Pot Still Construction

[kayos]

I am building a pot still and would appreciate some input on my design. I have read the last 20 pages or so of the forum and the stuff on the home site. I have also looked some at the Yahoo group.

In reading all this stuff there seems to be somewhat differing opinions on what is a good pot still design so I thought I'd give you my design and see what you all thought.

My use for the still will be mostly making brandy from wine but also some whiskey.

My boiler is a 15 gal beer keg. My heat source is a propane burner from a turkey fryer.
The column will be attached to the keg using a tri-clamp from brewhaus, which I have press fit into a 24" of 2" copper pipe. The copper pipe ends in a 2" elbow that reduces to 1/2" after a couple of reducing adapters. There is 38" of 1/2"copper pipe at 45 degrees downward with a 28" liebig made with 3/4" copper.

After soldering this thing together this I am having second thoughts about the column length. I have read here both that 24" is just fine and also that it is way too long to get good flavored spirits.

I can play with it just the way it is but thought I'd ask for opinions here before I started.

Also, since I will be making brandy from wine that has sulfites added, I was wondering if I would increase reflux too much if I added a copper mesh packing on the column.

Thanks!

[BW Redneck]

If you're worried about too much reflux, insulate your "column" ( I call it a column, but the proper name is lyne arm. Whatever. ) or run it just a midge faster. (Easy with propane.)

One roll of scrubber (or about 4 inches) will be more than enough to deal with your sulfite issue, but I wouldn't try it until I ran a batch of it and it turned funky.

Otherwise, sounds like you're good to go!

[Ricky]

sounds an awful lot like mine. if your proof is to high(150) on a first run you can always shorten it. i add tails to the wash and i get about 140 and it has a good flavor for whiskey. if you dont add tails it should come out around 120. make sure you dont get any solids in there. it will be hard to clean. if it starts huffing at the condencer try a scrubber in the condencer or just slow it down. as for the mesh in the lyne arm i just lengthened mine to 12" so i could add a coupla scrubbers to see if it would make a difference. sounds good. good luck to ya!

[kayos]

Thanks for the quick replies! This place is great.
I'll put it together as is and try it out over the holidays.

[junkyard dawg]

sounds ideal to me.

good luck and have fun.

[FAROM]

Ill pot still will work very well, the tall column 24" and diameter 2" it is the ideal, the management of the distillation is very important, very important the use of 2 thermometers, one to the T of the column and one in the boiler, During the distillation not to be in a hurry, ciao.