Some Questions

[Mookie]

Hello,

I am new to distilling and never distilled anything yet.

I have some questions, first, about building a low cost home made distillery.

I thought about using a stainless still pot that I got, drilling a little hole and sticking in the hole a copper tube. the sealing will be using some dough, so when it gets hot - it will block totally any outgoing steams.
Cooling will be just with some ice cold water that the tube will go through.

Questions:
1. Which kind of copper tube can I use? Is it ok to use the cheap kind been sold everywhere and used for home gas delivery?

2. I thought about taking a ready beer (Dark lager beer - Goldstar brand 4.9% alcohol) and distill it - will I get a 40% alcohol drink out of it? will it be anything near or like whiskey? should I be worried about Methanol at all? since I am distilling a ready to drink beer.
also, I thought about aging it for a about a month with some oak tree chips - any opinions?

My goal is to make the nearest thing to whiskey I can make out of beer in 1 month.




Thanks for any answer!!

[As-Ol-Joe]

Welcome aboard.

You can use any copper sold at your home improvement store. Either ridgid or tubing.

If you are going to use beer, it needs to be unhopped. It's a whole lot cheaper to make a sugar wash.

Toast or char your oak before adding your distillate and let it sit a week or so. It will make a nice bourbon.

[Uncle Jesse]

No offense there guy but time to do some reading, these are general and frequently asked questions.

Don't jump in without reading or you're going to regret it.

[Dnderhead]

You have along way to go .Yes you can distill beer but
taste like sh*** do a lot of reading- if you use a pot and tubing
you would have a pot still sugar wash makes vodka whisky
takes time several months to make.

[Ricky]

read up on the uncle jesse sour mash. it will give you a lot of pointers on making moonshine. aged on oak it will be a good drink. do some more reading. the reason you dont want to use beer is the hops will leave a nasty taste in your still that will be hard to get rid of. as far as your still you have a good idea for a potstill. maybe a little more research on the connection to the lid and you may be ready to go.