Pot Still Complete

[Bombo80]

I finally got my pot still completed. As you can see, I cut most of the top of the keg off. Leaving just the handles, but did an angle cut, to leave more on the keg. I bought the installation tool for the 1.5 inch ferrules, and drilled the hole near the bottom of the keg. The tapered mandrel pushed through the keg and forced the ferrule into the keg. Once I had it centered and squared up, I cleaned it all with acetone, then used the flux, silver solder and map gas to solder it in the keg. Now I can install and remove the 220V – 5500W electric element.

I built an inexpensive controller. I used an ammo can I had, and bought the SSR with a heatsink and potentiometer. I mounted the heatsink to the bottom of the ammo can. There is a raised area perfect for the bolts to out of the way. I work in the computer industry, so I am fortunate to get the L6-30 power cables, with ends, for free. I cut one in half and mounted it going in the side of the ammo can. I purchased a 220v box fan, and mounted it on one end of the ammo can and drilled several air holes on the other end, which end up being under the closing latch handle. I tried it out and it works perfectly.

The keg has been used as a keggle, for brewing large batches of beer, for many years. I was fortunate to NOT have cut away too much of the top metal. I had a stainless bowl that fit on it perfectly, with the entire lip of the bowl as the mating surface between it, the gasket and the keg. I had a weldless 1.5 inch ferrule, and installed it on the bowl. I went this way because that was one of the first parts I purchased, and hated not using it. Considering the price I paid for it. I built a gasket from cardboard and used a whole 1429 inch roll of PTFE tape. Lots of winding. Completely lost track of how many layers I had.

[Bombo80]

To secure the bowl to the keg, I used the pieces of stainless steel I cut off the keg, to make hold downs. I drilled and tapped the keg lip, for some stainless steel machine bolts. I cleaned them with acetone then used the flux and silver solder to lock them in place, and make it air tight. As you can see, I cut the backside of the rolled top edge to sit and put pressure on the lip of the bowl, and used a wing nut to tighten them in place. I am going to see if I can bend the tab upward, and get rid of the washer, or go with a smaller one instead.

I then went with a 3.5 inch long, 1.5 inch to 2 inch reducer tube, to connect the bowl to the column with a tri clamp and silicone gasket. I decided to go with stainless tubing and a Tee, for the column. It cost less than copper, and I didn't have to solder anything. Win, Win !! I went with the Tee at the top of the column, since I was going off how the mile high 8 gallon stills are built. A friend has one, and I like its simplicity. I will put a gum rubber bung that has been drilled for a thermometer. Just to keep an eye on temps as the stilling process starts.

From the Tee, I went with a short 2 inch to 1.5 inch reducer, then got a 1.5 inch stainless weldable ferrule and soldered it in a short piece of copper, then stepped it down from 1.5 inch to 1 inch, to 3/4 inch to finally 1/2 inch. Not sure why, but I went with two 45* bends into a 1/2 inch female threaded adapter to my condenser that has the male threaded adapter on it. I did this so I can easily take it apart for cleaning. The bowl isn’t very solid. The bottom of it is pretty thin. There was a lot of movement with the column and condenser attached. So I cut a piece of wood I had laying around to help stabilize the condenser at the elbows.

The condenser is 3/4 inch copper over 1/2 inch, with a length of 12 ga. wire wound around the 1/2 inch pipe, and soldered in a few points. This is to keep the 1/2 tube centered in the 3/4 inch tube, plus to act as a turbulizer for the cooling water moving up through the condenser. The water jacket is 36 inches long, with an overall length of about 42 inches. I also wound a length of that 12 ga. wire around a black powder cleaning rod, then messed it up a bit and stuffed it into the condenser, to act as a turbulizer in the vapor path.

For cooling the condenser, I am going to use a fountain pump. 400 pgh, with a 7’ lift. I have a 13 gallon garbage can for the water reservoir. To regulate the flow, I am going to use a splitter valve and have one end going to the condenser and the other back into the reservoir. That way I can adjust the flow so it won’t be too much going through the condenser. I might try it without the valve, just to see how much flow I get.
Then I was thinking about keeping it cool, during a run, and hooking into my wort chiller off the exit of the condenser. Have the wort chillier in one of my brewing bottling buckets, because it has a valve on it, so I can drain it and put more cold water, or ice, in it as needed. Then just run a line back into the reservoir. Round and round we go.

