What's the smallest effective size?

[raketemensch]

I know, I know, it seems like a strange question, but I am thinking of running very small experimental batches to chase recipes.

Looking at the minimum amounts that people are taking for heads/tails, it couldn't be too small, but I'd really like to be able to test 2 or 3 separate ingredients in a day to see how they work, how they taste, maybe how they blend, etc.

I'm not pursuing the purest of spirits, I'm going almost entirely for flavor (lower ABV means you can drink more, right?), and I'd like to approach this in a similar way to how I pursue flavor combinations in the kitchen -- lots of small experiments until I find that great combination of oils/fats/herbs, etc.

If I finish up with only an ounce or two, that's fine, it's enough for taste testing, but that may not be worth it if I'd still need to have, say, X ml of heads and tails to get that 2 ounces of hearts, and X is too large.

Would a liter be too small?

[ShineRunnah]

My opinion, 5 gallons is good to start, 3 gallons bare minimum.

I have a 1 gallon I use on occasion, and its a bitch to run. You sneeze and you've missed a cut point. If you're new, you probably wont be good at making cuts (you wont) and you'll have an aweful hard time judging if anything is "good" when you've smeared heads into the hearts, etc. And it sucks to run for an hour and end up with 6oz at best, or a bunch of bad tasting crap that you wasted a bunch of time and effort making.

I promise you, you are way better off with a bigger still than smaller! If I started over and knew nothing, the one bit of advice I'd want is to build a 5gallon still at minimum, and read a bunch before I ever loaded it.

[MichiganCornhusker]

I'm not pursuing the purest of spirits, I'm going almost entirely for flavor

I'd bet that for what you're doing you could get by with a 2-3 gallon boiler charge. Not gonna give you any good yield, but a good indication of taste IF you are familiar with the taste of heads and tails and can see past them. Running that small, you might smear all the way through, but the idea of the taste will be there. But you will want a bigger still for when you find that good combo and want to do it right.

[NZChris]

The maximum charge for my mini-pot is 1300ml. Works well for me.

[shadylane]

raketemensch
The smallest effective size depends on what you want the still to do.
From your description, I'd say a some were between a 1/2 gallon and 2 liters.

[bellybuster]

I've been meaning to put together a very small still for quite some time. I'm a firm believer that size of the still means nothing as long as collection containers are an appropriate size.
For a one gallon still I would collect in 1/2 oz increments. The concept is the same as any still. Cuts are what matters most. Small increments is the true path to excellent cuts

[S-Cackalacky]

I would say that for efficiency and logistically, a 5 gallon boiler would be a good choice for what you intend to do. You could use a 5 gallon bucket for fermentation and have 3 or 4 gallons of wash to run. The 5 gallon boiler would be a good choice for that size wash - giving a good amount of head space. You should be able to perform decent cuts with that amount of wash. Just collect in smaller increments - 4 to 6 oz. per jar.

Keep in mind that the process is far different than cooking a food recipe. With food, you would want to sit down and eat it immediately. With distilled spirits, there is much more to be done after it comes from the still. You will need a decent amount of distillate to perform the follow up steps.

Good luck with it.

[thecroweater]

I have one 5 L boiler, this size makes cuts tricky but doable and a good size for experiments. To much under that and you would struggle with cuts and need a pretty small still to run on it

[raketemensch]

Damn, thanks for all the replies. It means a lot to a noob.

I like the idea of doing 1/2 oz cuts, that's just about perfect. I do plan to build an 8-gallon pot, probably even before running these experiments, right now I'm just reading and reading and reading and doing as much research as I can, and figured I'd better ask this question before I forgot to.

Of course, having an 8-gallon boiler doesn't mean I need to fill it, either. I could do a smaller 2/3 gallon run in it.

Again, thanks for all the advice.

Keep in mind that the process is far different than cooking a food recipe. With food, you would want to sit down and eat it immediately. With distilled spirits, there is much more to be done after it comes from the still. You will need a decent amount of distillate to perform the follow up steps.

That's also a very good point.

[FullySilenced]

i really can't see something that you cannot run at least 20 L ... or 5 gallons in... which with a 10% wash only makes 64 oz of ethanol ... this includes fores, heads, hearts and tails... a specialty still, a small boiler/still to run just refined spirits could possibly be appropriate for that use..

My thinking ...

[DAD300]

I'll probably be the only advocate for the counter top Airstill, but it works for me...

Stainless Airstill.jpg (11.01 KiB) Viewed 3024 times

Make sure you get one of the highest wattage you can find.

[still_stirrin]

...From your description, I'd say a some were between a 1/2 gallon and 2 liters....

Way to go Shady. I just hope that's not too wide of a tolerance zone.
ss

[rad14701]

The smallest batch of wash I would recommend is 1 gallon/4 liters... You could run those off in a 1 or 2 gallon still... However, I doubt you're going to end up with any truly worthwhile data based on just a gallon of wash...

Sounds to me like you need to rethink your objectives... Not to sound demeaning but do you actually have enough experience to be doing experimental recipe development...??? With a current post count of 4 one has to wonder...

[Ludwig404]

I'll probably be the only advocate for the counter top Airstill, but it works for me...

Stainless Airstill.jpg

Make sure you get one of the highest wattage you can find.

I've used one and I agree - they work OK for small batches, but you definitely need high wattage. On the model I had I'd spend 2 1/2 hours getting around 750 ml of good quality spirit on spirit runs. And you really have to watch the cuts - collect in 150 ml groups or smaller or you'll find yourself dumping a lot back in with your next batch of low wines.

[hamshine]

The title of this thread is asking for it LOL.... where were you on this one TP. Seriously though bigger still easier cuts. It just puts more buffer zone after heads and before tails like everyone else said.


