I just bought ten feet of 16 oz and ten feet of 20 oz copper sheet. My plan is to make a sphere shaped turnip still with a 4" column and all the trimmings. Haven't decided on what column style to build but that's my future self's problem. My goal is to get this boiler and head together so its SOLID! I want be able to pass this still down 10 generations. Anyone know of any good turnip designs/templates? I'm going rather large. The old lady is tired of all the buckets all over the house so I got a 45 Gallon fermenter a little while back (now she just complains about 1 haha) + I'd like to be able to do the barrel in 2 runs. So I need at least a 30-35 gallon boiler to account for heads space for half the barrel- 23 Gallons of wash (give or take a gallon or two) The old lady don't like me running the still every week so I'm increasing size on all to speed up run times and increase total volume. (currently I've been doing back to back runs in my keg with my 2" column anyway but were talking an all day event(which the old lady hates) for only 2 gallons of hearts (gallon for me & a gallon for my quadriplegic buddy) And its not easy to shutdown my rig, take off my heavy column, dump the backset, refill with new mash aaaaaand reattach column by myself. Its beginning to wear me down lol. I figure one barrel of mash a month, 2 runs a month will give me plenty (I also supply my handicapped buddy, hes got a keg still on 1 1/4" column/flake but it don't produce like mine, and he knows it
(hes also got a lot of brass inline and no matter how much I bug him I can't get him to remove it...maybe that's why he likes mine so much...its cllllllllean .... The way my mother in law has been enjoying my shine soaked up in fruit, I better keep it coming to stay on her good side. Its been two years since my miserable attempt at a copper boiler... before I gave up after a month of working on it and ended up going with a keg 2 years later (took the time to slowly purchase parts for the condenser and column while I was in trades school)
However after recently helping a buddy create a copper thumper I think I'm ready to take one more whack at it.
The entire project probably won't be finished until next year lol but I will be posting pictures as I progress step by step. Thanks for reading and......STAY TUNED! MUCH FUN TO COME!
Cheers,
Rain Distillate