Distillation Lab

A distillation simulator for batch stills and continuous plants

See inside your still.

Distillation Lab runs a still plate by plate: the temperature, strength and flows on every plate, the heads and the fusel oil, every jar you cut. Try cuts, columns, a dephlegmator and settings, and see how distillation works, before you heat a drop of wash.

Try it free Take the tour

Public beta: Distillation Lab is under development, and its features may change.

  • 0–50bubble-cap plates, or a packed bed
  • 6congeners followed from mash to jar
  • ≈ 0.3 Kfrom published ethanol–water boiling data
  • 1× – 1000×run speed, rewind to any moment

Two simulators

A batch still and a continuous plant.

Distillation Lab has two simulators side by side, one click apart in the top bar: a still you charge, heat and cut, and a plant that is fed with wash all the time.

The batch still in the 2D lab: six plates with their temperatures and strengths under the dephlegmator, the lyne arm to the condenser on its own stand, the parrot and the jars. Batch The still A pot still, a plated column or a packed column, with the condenser on top or at the side under a dephlegmator. Heat a charge, make the cuts and follow every plate and every jar, from the cold start to the last of the tails. See the still The continuous plant in 3D: the wash tank, the beer still, the copper rectifiers, the exchanger rack and the collecting tanks. Continuous The plant A beer still and one or two rectifiers fed with wash, with heat exchangers and draws for spirit, heads and fusel oil. Start it cold, bring it on stream and change anything while it runs. See the plant

Tour

One run, every angle.

Every view follows the same run as it happens. Switch between them at any moment; pause, and they all show the same instant.

The tour. Under a minute through the app: the still in 3D and in 2D, a cut and its jar, the continuous plant, Learn and Setup.
The 3D lab cut open, close up on the column: the bubble-cap plates with their boiling liquid coloured by temperature, and plate 3's strength and temperature beside it.
3D lab. The still in copper, as it stands: the boiler under its dome, the plates behind their sight glasses, the dephlegmator on the column's top and the lyne arm to the condenser on its own stand, with the parrot and the jars. Cut it open and look at the plates boil: the liquid on each is coloured by its temperature, strength or congeners. Turn it, zoom, and click the heater, a valve or the condenser to see how it runs and change its settings.
The 2D lab, a sketch of the still coloured by strength: the liquid on each plate, the dephlegmator with its water and reflux ratio, the lyne arm, the condenser, the parrot and the jars with their volumes.
2D lab. The same still as a sketch, here coloured by strength: the liquid on each plate and its bubbles, the downcomers, the dephlegmator's reflux onto the top plate with its reflux ratio, the lyne arm, the condenser's water and the product running past the parrot into the jars. Colour it by temperature, strength, level or a congener.
Setup on its Still type step: a pot still, a plate column or a packed column, the condenser on top or at the side, the head on the boiler and the lyne arm, with the still drawn to scale beside a person.
Setup. A guide in up to ten steps, from the recipe and the boiler to the review. Here the still type: the column, where the condenser stands, the head on the boiler and the lyne arm, with the still drawn to scale beside a person. Every field knows the range the model accepts and says so before you start.

Design

Build a still, plate by plate.

Start from a pot still, up to 50 bubble-cap plates, or a packed bed of Pro-Pak, Dixon rings, copper mesh or ceramic rings and saddles. Pick a boiler from 30 to 3,000 litres and the head on it, a heater, and the condenser on top or at the side, at the end of a lyne arm, with a dephlegmator on the column.

The plate designer draws one plate to scale as you type: its diameter, the weir and the downcomer and its bubble caps, with a drinks can beside it for size, and tells you how much liquid it holds, how long its downcomer takes to pass it on and at what heat it floods.

The plate designer: a 200 mm plate in 3D with its bubble caps, weir, crest and downcomer dimensioned beside a 33 cl can, and the plate's facts.

Congeners

Know where the heads and the fusel oil go.

Charge a sugar wash, rye, plum, cider, red wine, a malt whisky wash or a rum wash with their measured congeners, or enter your own. Methanol, acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate, propanol, isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol are followed on every plate and into every jar.

See where each fusel alcohol gathers in the column, when it comes over, what each jar holds in mg per litre, and where a plate's liquid would split into a fusel oil layer.

The Fusel oil tab: where propanol, isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol gather on the plates, each in per cent of its own peak.

Reports

Every run ends with a report you can hand over.

The summary report puts a run on one page: the still, how it was run, the boiler before and after, every jar with its strength, absolute alcohol and congeners, a quality guide and where the heat went. Print it or save it as a PDF.

