New Guy

[Rebel_Plague]

Hey all I am just about to build my first still. I have had my keg and copper pipe for about 5yrs + and never put it together. In the last year my wife and I have scored on wine making supplies and have successfully made wine and mead. So with that we just bought our first house and during the move low and behold guess what I find !!!! My forgotten 7.75 gallon Anheuser Bush beer keg and my 5ft stick of 2" also a stick of 1 1/2 and last but not least a 1" stick. So I ordered a pipe to keg kit, two 2" street 90s a 2"x2x3/4 tee for a thermometer in the column. Also 1 1/2 to 1/2" tees for the condenser, some reducer's . I have quite of few carboys , and two 20 gallon fermenters .. Can't wait to get it put together and start making some mash!! As for now I want to use the small keg and work up to a 15 gallon . I was thinking 42" for the main column I know its not short but anything longer than that seems to much. By the way there is an ungodly amount of information on this site glad to be a part of it!!

[Uncle Jesse]

Welcome to HD

[GaMountainMan]

What a sweet find haha. Good luck keep us posted on your progress!

[Odin]

Welcome! Not sure why you would want the compression just above the dephlag ... or am I looking at it from the wrong direction and is that your product cooler?

Odin.

[Coyote]

Welcome and good luck

[bellybuster]

think he's building a pot still Odin.

welcome to the forum and the hobby

[Rebel_Plague]

think he's building a pot still Odin.

welcome to the forum and the hobby

Welcome! Not sure why you would want the compression just above the dephlag ... or am I looking at it from the wrong direction and is that your product cooler?

Odin.

Yes I am building just an plain reflux pot still ! I am chomping at the bit wanting to get the torch out and start sweating

[bellybuster]

ok now you're confusing things. Reflux and pot still do not belong in the same sentence. 2 different animals.

Pot stills require no thermometer but you can still put them in. They will be of little use unless you are distilling the exact same wash every time.

I suggest to keep chomping for a while while you do some reading. Best to have it right the first time so you don't have to make backwards steps.

what you have shown looks like a solid plan, just read up on what reflux is and what it does for you. You have lots of copper to go that route if you're so inclined.

one more edit...
that long stretch of 2" is a waste on a pot still. 2" is expensive stuff

[rad14701]

As bellybuster noted, a tall pot column, even filled with structured packing, adds nothing to the performance of a pot still... You need forced reflux in order for structured packing to add any benefit... There is an active topic which covers this concept, proving what we have been saying all along...

[Rebel_Plague]

ok now you're confusing things. Reflux and pot still do not belong in the same sentence. 2 different animals.

Pot stills require no thermometer but you can still put them in. They will be of little use unless you are distilling the exact same wash every time.

I suggest to keep chomping for a while while you do some reading. Best to have it right the first time so you don't have to make backwards steps.

what you have shown looks like a solid plan, just read up on what reflux is and what it does for you. You have lots of copper to go that route if you're so inclined.

one more edit...
that long stretch of 2" is a waste on a pot still. 2" is expensive stuff

So you're saying that if I built a pot still with a packed column there is no reflux that accrues in the column?? And that a thermometer is useless unless I run the same wash are mash cause .......????? Alcohol is alcohol correct..?? And evaporates at 172.94 so using a gauge to know when I am in the ball park is little of use???

[Truckinbutch]

Yep , that's what he is sayin . A pot is run by output and output is determined by the abv of the wash and the amount of heat you put into it or don't put into it in combination with the amount of cooling you add to the equasion .

[Cardinalbags]

1. The amount of reflux generated without an external cooling source is negligible.
2. Your alcohol will not boil at 172.94 as you may think. Your mixture will boil at whatever temperature the composition of the mixture dictates. Pot stills are never controlled by temperature. You cannot control the temperature to some precise level and just boil off the ethanol..... if it were that easy...... well I wont go there.
3. you've got all the right components to start with, now just need to do a bit more research on here before you waste all that nice shiney copper by not knowing how to run it.

[Rebel_Plague]

Well I thought that reflux was the process of vapor liquefied and returned back in to the pot... are boiler. In witch in turn refines the product more then into the condenser witch is then cooled and returned into a liquid .... so the cooling tubes that run thru the column to the condenser does not control the temperature of the column and cause reflux and refining .... You're confusing the hell out of me lol ...

[bellybuster]

$_35.JPG (13.1 KiB) Viewed 1812 times

is this what you are planning? If so it is indeed a reflux still of sorts but of an antiquated design. Spend some time reading thru here and you'll see. Your understanding of how a still works is flawed. water and alcohol forms a solution and the boiling point is that of the solution not the individual components.

best way to start?? what kind of likker do you want to make? With that info we can help you build.

Prior to that, start reading so you can understand the process. Take no offence as we all started somewhere. Most of us also believed that we could hold the column at 173 and get magic pure alcohol. Then we came here

[Cardinalbags]

Rebel:
You are probably still confusing pot stills with reflux stills. They are definitely two different animals altogether.

Here is some good reading material to get you started.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 65&t=16635

Diagrams and plans thread...
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=19711

lots of different designs in that last one. read though and understand well before getting too far along.

[Rebel_Plague]

Yes belly buster it is similar to what I want to build.. and want to try all different types of likker corn, rice, rye, and being that I have had my hand in wine and mead I would like to make brandy.

