minimal impact of external factors on the temperature inside, a system with an insulated distillation cube is more stable than a similar one without insulation. This is relevant when the cooling operation is irregular, for example, when the water pressure in the water supply is constantly changing or there is no possibility of using running water at all. Another common cause of imbalance is a draft, which is created even with open doors and windows.

5. Security. The walls of an insulated moonshine cube heat up to a maximum of 35-40°C (the temperature of hot water from a tap), so there is no risk of getting burned by accidentally touching the wall, or of causing a fire if another object accidentally comes into contact with the cube.

Disadvantage: you need to purchase thermal insulation material, special tape and ties, then spend time on modernization.

How to insulate a moonshine still cube

For electric, induction stoves and heating elements inside the cube, foil insulation for baths and saunas 5 mm thick (foiled polypropylene), a tourist mat (with foil) or other similar material that can withstand a temperature of 100°C is suitable as an insulating material. To be safe, it is better to take extra material that does not burn, smoke or melt at 120°C.

Attention! In case of heating on a gas stove, in order to prevent fire, the cube is insulated with felt and asbestos on top. Another option is materials for stoves and fireplaces. Below are step-by-step instructions for induction and electric heating sources.

Instructions

1. You can insulate a cube with one solid piece of material, but for ease of use, better effect and a more beautiful appearance, it is better to divide the insulation into 3-4 even parts in diameter (strips). In this case, it is necessary to insulate not only the walls, but also the lid.

2. Try the insulation on the cube, mark it in the right places, and then make slots for handles, connecting heating elements or a drain valve for stillage (if any).

3. With a thickness of 5 mm, it is better to put on insulation in two layers. The first is with foil to the cube. Then seal all joints with metallized tape. Install the second part of the insulation, but with the foil facing out, then tape the joints again.

Metallized tape is the best solution for gluing joints

If you plan to have one layer of insulation, for example, a camping mat, then it should be installed with the foil facing outward, since this will make it easier to wash the cube in case the contents spill out.

4. Using a similar technology, insulate the lid of the cube (preferably in two layers), having first made a cut in the material for a tube and other holes, for example, for a thermometer, as necessary. After installing the insulation on the lid, cover all the slots on the lid and walls of the cube with metallized tape.

5. To increase the reliability of the structure, fix the insulation to the walls using a load tie or any other method. The screed must withstand temperatures of 40-45°C.

Every moonshiner dreams of making not only alcohol, but also alcohol at home. It is in this matter that the drawer in the moonshine still will help, which you can either purchase or make yourself.

This is a tool in a moonshine still, partially replacing a distillation column. Why only partially? A complete one is a set of various types of filters that ensure the distillation of rectified alcohol.

And the king - a more simplified version. To avoid disappointment, let us immediately make a reservation that it is unlikely that it will be possible to obtain pure medical alcohol of 96° strength using only this tool. But purified moonshine with a strength of 80°, or even higher, is quite possible.

The mash gradually turns into an alcohol product, into which, without the use of cleaning devices, many harmful substances called fusel enter even at the distillation stage. It is this that gives homemade strong alcohol its characteristic pungent odor and unpleasant taste.

To be considered a true master distiller, you need to master some of the fashionable “tricks” of moonshine brewing today, which allow you to get a decent product at home. Among them - use of the drawer.

This device is successfully used to strengthen the final product and simultaneously purify alcohol vapors from harmful additives.

Functions and structural features

Due to the increased degree of the final product, the frame is often called a reinforcing column. It is a column - a pipe installed vertically directly above the distillation cube.

Peculiarities. Unlike a reinforcing column, which can be a simple pipe without “filling”, the tsarg uses filler. These are spiral-shaped copper wires or pieces of stainless steel plumber's scouring pad (the latter are often used in homemade devices).

How does it work?

Alcohol vapor, rising along the frame, partially condenses and flows down to meet new vapor, which in turn is also freed from harmful substances and water.

The condensed liquid constantly returns to the cube, and pure alcohol goes further into. Thus, the product, freed from fusel oils and water, has a high strength and acceptable purity.

Is it possible to replace it with a steamer?

This question is often asked by novice distillers, but there is only one answer to it - it is forbidden. The maximum purification of moonshine using a steamer is 20% versus 60% for a full-fledged drawer.

Is it necessary to insulate?

But on this issue opinions differ. There are those who like to insulate both the distillation cube and the drawer, claiming that this increases efficiency. There is also the opposite opinion that the column is better cooled in air and this ensures a better selection of fusel oils.

Some also direct a fan onto it for better cooling. So it's up to you.

Attention. The presence of several drawers reduces the speed of distillation of mash, which must be taken into account when deciding whether this system is needed in your device.

How to do it yourself?

