Home Distiller

Thanks for all the advice. My tentative plan will be to mix some citrus acid and water into my boiler and then heat it up and use my CIP pump to run the solution through it. I might toss a bottle of peroxide in there for good measure. I am honestly half way tempted just to toss all the parts and cop...

Thanks guys. I will use citric acid as I have plenty of it and will likely go the CIP route initially to see how that works since I set my still up for CIP. If it doesn’t work I can always put the parts in the boiler and let the soak for a bit. Heck, I might just do that as well to get the outside c...

cob wrote: ↑Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:55 pm Will those copper parts fit inside your boiler?

other wise I use a wallpaper tray for similar parts.

Good question. They will. Just not sure if I can get them all in there at once.

I was thinking something a little smaller than a 55g drum All you need is to clean the inside of a 4" column. :lol: Yeah, I was just thinking I could do a small wash and not fill the drum all the way up but there are a bunch of components and several bundles of copper mesh. I also have starsan...

Here is the still I am trying to clean.

Clean up every thing you can get to. Start a sacrificial wash in a container that your copper parts will fit in. Once the ferment is almost done. Dump in the copper parts. The next day, remove and rinse the copper in clean water. Plan B Assemble the column and cap off the bottom. Fill it with backs...

Long story short. I moved a year ago and my reflux still and components have been stored inside of 55 gallon drums since the move. Unfortunately they must not have been completely dry when I stored them or moisture accumulated inside the barrels. Today I pulled the parts out of the barrels with inte...

I live in NW Montana, USA. Like a lot of folks here I have a long career home brewing, around 30 years I'd guess. I think I also qualify as an old fart as I've been retired for awhile and 60 was a ways back. I spend a lot of my time flyfishing in the summer because I live near Glacier National Park...

This is great, thanks for posting the whole list. Looks exactly like what I'd like to build to scale up and go electric. What boiler are you using? I'm getting a 16G from Mile Hi and wondering if that heating element you got will fit. It seems like it will since the amazon description says it is 35...

I will preface this by stating this isn’t really a first but I’m inclined to update this thread as I continue my journey. Just finished stripping the last of the wash from my 2nd barrel. This wash finished fermenting about a month or so ago. I did 1 strip run this last weekend and two today for a to...

Nunyo, out standing champ. Wishing u many years of quality product and looking forward to reading more of your quality posts. Smart man to let the wife benefit from it too - I like it. Jimy Dee Thank you very much Jimy Dee! Nunyo, can u please tell as to why u went with the column to ultimately plu...

I’ve been following this thread for some time and I am absolutely floored by your craftsmanship! That still is a work of art and your attention to detail is 2nd to none! I can’t wait to see the updates once you put it to work!

Damn, I never thought of banding filters on my jars while they air out... that is a sweet sweet setup. It appears everything is on wheels too, very well done. I am pretty sure I read here about banding the filters on during the air out process. The carts come in handy. I used a planter cart for the...

I have to ask, why do you have a camera setup on the barrel, pointing at your collection jar lol Damn, you have a good eye! I had a spare HD webcam that I use for my aquarium to keep an eye on things when I’m travelling. I actually have a few of them for that purpose and this one is a backup. When ...

This recipe was passed onto me from a friend and I thought I would share it here and give back to the community a little. I’ve had some of his a couple times before and was anxious to make it myself and the results were great! This stuff is pretty tasty and a hit with my wife and since she loved it,...

Over the last two years, I have spent countless hours lurking and reading here. I have learned so much from other members by reading the various threads that I figured I wound contribute/give back where I could and this thread is a perfect place for my to contribute and hopefully help others like th...

Exceptional story and exceptional build. Great job. But your approach to making cuts is absolutely perfect. That’s how it’s done. Taking notes of your perceptions will help you very quickly learn where and how to predict the cut points, yielding you excellent product in short order. Text book. :cla...

We let the jars air out with the coffee filters for two days before doing our separations. After doing our separations, we ended up with 29 450ml jars of very good keepers out of 28 total jars. We diluted each sample down to 35% and smelled and tasted a small sample from each jar. Then spit it out, ...

We did our separations last week. Took a small sample from each jar and diluted it down to around 35% with some distilled water. Then smelled and tasted each sample and spit it out, rinsed our mouths and repeated. I took notes on each jar so I had it for future reference. Since I used sodium bicarbo...

Copperhead road wrote:What is the tube made of going from parrot to test beaker???

PTFE.
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I picked up 10’ of the stuff.

I did my spirit run yesterday. My first spirt run ever. I packed my column with about 42” of copper mesh in the 4” diameter column. I am very curious what kind of take off rate others get. I ran 12 gallons of 40% low wines. I was pushing about 2200 watts into the boiler and pulling about 450ml (just...

I finished the run around 10:40PM last night. I started at 7:15AM so that is about 15.5 hours from the time I first started heating. This leaves me to wonder how much faster I could have ran things without compromising the quality. I was nowhere near flooding the column. That said, despite being a l...

A couple pictures of the progress. 28 450ml jars done so far. I’ve taking notes on the entire run jar for jar including take off temp of the spirits and ABV. It’s running at 93-94% corrected for temp right now. Note the cam in the background so I can keep an eye on things when I am in the house. One...

overachieving tail wagger. :lol: :lol: kidding, kidding....that's a pretty impressive set up and run up to your first run. thoroughly impressive on all fronts. welcome in! Thanks! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised. I expected much more effort with the spirit run let alone the stripping runs...

Today was my first ever spirit run. I did my stripping run about 10 days ago with my flute dumbed down in pot still mode and had my low wines stored in a keg with some baking soda. I started my sprit run with about 12 gallons of 40% low wines at 7:15 AM today. I pulled the bubble plates out of my co...

Lots of guys run a plate under packing with mixed results, some love it some are indifferent. Best way to figure out is split a batch and run it both ways, keep good notes and try to keep everything identical power and cooling wise. Thanks for the reply. Kind of figured the only upside would be a v...

Seeing as your rig is modular you can pull the plates and add copper mesh to it. That should make a nice clean drop. I have my column packed from top to bottom now. Only thing I am wondering is if there is any benefit to running a single bubble plate above or below the packing. Right now, it's pack...

Thanks Nunyo. I took at quick look at your controller and the parts listed when you first shared them with me. It looks very much like what I had in mind for an ideal controller. Months ago all that info would have been overwhelming and intimidating. Now something like that makes allot of sense. Af...

Nunyo, the dishwasher method hasn't been improved upon, at least not lately. Seems I remember someone filling the little soap dispenser with vinegar, too. Thanks for the reassurance. That’s funny you mention the vinegar. I was considering doing just that and adding some to the soap trays though it ...

If you have a dishwasher, Put it in there on the sterilize setting....you should be fine after that. I know this is a really old thread but that’s a great tip. I’ve been searching (HD Google Search) on how to clean new copper mesh before putting it into the still for a spirit run. I’ve read over a ...