Leaky Still (My First Pot Still)

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:08 pm

Boiler is 8L. Condenser is 3/8" x 10'. Did a 6L sugar wash with turbo yeast and boiled all the alcohol into the atmosphere! I barely got a drop out of the condenser. I realized the lid is leaking big-time, so I tried brazing it:

Filled it with water, turned it upside down, and the sides still leak like crazy.
Is there any hope into making this still work? I don't have the resources to heat a keg, or even ferment that size of a wash. My only other option at this point is to go buy a kettle and stick the copper in there.

possum · Post by **possum** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:46 pm

Welcome nokianinja.
I used the search function at the top of the page to find this, but I did know what I was looking for.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... lour+paste

hope this helps, but brazing might be needed, I can't know exactly.

kingo102 · Post by **kingo102** » Mon May 07, 2007 8:49 pm

Hey,

My advice would be to go with a sankey keg and use triclover fittings. Will save you a lot of time and money getting the column to the boiler - plus it's easy to attach and detach for cleaning etc. Also you can still go electric by using a hotplate and heatspreader under the keg, or an immersion element into your keg as I run. Works very nicely.

Cheers,
Dave

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Mon May 07, 2007 9:13 pm

Thanks, possum! I've been cruising the forums all weekend, learning lots, but I'm really really new to this so I've got a lot ahead of me. I've got a rubber grommet that I bought from a brew shop (used for plugging fermenters, and it has a hole in it for the airlock to go), which I was going to use for my thermometer and condenser copper to go into. I got the idea from the tea kettle potstill (http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/moon1.html). Would that be ok to use, or would the alcohol react with the rubber at those temperatures?

kingo102, I used to have a kegerator, and will definitely go with a keg boiler if I ever decide to expand my production. For now, though, I'm sticking with small (<10L) washes and even smaller boilers.

CoopsOz · Post by **CoopsOz** » Mon May 07, 2007 10:43 pm

I think more of the clips would probably work for the lid, anywhere else I'd just use the flour/water dough. This is Bokakob's mini still design, it work's for him, and many other's.

rangaz · Post by **rangaz** » Mon May 07, 2007 10:58 pm

oh no. before this post is bombarded with posts on plastics/questionable substances, do up some reading by searching the aforementioned topics. My suggestion would have been cork as it would probably be better suited anyway and easier to use (you can get them in the same shape as those rubber ones).

Before I had my current still, I stole one of mums pots. Unscrewed the handle from the lid (leaving a hole slightly smaller than the diameter of the pipe in my worm condenser ), then placed the worm onto it and sealed it with flour paste. The lid was also sealed with flour paste. Not very good for quick runs as the slightest bit of back pressure would blow out the gasket and it wasn't high capacity but hell, it got the job done eventually.

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:21 am

First thing I'd like to say, is be careful!.. Please play with pure water until you find a solution.. It has many advantages, a minor one being its lack of combustion.. Secondly, water vapour is visible, alcohol vapour is not.. A laser pointer can be a handy little tool, granted it can't be trusted 100%.. if you can condense pure water completely then your still will handle wash well since ETOH requires less energy reduction to condense.. Also, its a great way to avoid the "wtf!, I cleaned the crap out of that tubing" distillate wasting dillemma
Now, what I'd think about doing is fastening a hefty, sturdy lip to the top of your boiler lid.. Something you can fasten a nice cotton cord to, and wind tightly downward across your seam a few times.. Kinda like an out of proportion noose knot.. Leather might actually work better.. Once that is done, any leaks will be more localized, and can be attacked with a flour paste etc..
Do this, or anything else, but do something! If you're gung-ho, and not willing to slow down for safety sake, then plug that leak by any means necessary.. I'd be more more comfortable knowing you plugged it up with styrofoam cups than nothing at all.. (Try not to use styrofoam cups btw:)

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:31 am

triggernum5: I've definitely become tired of losing washes to the atmosphere, so your water-only suggestion is certainly well received!

My current plan is to plug up the hole I made for the rubber grommet with a metal plate, brazed on. I've already brazed the outer lid shut, so the next step is sealing everything with flour paste. I'll cut two more holes for my worm and thermometer. Then I'll do a water test, sealing the two new holes with paste as well.

It sucks not having full access to the boiler at this point, it was nice being able to boil my sugar in there before fermenting. Oh well, as long as the still works, I can just use other pots for dissolving the sugar with.

aj · Post by aj » Tue May 08, 2007 9:39 am

Seconding playing with pure water first. My first still leaked like a sieve, and both you and I are lucky we didn't ignite our houses with all of the alcohol vapor that leaked out.