The height is chosen based on your capabilities, but keeping in mind that:

• 15 cm are capable of purifying alcohol vapors by 20% from fusel;
• 35 cm - already selects 50% of fusel oils;
• The 45-centimeter one gives 60% removal of harmful impurities.

Attention. Although it is generally accepted that a 15 cm drawer purifies vapors by 20%, a column of such height will not give you the expected purification, since these measurements were made at a higher column height (that is, 15 cm is part of a higher structure).

Necessary materials

For home production, it is better to take the optimal 45 cm or at least 35 cm in height. The pipe is usually used with a diameter of 35 mm. You will also need:

• a piece of 6 mm pipe (thermometer sleeve);
• thermometer;
• bottom plug with hole and sieve;
• 2 adapters – for attaching to the cube and refrigerator tube;
• 40-50 stainless steel washcloths (with drawer height 45 cm);
• if you plan to make the structure collapsible, for the lid you need a piece (3-4 cm) of a pipe 6-8 mm larger in diameter and a plug for it.

In addition, the drawer can be connected directly to the neck of the cube, without an adapter.

Making filler

The pipe is usually filled with dish scrubbers purchased at the nearest hardware store. But the vast majority of them are made of technical stainless steel, which is not very useful, because the spiral wires will come into contact with alcohol vapors.

And technical stainless steel reacts with various substances contained in alcohol, forming new compounds. They are unlikely to be healthy.

Advice. When you go shopping for washcloths, remove them from the refrigerator and put a small magnet in your pocket.

And then check the offered products. Suddenly you will be lucky and you will find yourself on a scraper made of food-grade stainless steel (it is not magnetic, unlike technical ones).

It is highly desirable to make a king detachable by cutting threads on the top of the pipe and the cap. Ensure tightness using a silicone gasket. A detachable design is needed in order to be able to replace over time the filler, on which harmful deposits accumulate, deteriorating the quality of the product.

Stainless steel is often easier to replace, and if using copper wires, they can be dumped out and washed with dish soap, then rinsed well under running water and can be refilled into the pipe.

Important. If you want to fill your product with spirals made specifically from food-grade stainless steel, ask those who work at a company that produces various devices for the food industry.

There, the waste (spiral-shaped shavings) is simply sold as scrap metal and they will probably sell you (or even give you) a kilogram of such waste.

If you have experience using a drawer drawer, as well as making it yourself, please share it in the comments. The article was useful to you - like it.

The quality of the alcohol produced is one of the main issues for a self-respecting moonshiner. For this purpose, various technological tricks were introduced into the design of the moonshine still, one of which is the drawer.

This seemingly simple and unpretentious product significantly affects the quality of moonshine, not only improving its taste and increasing its strength, but also making it significantly less harmful to health.

And in order to fully understand what a drawer for a moonshine still is and why it is needed, as well as what its design and principle of operation are and, more importantly, how to make such a device with your own hands at home, you need to familiarize yourself with the issue in more detail .

A drawbar for a moonshine still is one of the additional components necessary to improve the quality of the alcohol produced. It is a mandatory component of column-type devices along with a reflux condenser, but can also be used on simpler models.

The main purpose of the device is to purify alcohol-containing steam and phlegm from fusel oils and other impurities, as well as to increase the strength of the final product up to 97°, depending on the specific installation.

Design and principles of operation

The product looks like an ordinary pipe, which is mounted directly above the distillation cube. Typically, column-type units use one device, but there are exceptions, for example, in the Istomina double-distillation moonshine still with two drawers.

The internal cavity of the unit is filled with the so-called nozzle: SPN and RPN or plates, which significantly increase the usable area of ​​the device, and with it its efficiency.

The main part of the process of mass exchange between rising heated steam and flowing cooled reflux takes place in the drawer. It is the main stage of rectification, but without a reflux condenser and maintaining the correct temperature, full rectification cannot be achieved.

In quantitative terms, the height of the drawer for a moonshine still determines the degree of purification of the product, and its width determines its throughput, that is, productivity.

Options

There are a number of characteristics that have a key impact on the operation of the device: length, also known as height, width and type of filler.

Length

It is a parameter that determines the degree of purification, that is, how well the mixture evaporated from the mash is separated into its constituent substances. The higher the product, the better the separation, which means that when cutting off the tails and selecting the heads, more harmful impurities will be eliminated from the final product. But the effectiveness of increasing the length of the drawer for a moonshine still is not unlimited and not proportional. First, as its height increases, the multiplicity grows rapidly:

• nozzle part 15 cm – 20-fold degree of cleaning;
• nozzle part 35 cm – 50-fold;
• nozzle part 45 cm – 65-fold.

Did you know? Often mistakenly interpreted as a direct improvement in cleaning, the expansion factor actually quantifies the difference in the mass exchange process between steam and reflux at different nozzle heights.

