On the forums of moonshiners and distillers, users regularly complain that they cannot get distillate with a strength above 70-80% on beer columns purchased in stores, although in theory it should be 90% or more. The answer is simple: these are not real mash columns, but just their imitation. Interestingly, the Dobry Zhar company does not hide anything, calling a spade a spade, but the appearance of the device is captivating, and the solid cost and the name “Profi +” further strengthen the faith of the inhabitants in the professionalism of the equipment. Details in our review.
In fact, the Profi Plus moonshine still by Dobry Zhar is an ordinary distiller built according to the cube-steamer-coil scheme. Despite the formidable appearance, it is far from the most powerful and best, but definitely one of the most expensive in its class, at a price – at the level of good brew columns.
Dobry Zhar “Profi Plus” consists of a distillation cube, a column and a refrigerator, water is supplied to the refrigerator through a tube piercing through the column 15 cm from its bottom. Above is a bimetallic thermometer with a scale step of 2 degrees. Accuracy class 2,5. Not exactly accurate, but nice. The outer diameters of the cooler and column are 61 mm. This gives the impression of power.
Cube
The alembic strikes with Spartan simplicity and unpretentiousness. Cubes of the Dobry Zhar company with a volume of 12 to 50 liters can work on any type of stove. With a volume of 20 liters and above, they are equipped with drain ball valves for draining stillage, though the simplest ones, even without a “Christmas tree” for a hose.
The neck with a diameter of 11,5 cm is wide enough, the hand crawls through, washing the tank is more or less convenient. The 5mm thick silicone gasket, combined with the curved flange edges, ensures the cube is sealed. The flange is fixed on the cube with 6 “wings”.
The geometric dimensions of the cubes allow them to be used in the entire operating power range without uncontrolled foaming. The steam zone for cubes of 12, 15 and 20 liters is provided with a bulk of 2/3 of the volume, and for a larger volume – 3/4. This is where the good ends.
The handles of the cube are quite thin and have no thermal insulation. A full 20 liter tank is inconvenient to hold – handles even through a towel cut into fingers. Cubes are not equipped with a thermometer and a blast valve. The heating element, if necessary, will also have to be embedded on its own or purchased a cube from dealers who upgrade them as a pre-sale preparation.
Most of the complaints about the cube relate to the quality of the welds. Users complain that over time, when lifting by the handles, the seam that secures the top of the tank to the side breaks. But the manufacturer stubbornly continues to weld the handles not to the shell, but to the upper part.
Column
A column with an internal diameter of 58 mm and a height of 50 cm is capable of withstanding spray entrainment up to a heating power of at least 7 kW. This is good.
In addition, the column provides a slight partial condensation, slightly cleaning the vapors from heavy-boiling impurities and sending them back to the cube with reflux. True, the amount of this phlegm is very small.
To evaluate the returned phlegm, remember that an uninsulated column loses 10 W per square meter for every degree of temperature difference between it and the air. The temperature of the column is about 80 °C, the air next to it is about 30 °C, the pipe area is 0,094 sq. m. Heat loss: 10 x 0,094 x 50 = 47 W. When heated to 2000 W, this will be 2%, which is exactly how much steam from its total amount will condense on the walls of the column. Too little to feed the bait and decently strengthen the output.
During the second distillation during the selection of “heads” at a power reduced to 0,8-1 kW, the effect of partial condensation becomes more noticeable. This allows, when distilling fruit brews, to separate the “heads” more precisely, without touching the necessary esters much – a great advantage.
Refrigerator
The refrigerator is a 5-turn coil and in normal mode can condense steam with a useful heating power of not more than 1,5-2 kW. And what else to expect from about 90 cm tube? An ordinary, ordinary flow coil is made from 1,5 m of a pipe with a diameter of 10 mm and allows you to easily dispose of 3 kW.
The Profi Plus does not have a powerful, but simply a bulky refrigerator.
