Column fillings for home distillation

The best it to use a random packed professional column filling in the column. Many people use scrub pads. The hardest problems with scrub pads is that one force them into the column and then can not get them out again. And column fillings shall out and be cleaned at least every 3rd distillation (Glasrens is the best cleaner) – and the column shall be flushed backwards with hot water to clean the column filling – after each single distillation.

There are a lot of professional column fillings as you can se down in this page. In practice Rashig rings are the best choice
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Theoretically best column filling Raschig rings for alcohol home distillation.
Following Raschig rings (glass or ceramic) are theoretically best in comparison to the column diameter:

Column diameter	Raschig rings
25 mm/1 inch	2 mm
32 mm/1 1/4 inch	2 mm
38 mm/1 1/2 inch	2 mm
44 mm/1 3/4 inch	3 mm
51 mm/2 inch	3 mm
76 mm/3 inch	4 mm
101 mm/4 inch	5 mm

In practice used Raschig rings for alcohol home distillation
Because of the extreme prices on 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 and the high price of 5×5 mm Raschig rings, the most used filling is 6 x 6 mm ceramic raschig rings. It works very good, specially if the column diameter is 51 mm/2 Inch or wider. One can order online at http://www.partyman.se/

The important rule is that the ratio between column diameter and size of the random packing should be between 8.5 to 20. The smaller the size, the higher the internal surface and pressure drop and the better the separation efficiency.
The rule of thumb for column length are 15 – 20 times the widht. If there is coolings trough the column it can be shorted to 12 times. This construction is against the theory of distillation – but works anyway. Both the Labmaster, Brewhaus and Stillmaker stills are constructed this way and works good.