Hamshine (someone had to)

[DAD300]

So, these threads get me going. This one did...again.

I had three gallons of left over rum wash sitting for a month or more. A gallon of this was really sour because I over did it with nutrients as an experiment for fermentation speed. The other two were the slop from a 26 gallon ferment, racking off the top and not filtering the shitz at the bottom.

I ran three one gallon strips (no cuts) in my Airstill. Each run took me 1.5 hours (while I ate, did the dishes, watched tv), I then had 3.5 quarts at ~50%. I watered that to a gallon and ran it, min cuts for fores/heads. I got 3 quarts. I watered and ran that with heavy cuts, throw away almost 30%!

I have two quarts of really decent, triple distilled white rum...while I multi-tasked! It takes two minutes to set it up, and two minutes to rinse it out when I'm finished.

I can't multi-task a keg, on a week night, in the kitchen.

If I lived in an apartment, in a restrictive country, had room mates, or no weekends, a five gallon carboy and an 1-2 gallon still, would keep me out of trouble and drinking at home.

[hamshine]

So, these threads get me going. This one did...again.

I had three gallons of left over rum wash sitting for a month or more. A gallon of this was really sour because I over did it with nutrients as an experiment for fermentation speed. The other two were the slop from a 26 gallon ferment, racking off the top and not filtering the shitz at the bottom.

I ran three one gallon strips (no cuts) in my Airstill. Each run took me 1.5 hours (while I ate, did the dishes, watched tv), I then had 3.5 quarts at ~50%. I watered that to a gallon and ran it, min cuts for fores/heads. I got 3 quarts. I watered and ran that with heavy cuts, throw away almost 30%!

I have two quarts of really decent, triple distilled white rum...while I multi-tasked! It takes two minutes to set it up, and two minutes to rinse it out when I'm finished.

I can't multi-task a keg, on a week night, in the kitchen.

If I lived in an apartment, in a restrictive country, had room mates, or no weekends, a five gallon carboy and an 1-2 gallon still, would keep me out of trouble and drinking at home.

I like the idea of a small easy set up take down striping still I could run after work or when I had the time. If i could run it when I didn't have time for the bigger set up I could save the low wines for when I had time for a spirit run. Every bit adds up right?

[DAD300]

EXACTLY...

[stevenun]

My first still was a 6 quart modified pressure cooker with a 1/4" copper worm. I know, i know...pressure cookers=bad. I learned the hard way before I found this board. It took a LOT of stripping runs before I had enough to do a small spirit run. My second was a 16 quart pressure cooker running the same worm. It took a lot less stripping runs to get to the point of a spirit run. I finally scrapped it. It kept starting to leak around the rubber seal no matter what I did. Not a good thing, even over a ceramic stove. I hated to lose that worm though - it was a thing of beauty, wound it around a gallon paint can and made a wooden form to hold the shape, after removing the paint can. I'm going with a Stainless Beer keg in the future. I have everything but the worm built, this time I'm running half inch tubing in the worm. I really want one of the 8 gallon milk can stills but until I can find a place to have it shipped where no one would ask questions, I'm not about to try! 8 gallons to me is about as small as I think is feasible for me. That's a 5 gallon carboy full of mash, plus a lot of headspace.

[phillmystill]

So, these threads get me going. This one did...again.

I had three gallons of left over rum wash sitting for a month or more. A gallon of this was really sour because I over did it with nutrients as an experiment for fermentation speed. The other two were the slop from a 26 gallon ferment, racking off the top and not filtering the shitz at the bottom.

I ran three one gallon strips (no cuts) in my Airstill. Each run took me 1.5 hours (while I ate, did the dishes, watched tv), I then had 3.5 quarts at ~50%. I watered that to a gallon and ran it, min cuts for fores/heads. I got 3 quarts. I watered and ran that with heavy cuts, throw away almost 30%!

I have two quarts of really decent, triple distilled white rum...while I multi-tasked! It takes two minutes to set it up, and two minutes to rinse it out when I'm finished.

I can't multi-task a keg, on a week night, in the kitchen.

If I lived in an apartment, in a restrictive country, had room mates, or no weekends, a five gallon carboy and an 1-2 gallon still, would keep me out of trouble and drinking at home.

Another benefit of one of these stills is being able to use an electrical timer switch; time the first stripping run, set the timer for subsequent stripping runs of your wash and leave it to do its thing!

[T-Pee]

The title of this thread is asking for it LOL.... where were you on this one TP.

Too easy but nobody stepped p to do my "light work" either.

tp

[thecroweater]

Airstill , really you want to convince someone to hand over a couple of big ones for a toy pot still that runs at the words of a bench top reflux and through a plastic Outlet to boot. Don't do it fella , unless you are trying to hide it in a cell I reckon you'll out grow that glorified coffee pot halfway through your first run

[hamshine]

The title of this thread is asking for it LOL.... where were you on this one TP.

Too easy but nobody stepped p to do my "light work" either.

tp

those are just big shoes to fill.

hamshine (emulating greatness)

[DAD300]

Airstill , really you want to convince someone to hand over a couple of big ones for a toy pot still that runs at the words of a bench top reflux and through a plastic Outlet to boot. Don't do it fella , unless you are trying to hide it in a cell I reckon you'll out grow that glorified coffee pot halfway through your first run

I have been using an Airstill for years. I use it to rerun and experiment once a month, when I would not take the time to setup anything more complicated. Not all Airstills have plastic.

I also have 5,6,8,15.5 and 25 gallon boilers. I wish I had started with an Airstill. I'd have made better choices about future builds.

I never tell anyone what to do or not to do. I merely speak of what works for me.

Now, if you were sincere, you would tell phillmystill why he shouldn't use a timer and leave his still unattended!