On the other hand, a well-constructed column is capable of yielding near the theoretical maximum alcohol content, in excess of 95%, while also giving better separation between the ethyl alcohol and the esters and ketones in the heads or the heavy fusel alcohols in the tails. It’s much easier – and cheaper – to find a discarded wooden barrel than to purchase enough Raschig rings or copper scouring pads to fill a large fractionating column. While offering obvious advantages over a simple pot still, how does the the thump keg compare to a more sophisticated reflux column still? For the backwoods moonshiner, of course, there’s the obvious advantage of material-on-hand. This hot vapor continuously heats the low wine to the boiling point of alcohol, thus distilling it a second time, and producing a much higher-proof product than could otherwise be obtained in a single run through a pot still.įigure 3, Diagram showing flow of vapor through still and thump keg 3), it exits the arm into the low wine that condenses in the bottom of the thump keg – indeed, it’s the thumping sound of the the vapor and condensed low wine (and not, as some sources assert, “bits of mash”) periodically erupting out of this pipe that creates the characteristic bumping noise giving this piece of equipment its name. As the hot vapor comes out of the still (Fig. Many shiners in fact prefer to use a wooden barrel for the thump keg, precisely because it loses less of this useful heat than would a metal one. The thump keg, moreover, does this in a very clever manner, utilizing waste heat from the still pot for its function. In the hillbilly still, the thump keg serves the same purpose as this second, spirit still. Most European distillers still use swan-neck pot stills, and will have both a “beer stripper” to distill the wash to the low-wine state, and a second “spirit still” to rectify the low wine to a high-proof spirit. A second, or even a third, distillation is needed to achieve the high alcohol content necessary to make high-proof whiskey or other spirit. Smaller copper pot in center is thump keg.Īn ordinary pot still, without a thump keg, is capable of distilling a wash to only a “low wine”, which will be about 40-50% alcohol. Figure 1, Typical backwoods 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. Indeed, some older European stills made use of what appears to be chambers that functioned as thump kegs, so the principle was surely well known to colonists from the British Isles and the continent. There are several dictionaries available on the market.While generally associated with the backwoods whiskey still, the thump keg, or “doubler”, is a very old design element that probably arrived with the early settlers and was incorporated into the stills they built on arriving in North America (Fig. In addition to thumper, many words from the subject dictionary can be found here. For example - Dictionary of History, Dictionary of Botany, Dictionary of Economics. Subject Dictionary: In this dictionary, everything related to any subject is arranged and explained according to the dictionary. But The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is the best. The dictionary from which the word thumper is derived has many meanings in the historical dictionary. E.g., The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Historical Dictionary: When a word was first coined, what was its spelling and meaning during the first coinage, when did its spelling, pronunciation and meaning change, and what is the current form and meaning of the word as described in the dictionary, so E. If you are looking for the meaning of the word thumper now, you will find the meaning of a few thousand words here in addition to the meaning of the word thumper. Bilingual Dictionary: Here words from one language are interpreted in another language. The word thumper is taken from English to Tamil dictionary. Such as Tamil to Tamil, English to English. Monolingual Dictionary: Here a word in a language is interpreted in that language.
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