The length of its body is 35 cm, the diameter is 6 cm, that is, the internal volume of the refrigerator is about 920 cubic meters. cm. According to the measurement results, the actual volume of cooling water that fits in the refrigerator is 850 ml. The coil occupies 70 cubic meters. cm or about 8% of the volume of your body, this is not a very good indicator. It is known that for effective cooling it should occupy at least 15-20%.
Inefficient use of the internal volume of the refrigerator leads to excessive water consumption. With a capacity of 2 l/h, the refrigerator consumes 34 l/h of cooling water. For comparison: a good once-through refrigerator at the same withdrawal rate requires 20 liters, which is almost half as much.
It seems that the authors of this project paid attention not so much to the appropriateness and balance of the characteristics of individual components, but to the overall design and marketing appeal of the product. Apparently, that is why the distiller has a small nozzle part, because if the configuration has an on-load tap-changer, then in advertising it is possible to declare the column almost distillation, which sellers do without a twinge of conscience.
Description of the apparatus on the manufacturer’s website: “An important design feature is the method of supplying water to the refrigerator – the tube passes directly through the column, which allows even without a reflux condenser to provide partial preliminary condensation of heavy-boiling impurities and contributes to the correct flow of the rectification process.”
Dobry Zhar has strange ideas about the process of rectification, which does not smell here.
In fact, a cold tube passing through the column condenses a negligible amount of steam – up to 5%. And here there is not partial condensation, but complete. All steam that touches the cold pipe condenses and flows down to the on-load tap-changer. One tap changer wad 10 cm high does not make much weather, it is barely wetted by phlegm, which condenses on the cold finger and the walls of the column. You can forget about cleaning and division into factions, only a few percent of additional strengthening remains. But the price for this is a decrease in the efficiency of the device by the same 5%.
In the commercials of Dobry Zhar Profi Plus sellers, they proudly demonstrate the 71% “body” strength obtained after the second distillation. Yes, this is a good average strength, but the influence of a cold finger and RPN is imperceptibly small. Approximately the same fortress will be obtained on almost any column-type moonshine still.
It is obvious that the cold finger and the tap changer have a predominantly marketing value in this column.
History of development
It is interesting to recall the history of the predecessor of the “Profi Plus” – the “Profi” model. This apparatus differed only in a smaller pipe diameter – 51 mm, and, accordingly, an even less powerful refrigerator. Even in advertising, the maximum productivity was indicated up to 2 liters per hour.
But the “Profi” is interesting not for this, but for the fact that, having convinced of the inefficiency of the cold finger, the manufacturer released its modification with a reflux condenser. This, in turn, made it possible to understand that 1 wad of RPN does not give anything tangible either in terms of quality or in terms of significant strengthening of the product. But a really working dephlegmator reduces the already low speed from 2 l / h to 1,5 l / h. And that’s bad for business…
The place of the reflux condenser and the cold finger is at the top of the column, and not where they are installed in Profi Plus from Dobry Zhar.
It is at the top, partially condensing the steam, that the reflux condenser and the cold finger can create a flow of phlegm, which, on the way to the cube, passes not a miserable 15 cm, but the entire length of the column. In this way, the maximum interaction time of steam and reflux is achieved, resulting in both strengthening and purification from impurities.
The nozzle increases the interaction area, it is needed only with sufficiently large reflux numbers (the volume of returned reflux), and not ridiculous 10 centimeters, but for the entire height of the column. It is the height of the attachment part that determines the strengthening and separating ability, and not the diameter, as some Dobry Zhar dealers for some reason believe, enthusiastically showing how much RPN is needed for a single wad.
If there is no reflux condenser, a nozzle is not needed, the very surface of the column is enough. If you are making a moonshine still, do not imitate a beer column.
conclusions
Summing up, we can say that “Profi Plus” from Dobry Zhar is just a column-type moonshine still with a capacity of up to 3 l / h, which has poor equipment and dubious quality of the distillation cube.
Far from the best, but not the worst in its class. However, for its characteristics, the device has an unreasonably high cost.
Reviewed by IgorGor.