Stainless steel still help

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jon1163
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Stainless steel still help

Post by jon1163 »

A couple of questions here.

1. I have a dual-purpose 8 gallon steel from Mile Hi Distilling. I believe this is what people on this site are calling a coolant managed still? I usually run my still as a pot still and run water through my condenser at a moderate rate and use a heating element to manage my output. Am I doing something wrong? I seem to be getting good results with Jimbo's and honey bear bourbon

2. I don't have any copper on my still and I'm wondering if adding some copper odds and ends into the boiler like pieces of pipe Etc would make it taste better?
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Truckinbutch
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Re: Stainless steel still help

Post by Truckinbutch »

Wouldn't hurt . A better outcome could be achieved with some copper in the vapor path .
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Blarney Stoned
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Re: Stainless steel still help

Post by Blarney Stoned »

Truckinbutch wrote:Wouldn't hurt . A better outcome could be achieved with some copper in the vapor path .
+1 !

https://www.google.com/search?q=copper+ ... e&ie=UTF-8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Jes2xu
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Re: Stainless steel still help

Post by Jes2xu »

Hows it going man?

is it something pretty similar to this that you are running?
https://milehidistilling.com/product/8- ... ose-tower/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Sounds to me like you are just running it as a pot still? So no packing in the column? And not using the reflux condenser? That's the way I would use it to be making whiskey etc.

If however, you want to run it as a reflux still for much higher ABV you will want to do a few things.
- Pack the column, easy way to get some copper in there too with copper scrubies. Just make sure they are ACTUALLY copper haha.
- Find a way to gain fairly fine control of the amount of coolant you are able to send through the reflux condenser at the top. (that's how you are going to control reflux ratio on this thing).
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jon1163
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Re: Stainless steel still help

Post by jon1163 »

Jes2xu wrote:Hows it going man?

is it something pretty similar to this that you are running?
https://milehidistilling.com/product/8- ... ose-tower/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Sounds to me like you are just running it as a pot still? So no packing in the column? And not using the reflux condenser? That's the way I would use it to be making whiskey etc.

If however, you want to run it as a reflux still for much higher ABV you will want to do a few things.
- Pack the column, easy way to get some copper in there too with copper scrubies. Just make sure they are ACTUALLY copper haha.
- Find a way to gain fairly fine control of the amount of coolant you are able to send through the reflux condenser at the top. (that's how you are going to control reflux ratio on this thing).
That's the exact one. As a pot still, I've been stripping with no packing and then packing with copper mesh for the spirit run to get a bit of copper connection. From all of the replies I'm guessing that won't strip too much flavor?
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NZChris
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Re: Stainless steel still help

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