Also, brazing is tough if you're not particularly experienced at it (which it sounds like you might not be). I've done some pretty bad brazing in my time, and what almost always causes leaks is a failure of the flux to melt and run and the subsequent failure for the brazing metal to do the same. What will often happen is that the flux will form a solid, plastic-like layer just beneath the metal and, while it looks like the metal ran and sealed, liquid or air will leak out through the porous flux layer. Check what kind of brazing rods you have. Many of them will only really work effectively with oxyacetylene, which brings its own set of problems. Either way, you need to abrade the hell out of both surfaces to be joined, etc etc etc.

So... yeah, unless you think you'll be doing a lot of brazing after this, use clips or a sankey keg. I use one that's welded with 1" SS half-couplings for immersion heaters, and a 2" triclover fitting mates pretty well with it if you use an o-ring or a specialized gasket that has triclover grooves on one side and is flat on the other. Like kingo said, you can heat it externally, too. If you want to keep it small, get a pony keg. Your (what is it, 1500W?) hotplate there would heat it up just fine. Just go to the liquor store and tell them you're a brewer and you want a keg. Tell them you're willing to put down the deposit on an empty keg (this might be totally cool where they don't have to be registered). Failing that, you can always throw a nice party and just never return the keg (though, if you DO live in a state where they have to register them, it might be a bad idea to keep and mutilate it

. Any further welding you might want to do to it can be done by an autobody shop or a welding place. Cost me $49 to have my fittings welded on professionally, and it was worth every penny. One final word on using a keg as a boiler: make sure you depressurize it before you open it! This sounds self-evident, but it's not, and I'm sure there have been a few injuries to aspiring brewers and distillers from trying to remove the tension ring from their keg without letting all the CO2 out first.

Okay, that's my $0.04

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:44 am

You have no idea yet just how much its gonna suck not having full access to your boiler.. Its more than doable without that if its undoable.. If I ended up with that unit, I'd crack the lid off, attach the ouput as you said (NICE AND STURDY till the end of time), and come up with a simple way to seal that gap.. Other options not outlined in those plans are a couple small dumbbell weights sitting on top, and a tournequet tightened seal like a 1"x(circumference + 5)" leather strip, or anything else that works well enough (even a strip of fabric).. Fabric can be doped with flour paste etc to seal it better.. I think the term used on this site is "flour impegnated"..

Edit: I take it back... Don't use pure water.. Toss something aromatic in there..

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:44 am

What if I left that big hole the way it is (for access and not having to braze anymore), and use a tuna can lid like so:

Would flour sealant be enough to keep the tuna-can lid from leaking?

aj · Post by aj » Tue May 08, 2007 9:47 am

I'm going to guess that it won't. Most of the time I've seen that sealant used, it's at joints where most of the work is being done by tension already. It ain't superglue. It's designed to be a sealant, not an adhesive.

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:48 am

What are you going to attach the tuna lid with for the support? As you learn flour paste you'll figure out how to solve leaks, but its not a support structure friendly seal.. Worst case scenario is that thing popping off entirely..

Edit: The structural support is another reason to leave the entire lid as the removable item.. You have more room to work with, for instance the dumbbell approach would be impossible targetted at the tuna can seal..

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 9:50 am

Ok, the pony keg idea is sounding pretty good right about now.

aj · Post by aj » Tue May 08, 2007 9:53 am

Okay, I'm trying to think of a way to salvage this boiler here, and the only thing I can think of is to do the following (and this is going to suck if you've already brazed that lid on there), so here goes:

Get some cork gasket material and lay it out around the hole. Then, get a small stainless bowl or something that will fit over top of that hole and the gasket. Then, you need to drill three holes in the lid such that they are spaced evenly outside the circumference of the bowl. Then, braze three bolts into place there. If you do not have access to the inside of the boiler, I suppose you could just braze the bolts from the outside and then cut their tops off or something (if you're going ghetto, go all the way, just make sure you braze them GOOD). Then, you can use nuts on these bolts to seal the bowl upside-down against the hole in the lid. You can drill a hole in the bowl to attach the worm to.

