Aircooled still

[Celtic]

This I am using for years now. The aircooler is 5 meters of soft copper
tube wound into a 10 turn spiral. On top of the cooler an extra fan for
faster distillation.

[Slow & Steady]

How hot/warm is the coil at the distilate collection point?

S&S

[Celtic]

Close to roomtemperature. The maximum output (near 5 drops /sec) is where the 1st to 7th rings get hot
and the last stays cool (felt by hand). With heat reduced at 1 drops/sec only the first 2 rings become too
hot to touch. The only soldering was the output to the lid of the pressurecooker.

[rad14701]

Simple as it is, it appears to be well constructed out of safe materials... I'm going to assume that you haven't been using the rubber seal all these years... Just goes to show just how basic of a still one can construct and successfully use... Thanks for sharing...

[Slow & Steady]

Wow, that is a keeper. I never would have imagined an air cooled worm could perform so well... live and learn.

S&S

[Dnderhead]

air cooling will work until you start pushing it like a stripping run, then you need so much condenser that it is not practical.

[blanikdog]

And people keep talking about adding ice to their condenser water.

[rad14701]

And people keep talking about adding ice to their condenser water.

Yep... All you need is enough cooling for the vapor to collapse back into a liquid and reach a low enough temperature to not return to vapor when it hits ambient air... Nothing more... A small amount of air flow goes a long way in achieving that task... I'm actually surprised that we don't see more air cooled stills...

[Slow & Steady]

And people keep talking about adding ice to their condenser water.

Blanik, I was one of those ice-men years ago, but I got tired of hauling ice, one day I decided to build a 10 gallon reservoir above my flake stand so that heated water could rise from the top of the sealed worm condenser and cool water from the bottom of the reservoir moves back into the bottom of the sealed condenser. I keep reusing the same water and best of all no ice.

S&S

[blanikdog]

Yup S&S, so easy.

[boingk]

Love the aircooled stills. I have one made from 12ft of half-inch copper tubing, a household fan, an electric hotplate and a kettle. Worked quite well for ages, its up in the shed at the moment doing not much of anything.

I really should break it out and give it a run or two.

Cheers - boingk