Do you put anything in a thumper keg?
Mass-produced microdistilling systems often feature thumper kegs made of glass, copper, or stainless steel. A thumper keg should be no more than ⅔ full of some alcohol-based liquid. Many micro distillers and moonshiners use low wine, wash, or finished spirit. You can use water, although that would defeat the purpose.
How do you run a pot with a thumper?
Just fill your boiler up to 20% capacity with a mix of 50% distilled hot water and 50% vinegar. Then, start distilling from your pot into your thumper, just like how you normally would when separating tails and distilling spirits.
What is the purpose of a thumper on a whiskey still?
The thump keg is one of the most clever and iconic design elements of the traditional hillbilly still whose purpose, briefly stated, is to distill the output of the pot still a second time, without actually having to run the distillate through the still twice.
How much liquid should I put in thumper?
Making moonshine with a thumper instead of a pot still is great because thumpers essentially perform two distillations in one—without stripping the flavor the way reflux distillation does. Depending on your thumper, it’s typical to plan to fill it about halfway with liquid.
How big should a thumper be?
As a general rule, the thumper should be 25 to 40% the size of the main container. However, this rule can be broken depending on the vessel you are using. If your main container is very large, you should use a thumper that is closer to 40% of the size.
Do you heat a thumper?
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.
Do you need a stripping run with a thumper?
If you do a search, most folks on stripping runs use a simple potstill with no thumper. A stripping run is meant to be hard and fast, and to not make cuts at all to speak of (some do though) Using a thumper during a stripping run does present the problem of using more energy total.
What size Thumper do you need for a 15 gallon still?
4.3 Gallon (16 Liter) Copper Distillation Thumper for 15 Gallon (57 Liter) KEG stills.