Hey guys, been here before and ran an aircooled still in my dorm room... this time its in my own shed and made from a long length of 1/2" copper line my brother found in a dumpster at his university - can you believe it!?
This one is as basic as they come, with a 15L/4gal pot on a 1600W electric hotplate. The pots lid has its handle removed and the line sealed onto it with flour paste, the lid is sealed to the pot with paste as well. The line itself is held in place at the top by its own weight resting on a housebrick, and cooled on its lower half by a regular household fan. It is easily capable of producing one litre an hour.
Anyway, here she is:
The flour paste was a little messy (first time using it) but other than that the first run through her didn't have any problems. I collected one and a half litres of distillate, disgarding the first 100ml and keeping the rest. The tails I did not collect and will throw out with the wash, keeping it simple this time.
Very true, but I find the bucket a bit tedious to set up and in my area standing water quickly attracts mosquitos. Also, I had this much line so figured I may as well use it!
Lastly, I find the flavour to be very smooth from a still with this much line length. Not really sure why, but I've heard it said that the long exposure to copper acts as a chemical scrubber for compounds which can cause poor taste. Whether this is true or not I'd have to research some more.
Nice and simple. That coil is a good find and you can improve on your take off rate.
Riku's idea was that if the spiral is cone shaped you will get better cooling. With a cylindrical spiral hot air rising from the lower coils will tend rise past the upper coils which is undesirable.
Draping a damp cloth over the coil might be worth a try especially if your environment has low humidity.
Insulating the pot and the upward part of the coil is going to cut thermal losses.
Thanks guys, and yeah jake_leg I was thinking of insulating the pot and at least half the uprising portion of the condenser... but at the moment it's not working too bad at all and I switch the power down to half for the main run to prevent pressure leaks anyway.
johnny109 - I haven't checked the purity of this yet and am going on smell/taste for the moment to make my cuts for everything after foreshots. My last still that I ran was similar to this (smaller though) and managed to get 80% heads, 55~60% hearts and 20~30% tails. The liquor I kept for processing was usually arounf the 100~115 proof mark. As I said though, still need to get proper figures on this one.
That coil is a good find and you can improve on your take off rate.