Now I need to clean everything. Disassemble each tri clamp union. Scrub/soak in 50/50 vinegar/water. Rinse with clean hot water and air dry the parts. Assemble everything and put a 50/50 mix of vinegar and water into the still. Run it without cooling for an hour. Shut it down. Once it is cool, disassemble and rinse everything with hot water and air dry. Assemble everything and put a plain water charge in the still and run it for an hour, but then start the cooling system to see how well it works and then shut it down once I have a good feel for it. Let it cool and drain the still. Charge it with a sacrificial run of Birdwatchers mash and run it as if it were a normal run. Collect the heads, hearts and tails, adjusting the cooling and power to the heating element as needed.

[Samyguy]

I like your ammo box junction box, I'm going to run down to Harbor freight and get one of their plastic ammo boxes
2- thumbs up

[StillerBoy]

I must complement you having put some thought into the project, a very nice setup..

Having said that, there are a few things I would like to point out..

on your controller, there seem to be no amp meter.. it is almost a must have such item to assist in its properly usage of the controller.. not much in pot stripping, but very important in refluxing, as sometime a half amp makes all the difference..

on your use of a bowl, you will find that the idea is good, but the bowl have some weakness area.. one of these area in the bottom of the bowl.. once a hole is cut into it, the sides around the hole area become weak, and because of that, once a column is attached to the ferrule, the column can be wobbly.. on a short column it is not to bad, but when you add a 3 -4' column, the column wobbles.. to over come this and to strength the area, I soldered a drain sink to the bowl bottom, then press a ferrule in place and soldered.. the other area are could be the rim itself.. I found a glass cover the same inside size as the bowl, broke the glass, and soldered them together, thereby making the rim quite strong, and improves in holding the sealing better..

Just a few points that I've had to overcome myself..

Mars

[Bombo80]

StillerBoy,
Thanks for the suggestions. I know that the rim of my bowl is super sturdy. I was trying to bend it a little bit, to try and match the angle of the keg top. But it was virtually impossible,and I was using a small hand sledge to hammer on it.
I'm not too worried about an amp meter right now. But I could always hook in my digital multimeter if I needed to.

[StillerBoy]

Just keep the suggestions in mind.. under pot still operation, there very little pressure built up.. but under reflux operation, there is considerably most pressure, and that went the weak areas show up by leaking vapors..

Yah keg surface are not prefect.. so what I did was cut 1" of the pot top edge and solder the rim of the pot itself unto the keg.. problem solved

Mars

[Bombo80]

I will keep those in mind if I start having issues.

Thanks

[Tony1964]

Nice job

[Bombo80]

So I scrubbed everything with a vinegar/water wash. Got everything scrubbed and rinsed with hot water. Assembled it and ran the vinegar/water wash for an hour. Shut it down and rinsed everything, again, with hot water. Then charged it with 7 gallons of water and let it steam for another hour. After that I had my cooling system setup and within seconds of turning the pump on, it went from steam to distillate. I played around with the flow and voltage adjustments to the element, until I was happy with the results and my confidence on running the still.
I let it cool down and emptied the boiler, then charged it with the BW sugar wash, as my sacrificial run. That went extremely well.
I let it cool down and the next day charged it with my rum wash. Here I learned several things. Never put too much wash in the boiler. I had over 13 gallons in my 16 gallon keg still. Needless to say, it puked. Having never seen this before, I really didn't know what was happening. Pretty much the whole first gallon collected had a brownish tint to it. I continued collecting all the way down to about 10 proof. I collected just over 13 quarts of rum.
Since it puked on me, I am going to do another 6 gallon rum wash and add all the first run back into that, and run it all a second time. I guess its kind of a 1.5 run.
Cleaning the oily crap out of the still and condenser was NOT a fun job, but I now see why puking is not a good thing to have happen. I will have to add a tablespoon of butter next time to see if that helps with the foaming in the boiler.
All in all it was a fun run, and I really learned a lot, and my cooling setup worked extremely well.

[StillerBoy]

Here I learned several things. Never put too much wash in the boiler. I had over 13 gallons in my 16 gallon keg still.

Now a lot this depends on what you are stripping, and how much heat up power is used.. not all sugar wash behave the same, and similarly, not all grains mush behave the same when being stripped..

On rum, and similar heavy sugar base wash, I load the boiler about 2/3 volume, use only about 3/4 (4000w) of my available power (5500w) on heat up, went the column start to be hot to the touch, I reduce power to about half (2000w) of what I was using, plus I use some anti-foaming agent.. then puking becomes a non issue.. rye is also a touchy one to stripped..

