My brother rang me up with a pretty keen note in his voice, said he found thirty feet of half-inch copper tubing in a dumpster...I was speechless! Needless to say we both knew what we'd do with it, having made previous attempts at stills with varying success. We both wanted a relatively high capacity setup, capable of handling a decent burner and boiler. We also knew we didn't want to go water-cooled because we reckon they're inconveniant and a bit fussy, probably due more to our setup location and personal laziness than anything else. The last point we wanted to experiment with was a small pre-condensing coil to help up the purity of vapour going into the main condensing coil. Nothing fancy, just a few turns before the real deal.
I set to work with a few mates to give me a hand, and before you know it I had this:
Its yet to do a run, but I'm going to do one this evening if I get the time. Basic sugar wash with turbo yeast, nothing fancy at all. The end product will be flavoured several ways; woodchip aged and 1% maple syrup for some Bourbon, as well as using a few basic essences I've had alright results with to give a basic rum. I suspect I might need a better heating element, but I'll fire back when I get the chance.
Cheers - boingk
