Home Distiller

Here's a picture of my gin setup with the 1500W hotplate under the boiler. I also have a gin basket but rarely use it.

Since you already have a good supply of GNS, a 3 gallon stainless milk can boiler on top of an inexpensive 1500W hotplate is a great way to go. For condenser I recommend one like the 2" diameter Stainless Steel Medium Product Shotgun condenser that Stilldragon makes.

Advice much appreciated. I just ordered some of the HVAC foil tape.

I’ve read on Home Distiller that you can end up with a cleaner neutral if you dilute your strip from a sugar wash to 20% or even to 15% before running it in your reflux still. Can anyone please explain to me why? Will this hold true if you are using SPP packing which I use in my 3" column? Thanks

Thanks for the fast replies! Appreciated.

I bought some Reflectix BP24010 Series Foil Insulation to insulate my boilers (one is 13 gallons and another is 3 gallons). I've been tying the insulation on with string but would now prefer to glue it on. What adhesive or glue can you recommend that can handle the heat? I'm using electric heating e...

Sorry, don't know if I answered your question correctly. Because I start with 40% neutral alcohol in the boiler, I end up with an isolate well above 50% which I then dilute down to 50%. I stop distilling only when I've recovered almost all of the alcohol or when I don't like the smell. So I don't re...

I go down to below 20% when things start to really slow down. Even 10% or even less, depending on the smell. I'm not an expert so take what you think is right as all of this is according to your own taste. All I can say is that it's a really fun exercise and the payoff is when you drink your own gin!

When I first started blending, I added the isolates to a base gin of juniper and coriander. The problem is measuring the amounts because you have to be really, really precise. I wasn’t precise enough to get an exact recipe that I could scale up scientifically but I got a handle on the ingredients th...

There is a very interesting podcast that I suggest you listen to: Clara Robbins does this: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/clara-robbins-st-petersburg-distillery/id1517587990?i=1000487145500 Around 50:00 she explains the process. I distilled 20 isolates and it was very educational. But some of...

I recommend buying modular Stainless steel Tri clamp components, mainly 2”. Copper is a pain in the butt to clean and you can always add copper to a SS column in form of mesh. I have a 2” medium product SS shotgun condenser from Stilldragon that is super quality and that I’ve used for reflux, potsti...

For gin, I just want to start with neutral alcohol and that’s ethanol, the purer the better. The botanicals are what should give your gin its flavor. Years ago I lived in Central Asia and drank some wretched grain based vodkas. One from Tajikistan was particularly bad and tasted like it had gasoline...

Firstly I'm sorry I saw this post a couple of months late. I bought a small boiler from Hooloodistil. I was blown away with the quality of the boiler which I use for vacuum distillation for gin botanicals. I think Hooloo Distilling is a company that doesn't know how to do marketing but can fabricate...

I’m a hobby distiller with a thirst for gin. I recently distilled 21 isolates using a 3 gallon still, some in straight potstill mode and others using a Stilldragon gin basket. Most were done by macerating 50 grams of botanicals overnight in 1L of 60% neutral, then diluting down to under 30% before r...

I just bought 2 liters of 5x5 SPP stainless packing from Doctor Gradus on ebay. How do you recommend cleaning this before the sacrificial run? Thanks

After reading through some of the threads of people who built their own controllers, and because I am not an electrical genius, I may just buy one that is already made up. It will cost more but I'll have something I can just plug in like the two in the links below: https://milehidistilling.com/produ...

Has anyone had experience with using the below for power control of a 1500W 110V boiler heating element?

Yeeco AC 110V 10000W SCR Electronic Voltage Regulator
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ML ... UTF8&psc=1

Thanks

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.

Hi, I have a 13 gal milk can boiler with two 1500W 120V heating elements. The heating elements which are screwed into 1" female NPT couplings have black gaskets. I have no idea what they are made of since I bought them 11 years ago which is how long I've been out of the hobby. So I'd like to re...

Hi Everyone, It's great to see that Home Distiller is still around helping people. I'm back to the hobby after an 11 year lapse and have forgotten almost everything about distilling (could that have something to do with consuming a lot of alcohol over the years :thumbup: or simply due to increasing ...