Home Distiller

First I'd like to say thanks to all the experts here! I've been reading for about a month and a half and am confident that I can begin construction of my first still shortly and have been patiently collecting components.

I've noticed that threaded brass seems standard as opposed to threaded copper; is this just a preference or is there a better reason since copper is cheaper (for me).

For a fermenter I am considering picking up a 45 gallon (70 gallon?) plastic drum which is NOT food grade and am wondering if this will taint the wash.

Thanks.

Brass is handy because you can get it in pipe thread or standard thread, and standard thread is handy because it's not tapered like pipe. This way you can tighten nuts all the way to the bottom for a flush mount to your boiler! But it really is preference, my new still doesn't have any brass. Walmart sells 30gal water drums which are food grade relatively cheap. But just as some advice, since you said this was going to be your first attempt, you may want to start out a little smaller and work up. LOL and good luck to ya mate!

Thanks for the standard/pipe thread explanation... I didn't even realize that there was a difference

I lucked out yesterday and found a large blue food grade drum for cheap at a liquidators store. It's rather large but will work nicely.... it makes sense to me to spend money on more fermenter volume than super efficient yeasts.