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 10:02 am

Yea, you'll need to bolt the tuna lid (or whatever better solution you find) to the boilerlid. Bolting and brazing would solve the leak there, as would bolts, and some flour paste from time to time.. You'll find that sealing the lid perimeter is pretty simple one you find your own perfect household solution.. Here's some incentive.. You are MacGyver.. You've been locked in a room with an active tesla coil, a lawnmower, a length of rope, a pully, a high altitude escape hatch, some fermented wash, alot of possible seals from your home, and your still.. You can get out of that with a little ingenuity..

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 10:05 am

Why braze them in, why not just lock them into place with the washers once the holes are drilled, then use the flour sealant on them? I could tie some string around them so they don't slip out of their holes (and into any wash in the boiler!) when they're being locked on.

Same question for the cork lining the spot where the bowl meets the pot lid: Do I really need this if I can just seal it with flour paste?

aj · Post by aj » Tue May 08, 2007 10:14 am

nokianinja wrote:Why braze them in, why not just lock them into place with the washers once the holes are drilled, then use the flour sealant on them? I could tie some string around them so they don't slip out of their holes (and into any wash in the boiler!) when they're being locked on.

Same question for the cork lining the spot where the bowl meets the pot lid: Do I really need this if I can just seal it with flour paste?

Boy, you love that flour paste, don't you? The less you depend on the paste, the better. Especially at small, potentially higher-pressure leak sites. With a flat-seal design like yours, the paste is always going to be bearing a load from pressure unless it is supported by weight or tension somehow. You've sealed the lid up, so that means that any place that is left leaking (like around the bolts) will be leaking at a higher pressure. Unless there is already tension supporting it (like if you bolt the bowl down and seal it with paste rather than cork), I don't know if you'll get a good seal with the flour paste.

Here's a drawing of what I was trying to explain in my last post, btw. I modified yours, I hope you don't mind

:

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 10:21 am

The leather tournequet would be a halfass way around what AJ pointed out.. That in conjuction with paste would seal it, and you might need to further jimmy rig the spot where the tightening stick is.. Do you know what I mean by tournequet seal? that would eliminate the cork.. Weighting the top also does miracles sometimes, but then you want to make sure your output is not hindered because it would increase the pressure the unit could hold before blowing up..

Edit, sorry I thought he meant cork for the lid seal, not the coil seal.. I actually think you could get away with paste there, but you would always be tinkering with it.. Better is better.. Teashirt doped with flourpaste would be good, but not as good.. But hey, if you can braze then go for that unless somebody who knows more about it than I do see a toxin etc..

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 11:31 am

You've sealed the lid up, so that means that any place that is left leaking (like around the bolts) will be leaking at a higher pressure. Unless there is already tension supporting it (like if you bolt the bowl down and seal it with paste rather than cork), I don't know if you'll get a good seal with the flour paste.

I meant that I would be bolting it on, I just wouldn't be brazing the bolts to the lid. Once the bowl is bolted to the lid, all joints are sealed. I understand the flour paste isn't load-bearing, so I would be reinforcing all joints using this method. I'd braze the worm to the bowl, though, just for good measure.

The leather tournequet would be a halfass way around what AJ pointed out.. That in conjuction with paste would seal it, and you might need to further jimmy rig the spot where the tightening stick is.. Do you know what I mean by tournequet seal? that would eliminate the cork..

I can fiddle around with some t-shirt strips when I do my seal of the bowl and lid, that sounds like it should help.

Weighting the top also does miracles sometimes, but then you want to make sure your output is not hindered because it would increase the pressure the unit could hold before blowing up..

Now I'm getting confused. How do we avoid having pressure if we seal everything up? Presumably (from what I gather, correct me if I'm wrong) the most pressure this thing would be exposed to is dependent on the diameter and length of coil in the worm. If there's no leaks, that means all pressure is being relieved by the worm, which is ideal. Right?

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 12:03 pm

Your coil/column should be enough.. If its not, you need to redesign, perhaps another similar output if you're very limited in resources.. The first pressure problem you'd see is condensing like you saw.. The vapour gets thrust through the cooler too quickly to condense.. 1500W is a ton of power for 3/8"!, and adding length to condense more will make even more pressure.. I'm not sure where pressure bombing becomes a bigger threat than vapour bombing, but neither conditition is safe by any stretch of the word.. Wating wash does suck, but yu could easily become Johnny Human Torch too until you resolve this with real wash.. I was actually gonna suggest earlierthat your boiler/burner seem to make a good basis for a refux type column.. Another way to reuse unwanted heat productively is to add a thumper.. The info pages have general guidelines for column diameter vs power

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 12:20 pm

The vapour gets thrust through the cooler too quickly to condense.. 1500W is a ton of power for 3/8"!, and adding length to condense more will make even more pressure.. I'm not sure where pressure bombing becomes a bigger threat than vapour bombing, but neither conditition is safe by any stretch of the word.. Wating wash does suck,

Well my impatience aside (and lord knows I am impatient), how long should a setup like this take to distill 6 litres of wash? What about for 3 litres?