[bellybuster]

cool, now we know what you're thinking, although was looking for flavoured or neutral. No worries
personally if I were to build a still to do it all Id go with a vapour management still. You have almost enough parts as it is. You'd just need a reflux coil.
The cooling management (your original idea) would also be a good choice but with some design changes that can be found here. They are reportedly a bit harder to run than VM

A pot still is your friend if making brandy, a reflux for vodkas and neutrals. The VM still can do both quite well and is said to be the easiest to run.

these are my opinions and hopefully others will chime in as well.

[Rebel_Plague]

Well here it is test fit to see if I like it before I sweat it. A 42" long 2" tower to two street 90s into a 2"x1" reducer and a 30" long 1" 1/2" condenser. Looks big on the 7.75 keg but want to get a bigger keg later on when I get a hand on making her run...

[bellybuster]

That's allot of copper for a pot still, looks nice though. How do you plan on heating it? The output is really close if going with propane.

Here' something to think about, uses half the copper and gets the output away from the heat source.

Unless you still plan on going the reflux route you really don't need that tall column. All it does is take longer to heat up. And if you do plan on reflux I wouldn't sweat that up yet.
We're eager to help, just let us know what it is you want to do and we'll get you there.

[Rebel_Plague]

Well I wanna make likker !!!! Just like everyone that has made it to this site.... well I still need to put the tees for the water jacket on the condenser. And plan on cutting down the end of the 1" coming out of the condenser and adding a 45 with a reducer to maybe 1/2...?? 3/8....?? . But I can rotate the 90 on top to give me a 45° angle... but is it really going to make that big of a noticeable difference than being vertical..... I read up on the parent site it and here and haven't found any rock solid proof that says its any better are more efficient . But I guess I could add a union in between the two 90s and see if any angel works better than vertical but would rather have it vertical and sweated with no union. O and I will be using a propane burner..

[younganddumb]

[quote="Prior to that, start reading so you can understand the process. Take no offence as we all started somewhere. Most of us also believed that we could hold the column at 173 and get magic pure alcohol. Then we came here[/quote]


where can i find more info i have been making this mistake ( running my pot still as close to 173 as possible till i lose proof) Im not going to get offended we learn by mistakes lol

[bellybuster]

Right here on this very forum, start in the new distillers reading lounge

[bellybuster]

Well I wanna make likker !!!! Just like everyone that has made it to this site.... well I still need to put the tees for the water jacket on the condenser. And plan on cutting down the end of the 1" coming out of the condenser and adding a 45 with a reducer to maybe 1/2...?? 3/8....?? . But I can rotate the 90 on top to give me a 45° angle... but is it really going to make that big of a noticeable difference than being vertical..... I read up on the parent site it and here and haven't found any rock solid proof that says its any better are more efficient . But I guess I could add a union in between the two 90s and see if any angel works better than vertical but would rather have it vertical and sweated with no union. O and I will be using a propane burner..

No, not what I'm suggesting at all.
The angle in the pic is solely to get the distillate away from the burner. The shorter riser is solely to save a buttload of money on all that shiny copper. Lei bigs work just fine verticle.
Highly flammable liquid right next to a flame does not do well however.

[rad14701]

There is an active topic about tall packed and unpacked pot columns... Unless you will be adding a reflux condenser at the top of that column it won't add any benefit at all, it will simply tie up expensive copper for not reason... Pot columns do not benefit from structured packing or tall unpacked columns...

[Rebel_Plague]

Well I would like some reflux action going on. I plan on packing the column, also keeping my condenser vertical. But with my 42" packed column not going to reflux I am thinking of adding a coil are some sort of condenser to my column off the out put of my liebig condenser. This would give me reflux action in my column correct ..???

[googe]

that's a cm (cooling managment) still, you will need a valve between the liebig and column.

[bellybuster]

There are a ton of tried and true designs on this very site. Why not check them out.

Tell us exactly what kind of likker you are after and we can help you put something together that will treat you well for many years.

[Rebel_Plague]

Yes belly buster it is similar to what I want to build.. and want to try all different types of likker corn, rice, rye, and being that I have had my hand in wine and mead I would like to make brandy.

cool, now we know what you're thinking, although was looking for flavoured or neutral. No worries
personally if I were to build a still to do it all Id go with a vapour management still. You have almost enough parts as it is. You'd just need a reflux coil.
The cooling management (your original idea) would also be a good choice but with some design changes that can be found here. They are reportedly a bit harder to run than VM

A pot still is your friend if making brandy, a reflux for vodkas and neutrals. The VM still can do both quite well and is said to be the easiest to run.

these are my opinions and hopefully others will chime in as well.

$_35.JPG

is this what you are planning? If so it is indeed a reflux still of sorts but of an antiquated design. Spend some time reading thru here and you'll see. Your understanding of how a still works is flawed. water and alcohol forms a solution and the boiling point is that of the solution not the individual components.

best way to start?? what kind of likker do you want to make? With that info we can help you build.

Prior to that, start reading so you can understand the process. Take no offence as we all started somewhere. Most of us also believed that we could hold the column at 173 and get magic pure alcohol. Then we came here

Well I would like the best of both worlds.... pot still to run corn likker and brandy but would like it to reflux when needed. Could build say a hybrid pot still so it would reflux when needed... I have read up on vm and cm stills ..... has anyone made a pot still that will reflux...... will it work and would it be beneficial ??

[zombie911]

I'm actually working on one... That's a whole nuther story. http://homedistiller.org/forum/posting. ... 914ce82c4d#

[Rebel_Plague]

I'm actually working on one... That's a whole nuther story. http://homedistiller.org/forum/posting. ... 914ce82c4d#

I would like to know more about it. Maybe some pictures...... I have my still ready to sweat but if I can thro in a mod that would help in the reflux action when needed I would like to.