Each jar carries its share of the energy, in kWh per litre of absolute alcohol. Download a detailed run report, CSV tables or the whole run.

A summary report: litres collected, absolute alcohol, ethanol recovered and energy used, the still with its dephlegmator and lyne arm, how it was run and the strength over the run.

Continuous plant

A whole continuous plant, too.

The second simulator runs a plant that never stops: the wash tank and feed pump, a beer still on live steam with its foam trap, one or two rectifiers, heads, spirit and fusel oil draws, and heat exchangers on two cooling-water lines. Add a hydroselection column, a side stripper or a fusel separator.

The continuous plant as a 2D flowsheet: the wash tank, the beer still and the rectifiers with every tray's strength and temperature, the heat exchangers and the collecting tanks.
2D plant. The whole line as a flowsheet: every tray's number, strength and temperature in a small table beside its column, the flow and strength of every stream and each exchanger's duty. Colour it by temperature, strength, fusel oil or heads.
The 3D plant: the wash tank, the beer still, the copper rectifiers, the exchanger rack and the collecting tanks, with the pipes showing their flows.
3D plant. The same line in 3D: the wash tank and its feed pump, the beer still on live steam, the copper rectifiers, the exchanger rack and the collecting tanks with their coolers, with bands moving along every pipe that carries a flow.
The Profile tab: the strength and temperature on every stage of the plant, from the beer still's base to the top of the last rectifier.
Profile. Every stage of the plant from the beer still's base to the top of the last rectifier: the strength and the temperature, then each fusel alcohol and each heads compound on its own, with the draws marked.
The Columns tab: each column with how it runs now and charts of its trays' strength and temperature over the run.
Columns. Each column on its own: its top tray and base, its pressures, the vapor through it, what it holds and what it feeds and draws, and its trays' strength and temperature over the run.
  • Start it cold, as a plant is started. Heat the columns through, start the feed, run the rectifiers on total reflux until they are strong, then open the spirit valve. Or let Quick start take you there.
  • Change anything while it runs. Feed rate, live steam, the draws and their trays, the cooling water: every change is kept in the run's record.
  • Heads and fusel oil here too. The same six congeners as in the still, followed through every column and into the draws (and the fusel separator, when the plant has one).

Features

Run it like a distiller.

The controls a distiller has, and a few no still has: a rewind button, a 1000× speed and balances that always add up.

  • Steer it live

    The heater, the reflux or the dephlegmator's water, a new jar whenever you cut, and side draws from any plate, all while it runs.

  • Program the cuts

    A run program takes the still through heat-up, foreshots, heads, hearts and tails by itself, each step on time, temperature, strength or volume. Setup fills one in for your charge.

  • The dephlegmator

    On a column with the condenser at the side, the dephlegmator's water sets the reflux and so the strength, and the reflux ratio shows as you change it.

  • Thermostat reflux

    A solenoid valve worked by a sensor on any plate, with its own set point and hysteresis: on the product line, or under a dephlegmator a needle valve of its own that adds water while the plate is too warm.

  • Rewind and branch

    Drag back to any moment and see exactly how everything was. Run on from there to try another decision.

  • Warnings that explain

    A condenser near its limit, a boiler running low, a bed close to flooding, two liquid phases: flagged on the part and listed in one place.

  • Save what you make

    Save a setup as a recipe and a jar as a product, then blend saved products with water into the next charge.

  • An account of your own

    Try everything as a guest. An account, with email and a password or with Google, keeps your runs, recipes, saved products and units between visits.

  • Learn

    Eight short lessons on the same still, each with one goal and a check at every step: from your first run to the dephlegmator and the continuous plant.

  • Six recipes to start from

    From a pot still to a twelve-plate reflux column and a 300 L still under its dephlegmator, each charged with a rye mash and its measured congeners.

  • Metric or US

    Litres or gallons, °C or °F, % vol or US proof: one choice for every view, every report and every download.

  • Five colour themes

    Navy and orange, Light, High contrast, Copper and oak or Botanical green, on every page; the sketches keep their paper and the 3D copper its look.

Learn

Learn distilling, one goal at a time.

Eight short lessons on the same still and engine as the lab: your first run, reflux, taking cuts, heads and fusel oil, the dephlegmator, reading the summary, a pot still against a column, and the continuous plant. Each has one goal, takes five to fifteen minutes and checks every step against the run itself.

The lab stays out of your way: no tour, no cards that pop up, only a status line that says how the run stands.

Learn: the eight lessons in order, each with its goal and how long it takes.

Your account

Your work, kept between visits.