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 12:28 pm

A good easy manageable number would be like a slowcooker sized heater (~350W), then I would guess you could pull about 6 Oz of distillate/hour, but I might be wrong.. If you can do water ok, then you're set..

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 12:40 pm

I would guess you could pull about 6 Oz of distillate/hour

Wow... So we're looking at a 6-hour timeframe for a 6 litre 18% wash. And that would be if I was getting 200-proof distillate, which I obviously wouldn't be.

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:05 pm

Thats if you drop your heat to a safe level as you have it after plugging leaks.. Should you focus on your condenser you could blast it out of there, but you should walk before you run.. I should point out that if you put 36Oz of ethanol into the room then you can consider yourself lucky to be here..
Do you know what a thumper is?

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:19 pm

I should point out that if you put 36Oz of ethanol into the room then you can consider yourself lucky to be here..

My kitchen is very open, and I opened a lot of windows before starting, so ventilation was very good. And I've built potato cannons before, it's harder than you think to ignite alcohol in low concentrations. But you're right, I should walk before I run. I'll plug the leaks up and stick with slow distills until I get this system working better.

Do you know what a thumper is?

I've familiarized myself with them, and am pondering putting one in. As long as I don't have to buy any more copper, I'll be happy. I'm on quite a budget.

grainhopper · Post by **grainhopper** » Tue May 08, 2007 1:24 pm

I have a SS pot as you do, but I have a bowl instead of the lid and I used a 3/4 in flange with cork I will post some pics later as for now I have to get ready for my sons baseball.

As for the leaks in the lid I would redo the soldering and go slower.
I had leaks the first time And I just went back and resoldered.

grainhopper · Post by **grainhopper** » Tue May 08, 2007 5:33 pm

Hereis the picture of my pot still. I guess I could have spit shined her

Here is the flange. No gasket just put it together for pictutes.

: flange.jpg (6.81 KiB) Viewed 4008 times

The solder. The soldering was kind of hard Ithink because the SS walls are very thin. Try not to heat it up too much. I think Pint-O-Shine use a high powered soldering gun. I used a propane torch

Thought abot building a fermenter the same as the still, but just inverting it and adding valves and stuff.

The still was a pot out of a set of 3 at WALLYWORD for $20 and the
bowl for $4-6.

triggernum5 · Post by **triggernum5** » Tue May 08, 2007 5:46 pm

Notice the much larger output, and upper cooling surface area..

nokianinja · Post by **nokianinja** » Tue May 08, 2007 10:18 pm

I finally got it to condense water!
Once I saw that steady drip-drip-drip coming from the worm, I was so happy. :> You guys rock!

Apparently my condenser coil wasn't draining properly either. When I was moving it, I got a fair amount of distillate on my kitchen floor from the last run. So I sat down with a marble and made sure it was going DOWN the whole way.

The flour paste works amazingly well, I love it. I found a leak when I was boiling the water, and sealed it right up, no sweat.

So what I ended up doing was taking a tuna can lid, hammering it flat, drilling 3 holes in it, then drilling 3 holes in the boiler. I affixed 3 nuts to the holes in the boiler, held in place with washers. Then I laid down a circular strip of fabric and secured the tuna can lid with 3 more washers. Then I poked the thermometer through a piece of fabric, and put that through it's hole in the lid. Finally the worm went in, and everything was sealed up with paste. The drip rate is plenty for me, I'll be able to work with this setup once I get this boiler cleaned properly.

Now, I'd like to avoid having to reseal the tuna can lid every time I do a wash. Is the hole used for the worm sufficient to keep this boiler clean? It's not like I'd be able to reach my arm in there and scrub it anyway, that hole was already too small.

A possible issue with the sealant: When I went to empty the water out just now, I discovered the water was able to pour out through (what I thought were sealed up) the seam in the large lid. Is this due to the steel contracting when it cools?

Another question: I don't have a proof hydrometer (no money right now), what sort of ballpark concentration do you guys think this produces the distillate at? I'm hoping at least 40% ABV.