Further, the progression decreases; after one meter of height, the increase becomes insignificant. Therefore, the optimal height of the nozzle part is about a meter, while the total height of one drawer should not exceed 150 cm, and the ratio between the height and the internal diameter should not be more than 30 times.

Width

This parameter determines the performance of the device; it is directly proportional to the squared internal diameter. This means that increasing the diameter from 38 to 48 mm leads not to approximately 20%, but to a 50% increase in power. Therefore, when choosing a pipe, you need to take into account the wall thickness. So, if there are two options of 1 and 1.5 mm for a pipe with a total diameter of 52 mm, in the first case the withdrawal rate will be 1800, and in the second - 1750 ml per hour.

Filler

The degree of purification depends on its type, and it also determines the throughput of the drawer. The higher the density of the filler, the stronger the cleaning, but at the same time the distillation speed decreases. Not every product can use any filler. If it is narrow and high, the throughput is already low. The optimal size is a nozzle that is 12-14 times smaller than the internal diameter of the product.

Features of distillation

The first thing you need to know is that it will no longer be possible to make moonshine with a tsarga as quickly as with a regular moonshine still without it. With the correct mode on a product, for example, having a height of 500 mm and an internal diameter of 38 mm, the body removal rate will be approximately 0.6-0.8 liters per hour.

The second important point is the temperature regime and adjustment of the heat source. If you drive faster than a particular system can allow, the mash will quickly clog the column and can travel further along the steam line, ruining the final product.

This often happens with a small height of the device - from 15 to 30 cm, but if you seriously overdo it with heating, it can happen at a height of 40-50 cm. In addition, you need to monitor the temperature all the time, otherwise there is almost no point in installing a drawer. It will be like a big dry steamer, with an efficiency of 20 percent of its capabilities.

Since this unit is most often part of a column-type unit, the material for its manufacture must match the material of the unit. If the drawer is made to modernize an existing moonshine still, the choice should be made taking into account the raw materials that are distilled in it. For grains and fruit washes, copper will be useful, as it binds sulfur compounds that form in large quantities in them. If mainly sugar mash is distilled, then stainless steel will be quite sufficient.

To create a node you will need the following materials:

• Pipe. The material, its length and width are selected from the recommendations given earlier and must correspond to the parameters of the system.
• A tube with a diameter of 6 mm for a hole for an electronic thermometer.
• Connecting elements. In column units, either a coupling connection or a threaded connection is almost always used. Their diameters must correspond to the diameters of the connections on the units mating with them: the distillation cube and the reflux condenser or the second frame. If the product is mounted on an existing unit, everything depends on the upper plane of the distillation cube. If it is flat, it is better to use a coupling; if not, then weld a threaded pipe in the center.
• Bottom plug. It is a ring with a mesh that prevents the nozzle from falling out of the product into the distillation cube. When using plates, it is either not needed, or only the ring is used. The diameter of the ring should be as small as possible so as not to narrow the hole, creating a bottleneck.

• Filler. It is selected according to the system parameters, each type has its own pros and cons; with a higher density of the nozzle, cleaning is better, but the speed of distillation of moonshine is reduced. An inexpensive “workhorse” is cut-up stainless steel dishwashing sponges, but you shouldn’t go for the cheapest ones. Most likely, they are not designed for long-term contact with an aggressive environment. A good nozzle will be expensive for the price, especially if it is made of copper.

It is not difficult to make a drawer; the most difficult option is when you choose to cut threads on the outer diameter of a pipe made of food-grade stainless steel. For the rest, you need to do the following:

• In the upper part of the pipe, at approximately 4/5 of its length, a mark is made and a hole is drilled for the thermometer sleeve, after which a pipe with a diameter of 6 mm is mounted on the hole.
• Selected connection elements with associated nodes are mounted on the pipe.
• The product is filled with a nozzle.
• A ring with a supporting mesh is mounted on the lower hole.

Did you know? To insulate the drawer of a moonshine still, it is best to use modern polymer material polypropylene foam, one of the trade names of which is penoflex. It combines a high level of thermal insulation, almost equal to 0, and low weight, while only 5-7 mm of sheet thickness is sufficient.

Tsarga– one of the necessary elements in a distillation system operating on the principle of rectification. In addition, it can be used in conventional distillers to increase the strength and improve the purification of moonshine from fusel oils and other impurities. More importantly, it can be retrofitted with a ready-made simple moonshine still, consisting of a basic set of components: a still, hoses, a refrigerator and, possibly, a steamer.

In this case, the quality of the resulting product will increase significantly, because although the jug improves the quality of moonshine, it is incorrect to compare it with the tsarga.