As a guest you can try everything, and nothing is kept after you leave. Create an account, with email and a password or with Google, and your runs, recipes, saved products and units are kept on the server, so you go on where you left off.

Your own page shows it in one place: each lab's run with a way back to it, your last 30 days in the labs, the lessons you have done, your recipes and products, and what is new in the app.

An account's own page: a welcome, the batch run to pick up where it was left, and the account's last 30 days in the labs.

The model

Built on thermodynamics you can check.

No canned animations: every number on the screen comes out of mass and energy balances and phase equilibrium, step by step.

The boiling curve tab: the model's boiling and dew curves of ethanol and water, published measurements as circles, and each plate with a tie line to its vapor.
Each plate sits on the boiling curve of its own strength, here among published measurements.
Real phase equilibrium
Boiling points and vapor compositions come from an NRTL model of ethanol and water. Against 118 published measurements near 1 atm, its boiling temperature is on average about 0.3 K off.
Every gram and joule accounted for
Inventories are kept in exact integer units, so the mass and energy balances close exactly at every step, congeners included.
The hardware in the model
Each plate holds liquid up to its weir and passes it on through a downcomer, the metal has to warm up, heat is lost to the room and the condenser has a capacity. The boiler's helmet, the lyne arm and the dephlegmator condense part of the vapor back, and a packing's HETP follows the vapor load.
Honest about its limits
Every model names its sources, its range and its approximations, and the engines are held to recorded reference runs whenever one changes. Whole runs have been compared with eight published distillations, from Calvados and Cognac pot stills to a whisky still's packed column and pear brandy in plate columns: methanol and the fusel alcohols in the hearts come out close, while acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate and the plate columns' strengths show where the model still falls short. Treat its results as a model's estimate, not a measurement.

Who it's for

For anyone who wants to understand a still.

  • Teachers and students

    Show vapor–liquid equilibrium, reflux and plate efficiency happening live, then rewind and show it again.

  • Distillers

    See what goes on inside the column as you change the heat, the reflux and the cuts, and show new staff how a still works.

  • The curious

    Find out why a column needs reflux, where the heads go and what the thermometer at the top is really telling you.

FAQ

Questions.

What does it cost?

Nothing. Distillation Lab is a public beta, free to try while it is in development. An account is free too, and none is needed to try it.

Do I need an account?

No. As a guest you can try everything, but nothing is kept after you leave. An account, made with an email address and a password or with Google, keeps your runs, recipes, saved products and units between visits, and gives you a page of your own.

What happens to my data?

An account keeps what you save in it, and you can download it all or delete the account at any time. The privacy page says what is kept, for how long and why, and the terms of use say how the service may be used.

How accurate is it?

The ethanol–water boiling temperature is on average about 0.3 K from 118 published measurements near 1 atm. Plate efficiency, heat losses, metal and packing data are settings you can match to your own still. Congeners are modelled as dilute solutes with published activity-coefficient models and measured mash compositions. Against eight published distillations, methanol and the fusel alcohols in the hearts come out close; acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate less so, and the plate columns ran with more reflux than the model gives them.

Does it replace trying it on my still?

No. It is a model, made for understanding and for comparing settings, and open about its approximations. A real still differs in efficiency, heat loss and many small details, so treat its results as an estimate, not a guarantee.

Can I model my own equipment?

Yes. Set the boiler and its head, the number and size of the plates, their weirs and downcomers, the plate efficiency, a packing and its bed, the heater, the condenser on top or at the side with a dephlegmator and a lyne arm, the pressure and the heat lost to the room. Your own packings and plates can be saved with their data.

Which congeners does it follow?

Six: methanol, acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate (the heads) and propanol, isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol (the fusel oil), in the batch still and in the continuous plant.

Which units does it use?

Metric or US customary, and the strength in % vol at 20 °C or US proof. The choice applies everywhere: the views, Setup, the reports and the downloads.

Can I save and share runs?

Save a setup as a recipe and a jar as a product, and download the scenario, a snapshot of the run, CSV tables, the summary report or the full run. A scenario file runs the same experiment again. With an account, your runs, recipes and products are also kept on the server between visits.

How do I tell you what is missing?

In the app, Feedback in the top bar opens a box for a word to us. Or write to [email protected].

What do I need to run it?

A modern web browser; the 3D views use WebGL. There is nothing to install, and a computer's screen shows the most at once.

Want to try it?

Distillation Lab is open as a public beta at distillationlab.app: free to try, no account needed, and an account keeps your runs between visits. It is under development: features may change, and what you save now may not open in a later version.

Open Distillation Lab

Questions or ideas? Write to us, or use Feedback in the app's top bar.

[email protected]
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