Why I'm Tired of the CM Hating

[Kifi]

If you're new to distilling and you're planning on making Vodka or some other neutral spirit, one of the first pieces of advice you'll get is to build a VM or Bokabob, and to stay the heck away from CM. Today I'm delivering a fiercely partisan rant in favour of our unloved friend, the CM still.

For those of you newbies, CM, or cooling management stills, use the rate of coolant flow in a secondary, column mounted reflux cooler to regulate purity. The faster the coolant flow, the higher the reflux/purity and correspondingly, the lower the rate of output. Mile Hi, Brewhaus and Coppermoonshine stills are all mostly CM stills, if you want to see some for yourself.

The haters complain of the difficulty in keeping coolant flow regulated with precision. For this reason, CM is to some the 'pervy uncle' of the three major column still types.

Here's what I have to say about a) CM and b) some of the most popular CM designs.

1. Get a Mile Hi still and it will work right out of the box. The gate valve on your garden hose tap will give you all the resolution you need to regulate purity and output. Invest in some 2" pipe insultation and it will work even better. And you'll be hard pressed to get anything less than 92.5%. Just crank the water until it comes out of your hose lukewarm, and the distillate flow stops. Leave it for 90 mins, then slowly turn the tap back until you get a couple of drops a sec.
2. This still will be indestructable. You can use it and abuse it, unlike the all copper PDA 1 which has to be handled with discipline and care, all the time.
3. Cleaning? Easy. Disinfecting? Easy. Tarnish? Never.
4. They're cheap. The PDA 1 column alone will cost you more than the entire still.
5. The column is the perfect length to also be a very good pot still.
6. VMs have their own challenges - like you can blow them up if your heat input overwhelms your cooler during equilibriation and you don't have a safety valve built in. Or implode the column if you forget to open it at the end of the run when you turn the heat off.
7. LMs undergo a decreasing reflux ratio during the course of the run, unlike CMs.
8. The guys who complain about CM are really smart guys who build expert level stills. It's like the guy who builds a Ferrari, then complains that his toothbrush isn't electric enough.

Happy USA/Canada Day Weekend, Everyone!

Kifi