Puking most time is the result of using to much power from start up, and on.. by reducing the power, you reduce the hard boil that come with using high power.. just put a pot of wash on the stove and observe the behave, the same occurs in the boiler..

Yah it take a little more time to process the run, but I do not like the required clean up if I go the other way..

Mars

[Bombo80]

Thanks Stillerboy, I will definitely use this advice.

[StillerBoy]

There are whosw advocate to strip hard and fast.. that is all fine, but what is not said is under what circumstance..

A lot depends on what it is you are stripping.. a wineo's style sugar wash, properly cleared, power on high until column is hot, then reduced down.. on all grains, some don't clear well, so one has to use lower power up.. on others, the power can be somewhat high.. so it's all about being mindful of how clear the wash/mash is, and what base it is, and how much is in the boiler.. and by following these step, one also minimizes the chance of scorching.. by making notes of the power usage behave, one learns to minimize the trouble of cleaning the boiler and column..

I just don't like causing issues that I have control over..

Mars

[Sharks_n_danger]

So I scrubbed everything with a vinegar/water wash. Got everything scrubbed and rinsed with hot water. Assembled it and ran the vinegar/water wash for an hour. Shut it down and rinsed everything, again, with hot water. Then charged it with 7 gallons of water and let it steam for another hour. After that I had my cooling system setup and within seconds of turning the pump on, it went from steam to distillate. I played around with the flow and voltage adjustments to the element, until I was happy with the results and my confidence on running the still.
I let it cool down and the next day charged it with my rum wash. Here I learned several things. Never put too much wash in the boiler. I had over 13 gallons in my 16 gallon keg still. Needless to say, it puked. Having never seen this before, I really didn't know what was happening. Pretty much the whole first gallon collected had a brownish tint to it. I continued collecting all the way down to about 10 proof. I collected just over 13 quarts of rum.
Since it puked on me, I am going to do another 6 gallon rum wash and add all the first run back into that, and run it all a second time. I guess its kind of a 1.5 run.
Cleaning the oily crap out of the still and condenser was NOT a fun job, but I now see why puking is not a good thing to have happen. I will have to add a tablespoon of butter next time to see if that helps with the foaming in the boiler.
All in all it was a fun run, and I really learned a lot, and my cooling setup worked extremely well.

If that was your first alcohol run, I wouldn’t be putting it back in. It’s strongly advised to a sacrificial alcohol run after the vinegar run because it will pick up things the water and vinegar runs couldn’t.

[Bombo80]

Sharks,

Sorry about that, I forgot to add that sacrificial run, but have edited that.

This was my first real run.

I had already run the vinegar/water wash, and let it steam for an hour. Then I rinsed everything with very hot water, then ran a plain water run, and let that steam for an hour. Then I turned my cooling system on, so I could get used to that too.

After that I ran a sacrificial sugar wash, and that came out very nice. I did not keep any of it, as instructed by the numerous newbie threads on this subject.

Once that was done and emptied, I ran the rum, but that was the next day. I knew it was going to take some time, so I had started at 8 am, and ran it until almost 6pm. I was still pulling 60 proof at that time. Not sure if this was a good idea, but I knew not to leave it running, unattended. So I shut it down. I fired it back up when I got back, and pulled another 6 quarts, all the way down to 10 proof.

Again, still learning how to run the still. I think I did pretty good for the first time. But who knows. I let it air out for 24 hours, and tasted one of the 124 proof jars, and it was very tasty.

When I get it all back together, I am going to run another vinegar/water wash and then a short plain water (steam) run to make sure everything is cleaned out. THEN I will start the next wash. This is going to be an apple brandy. I have about 7 gallons of hard cider ready to go.

[Chauncey]

I saw you mentioned a gummy rubber bung. Go ahead and get a natural cork instead. Make sure it's not the kind that are glued vertically in sections so no glue contacting vapor.

Or wrap it completely in PTFE

Nice work on the still all around.

[Bombo80]

The stopper I have is described as follows ....

"Solid food grade pure tan gum stopper. Can be easily drilled to fit airlock, thermometer, etc.
Made of chemical tolerant pure tan gum."

These are the exact same stoppers that are sold by many of the still parts retailers.

I have no issues using them.

[Yummyrum]

Thats good for you . Thats your choice .

This forum takes a strong view on not using synthetics . Food grade is not alcohol tolerant and there are many different chemicals as well as various alcohols in a distillation . Teflon is the only synthetic which is proven to be resistant to all .