What is a thumper used for?
What Is a Thumper? A thumper is essentially a parasitic kettle connected to the primary distilling kettle. The thumper gets heated with the heat already produced to feed the primary kettle. Evidently, the thumper gets its name from the sound it makes while in operation.
What size Thumper do I need?
How Big Should a Thumper Keg Be? A thumper keg should be 25% to 40% the size of your main boiler. If you plan to prime your thumper keg with a sizable charge (botanicals, low wines, wash, water, etc), use a thumper keg that is at least 50% the size of your main boiler.
Does a thumper need to be heated?
Does a Thumper Need to be Heated? Many moonshiners do prefer to heat the thumper. The alcohol does need to stay in vapor form to be able to rise into the condenser. Wood barrels are often preferred as thump kegs because of wood’s natural isolative abilities.
How does a doubler work?
In a doubler, the vapor off the column still is condensed back into liquid and this is run through the pot still. You’ll see that the beer goes into the still at Plate 15, the new-make spirit is condensed and sent to the pot still (doubler), then recondensed before entering the High Wine Tank at the end.
What liquid do you put in a thumper keg?
How Do You Clean A Thumper Keg? If you’re looking for the easiest way to clean your thumper keg so that it’s ready for making your moonshine, you will need to do a vinegar run. Just fill your boiler up to 20% capacity with a mix of 50% distilled hot water and 50% vinegar.
What happens if your thumper is too small?
If a thumper is too small or if you didn’t put enough liquid in it, then that liquid will heat up too quickly from the incoming vapor. Then that vapor will just bubble up right through the liquid without being cooled and condensed first, exiting straight through the condenser.
Can you put fruit in a thump keg?
You can choose to add fruit peel, herbs, spices, and mashed ripe fruit directly into your thumper keg. Just remember that in the case of mashed fruit, you will need to add large quantities to impart that flavor.
Do you put anything in a thumper?
Add fruit-infused spirits to your thumper keg – You can place your chosen fruits, spices, and herbs into a big container of low wines or head/tail spirits. Then, let it sit for about a week or two to gradually infuse these flavors into the liquid.
Do you heat the thumper keg?
What is a stripping run?
After fermentation is complete, we are left with a soupy, grainy solution that now contains alcohol anywhere from 8-10%, due to the yeast doing its job. When we perform our first distillation – called a ‘Run’ – it is referred to as a stripping run, because we concentrate and strip all of the alcohol out of the wash.