Steam heating for a copper pot still?

[phenol 90]

Hi folks,

New to sign up to the group although I've been reading through plenty of the posts and resources. I just posted a welcome note, but here's a bit more about where I am at.

Oh yeah, pleased to meet you!

I've got a question for anyone out there who may be able to answer it. I've posted this in the yahoo distillers group too just in case anyone comes across it again.

I'm weighing up all the different heating options and was curious as to whether anyone has ever used or built a steam heating system operating through an internal coil in their still?


I'm designing a 20 gallon copper pot still modeled on a traditional single malt whiskey still. I have a 60 gallon copper tank from a water heater that is going to get cut up, stripped of all soldering and lead and rebuilt to size and specs.

The issue of burning the wash with the heating source, whether it be direct fired or internal is what has got me losing sleep at the moment. A lot of people out there have discussed that immersion elements and direct fired heating can or will burn all-grain worts (wash).


I'm a long time all grain home brewer with a decent set up in operation and will be continuing down the malted barley path. Because of this, the heat and burn factor seems a major design issue I need to consider.


I'm aware of the heat baths that some people are using but want to keep the flames away from the still which will be located indoors. The rough plan that I currently have is that I could direct fire a steam heating unit (water filled keg with pressure relief valve) outside the still location that pipes into the still, coils around inside, and then recycles back out to the unit. The pipes running from the heating unit would be insulated to retain heat and travel distance would be kept to a minimum.


So again, has anyone seen, used, designed and/or built anything along these lines before?


Any comments or advice would be much appreciated.


Hope this makes sense.

Thanks in advance,

Phenol 90.