From a technical and material point of view, the product is simple and inexpensive, but the filler if you use a nozzle rather than plates will cost a pretty penny.

Hi all!

Today I’ll tell you about a small upgrade to my moonshine still - insulating the still. I’ll tell you why and how this was done, as well as what came out of it in practice.

Why insulate a distillation cube?

1. Reduces haul time by 15-25% (see practical results below)
2. Reduces energy costs and water consumption by the same 15-25%. This is especially true for those who heat with electricity and have water meters.
3. The outer surface of the cube does not heat up much, and therefore does not heat the environment. This is an important moment for me. I distill moonshine in the kitchen and after several hours of fractional distillation, the room becomes very hot even with the windows open. Of course, it turns out to be a 2 kW heating pad that works for several hours in a row in a room of 8 sq.m! Moreover, now it’s cold outside, but it’s still summer.
4. Safety. Due to the fact that the surface of the cube does not heat up to a high temperature, you will not get burned on it. I recently distilled my first batch of Wild Sam (an article about it coming soon, stay tuned). The moonshine still stood on a stool near the sink. No insulation. The process was already in full swing, a trickle of moonshine was merrily running into the jar. At this time, I was preparing the second batch of syrup for fermentation and inadvertently touched the cube with my elbow. It was very unpleasant. Fortunately, ointment for burns is always at hand. With insulation, the outer surface of the cube heats up to only 35-40 degrees - you won’t get burned.

How and what to do it with

In the end, this is what happened.

Tests and results

1. Tested it on the water. 16 liters of water with a temperature of 17 ºC were poured into a cube without insulation. Ambient temperature - 25 degrees. Heated it up to a temperature in the cube of 85 ºС. Time taken: 47 minutes.
2. The next day, 16 liters of water with a temperature of 16 degrees are poured into a cube with installed insulation. The ambient temperature is 23 degrees. Heated it up to the same 85 degrees. Time spent 40 minutes.
3. Rough calculations show an increase in heating rate of 15%. The surface of the tank was approximately 35-40 degrees. The heating of the room is noticeably lower.
4. I consider the experiment successful. Perhaps in the future I will add another rug to increase the effect of the modification. I came across messages on the Internet from people who achieved a 25% reduction in the heating rate.

That's all for today, I hope the post was useful to you. Share your opinion in the comments and subscribe to updates.

Bye everyone, Pavel Dorofeev.

Load-bearing columns are one of the most important elements in ensuring the strength of any building. These are structures that allow the construction of multi-story buildings, while removing part of the load from load-bearing walls. Thermal insulation of columns is one of the most important issues that is important to solve not only during the construction of a building, but also during its repair.

Why is it so important to insulate column structures? The fact is that without insulating the column, you can get an additional source of heat loss in the winter. The heat exchange between the column and the room will be quite strong, and the column will begin to “get wet”, becoming a source of water vapor and condensate. Insulation of the column must be done with high-quality materials. Experts advise performing turnkey thermal insulation work using the following insulation materials:

• foamed polyethylene;
• Styrofoam;
• mineral wool;
• fiberglass.

All these materials allow for the installation and installation of high-quality thermal insulation, which can protect the column structures from heat loss and condensation. It is best to order work on insulation of columns, if the client wants the services to be provided efficiently and inexpensively, from the specialists of the Yudu website. These are real professionals who can perform thermal insulation of structures of any complexity.

Thermal insulation of columns - main advantages

There are several main problems that thermal insulation of columns and structures can solve. Among the main problems that, if not treated carefully, can lead to the destruction of the column are:

• improper heat exchange between the room and the outer wall of the column;
• the occurrence of condensation due to the difference in temperature between the outer and inner parts of the column.

Installation and installation of turnkey insulation, which can be ordered from the contractors of the Yudu website, allows you to solve the problem and significantly increase the service life of both the structure and the building as a whole. The main thing is that high-quality insulation is used, and that the thermal insulation work is carried out by good craftsmen. There is no point in trusting amateurs to install thermal insulation. This will lead to loss of time and money. If you properly insulate columns and supporting structures, you can achieve good results in saving money during the heating season.

How can you save on installing thermal insulation without losing quality?

Any customer strives to ensure that the cost of fulfilling his order is not too high, and the quality of installation of thermal insulation is performed at the highest level. In order for the price of installation and installation of thermal insulation to be acceptable, the following steps must be completed:

• choose exactly the insulating material, the use of which, with proper insulation design, will be most justified from an economic and technical point of view;
• draw up a clear plan for the installation, installation and laying of thermal insulation, which will outline a clear sequence of work steps;
• find experienced performers whose prices for services are the most affordable.

The easiest way is to order high-quality installation and installation of thermal insulation services from the contractors on the Yudu website. They will never let the customer down and will do the job really well, and at the best price.