Home Distiller

Im just doing another run after repacking the column and insulating it and im running it pretty slowly and its coming out at 95% but i can still smell fusels in there...any thoughts?

Among other things stirring or shaking increases rate of reaction, so when you move your fermenter the airlock bubbles vigorously. Ive never heard of anyone doing this to decrease the fermentation time so im guessing that another reaction besides the conversion of sugar to ethanol takes place when i...

yep the reflux is directed straight into the top of the column packing. Its not insulated because i tried my 1.5" column without packing and never had any problems so i might try insulating it. I have a suspicion now that its the packing, i did it a bit tighter than my old column, so i might re...

I have found electric elements to be much easier than gas and have never had any problems 'constant' type problems, it seems pretty constant to me. Ozarkwhiskey - im pretty sure unless its to do with AC power alternating or something that elements dont turn on and off, its the water they are sitting...

Just wondered if anyone had any ideas on this.... My first fractioning still used a 50L ss keg boiler with an 1800w element. It had a 1.5", 1.6m column packed with ss scrubbers and was the original nixon stone set up with a 90 degree elbow connecting the tee peice at the top of the column to th...

i seem to rememeber hearing that you cant farm the turbo yeasts.....is this true?

Go bigger and spend more to get the proper components. My very first still was a pot still and i stinged on parts whereever i could to save money, in the end i was dissapointed and kept upgrading it. If i had of got the proper parts to start with i would have saved alot of money. I also used a very ...

I overlapped my keg ie cut out the top of a keg and then cut out a smaller hole in my boiler and placed the larger cutout over it. It works well but i ended up sealing mine on anyway cos it was a pain to remove and was hard to seal anyway, but my main objective in doing the whole thing was to get an...

wow what a shiny still, howd u get it so shiny? What sort of solder did you use? My silver solder isnt that colour thats all.....that looks more like lead solder!

Im presuming your distillate came into contact with the plastic tubing if it came out tasting like plastic which is no good for distilling spirits. In my first fractioning still i had a plastic tubing hose directing my distillate from my outake valve to the bottle i was collecting spirit in. Once th...

Keeping the valve closed allow your still to reach equilibrium for at least 1/2 hour. After this time all the methanol should be sitting around the top of the column so your not really sending it back down the column, its not going to make it back down to the boiler before it gets reboiled and retur...

The most common answer to most questions is read homedistiller.org and this seems to be no exception. I think the page called "calculation of condensor size" under theory just might be relevant.

The rate of reaction is dependant on the wash temperature, it will nearly take twice as long at 18 C for example than it will at 28 C or so. There are calulators on this website for determining wash time.

Sounds like its in good nick so thats prob a good deal. Are you using it for a boiler? If so what method are you going to use?

ah yes fair reasons, i didnt think of strength or stability issues. My still uses a keg and chunky 2" fittings so its fairly solid

If your fermenting in a 205L container i doubt heating will be neccassary, fermentation is exothermic so it makes heat and the bigger your fermentor the smaller surface area to volume ratio it has, ie it will retain more heat created. Bakers yeast is fine for most applications but a beer yeast might...

The aim when making neutral spirits to have it free from all impurites so i use distilled water, however some people use purified water becuase the prefer the taste. Id just use distilled from the supermarket.....its cheap and much easier than distilling your own

Just wanted to get people reasons for having small packed columns instead of longer ones. Most people seem to have columns about 1 to 1.2 meters long. The logistics of having a long column arnt exactly impossible, mines 2 meters long and is great. I started off with a 1 meter column and had to hold ...

For a vodka wash i just dissolve 5kgs of sugar in 23L of tap water. Then make up a mix of 1/2 a cup of tomato paste and a tablespoon of vegemite and 1/2 cup of hot water. Then add that to the water and sugar, give it a stir and add yeast. Works fine in my still which is very similair to yours except...

Fermentation often takes longer than what it says on the packet and if its still bubbling the yeast is still converting the sugar into co2 and ethanol. I leave mine until i cant hear any bubbling when i put my ear to the fermentor, otherwise you could use a hydromoter for next time.

you'll collect alot more running a wash compared to what you get running just water because the alcohol is more volatile, still 15 mls in an hour is very low

My still uses a 20L drum for a boiler with an 1800W element. The column is 2m long filled with SS scrubbers. It has an offset head. The scrubbers dont appear to be in very tight because you can blow through it very easily and the scrubbers dont seem to inhibit this much at all. However when i was ru...