Tea pot still

[waynebeer]

For my first build I tried a teapot, with a copper worm and a Black and Decker electric burner. My first run was running Bud light and trying to make it whiskey while waiting for my first patch of apple wash to ferment. I used flour paste to seal up everything. All in all, it was a horrible failure. I burned the pot so bad, the smell from burning the sugars in the beer was so horrible, that I threw out the entire set up since I couldn't get the smell out. Even the worm was scraped. I'm going to retry that again, but I am doing a lot more reading before I do another run. Meanwhile the hard apple cider tastes delicious!

[waynebeer]

Oops, I put up a picture of my current still too.

[OtisT]

Damn, it looks like your entire rig is glued together with paste. I guess whatever works.

If you burnt beer that bad something went horribly wrong. Just beer in a pan should not burn like that, that is unless you ran it dry? Beer is only ~4-8% ABV, so you should have had most of your liquid volume still left over in the pan when you finished.

Does your hot plate (HP) cycle on/off during a run? Most HPs do cycle on/off without some modification. If your hot plate is cycling, a simple low-tech fix is to add a heat sync between the hot plate and boiler pan. The heat sync will smooth out the cycle and deliver a consistent heat flow to the pan. Making cuts will be extremely difficult for you if you don’t take care of this. Hacking the device to bypass the temp sensor and to add a controller would be better, but if you can’t solder I’m thinking you should not mess with electricity either. Just sayin.

I found through my own experimenting that a 3 lb sync is enough to smooth out heat for a 1500w hot plate. That is a 10” x 10” piece of 1/4” thick aluminum. I tried a 1 lb iron kitchen store sync and while it improved matters, I still saw heat fluctuations at the boiler. The piece needs to be perfectly smooth to make a good flush contact with both the hot plate and boiler pan. I think the scrap yard charged me about $15 for that piece of aluminum, including the fee to cut it to size.

I’m sure you have a lot more to read and learn, but getting a smooth supply of heat will be a good start to helping you make a descent product.

Otis

[waynebeer]

OtisT: You're right, the teapot still was completely glued together with the flour paste. I threw out that hole setup after that run. As for the current still, I glued it together too and did a steam run. I couldn't keep up with all the leaks so I finally soldered it all together. I'm actually not bad at soldering, I just don't let people know that I can do it lol. As for hacking the hotplate. I have no idea how to do that but maybe I'll get my buddy to help and I'll post the hack on here somewhere. I am guessing that a sync is essentially a big hunk of metal plate that can disperse the heat evenly? Thanks for the tip. I think I'm going to drink the mash I have since it does taste pretty good on its own and get to hacking lol.

[OtisT]

. I am guessing that a sync is essentially a big hunk of metal plate that can disperse the heat evenly?

Yes.

[shadylane]

I couldn't keep up with all the leaks so I finally soldered it all together.

That sounds like your boiler was building up some pressure
It shouldn't be doing that. Your worm probably has a low spot or other restriction.
Try blowing through the worm and see if it makes bubbling sounds

[cayars]

Make sure your worm constantly goes down hill. It needs to be a nice spiral. All to often people throw them together and one side is higher than the other and the liquid has to run uphill at some point, which is bad as it will cause the blockage shadylane is talking about.

If you don't have a frame or spacers to hold the proper shape this will likely always be a problem. You should be able to gently drop a BB or ball bearing in at the top and it comes out the bottom without getting hung up in any of the coils. If it doesn't come out the bottom it had to go up hill and got stuck.

[waynebeer]

My final product from a banana wine wash smells like a wet dog dipped in turpentine. Despite running it through a Brita water filter. I'm going to save it for now, maybe use it in a thumper if I can get that to work, but I'm not going to try and drink it.

[still_stirrin]

... smells like a wet dog dipped in turpentine. Despite running it through a Brita water filter. ... I'm going to save it for now...

You didn’t actually run your spirit (high proof alcohol) through a plastic encased carbon filter did you???

No wonder it’s CRAP! It’s firestarter now.

[waynebeer]

... smells like a wet dog dipped in turpentine. Despite running it through a Brita water filter. ... I'm going to save it for now...

You didn’t actually run your spirit (high proof alcohol) through a plastic encased carbon filter did you???

No wonder it’s CRAP! It’s firestarter now.

Lol lol I wish it would actually catch fire lol. It was the sacrificial run through the new still and I thought was crap before (so was the water filter) so I figured I had nothing to lose. I am never going to use this batch of spirits (after a lot of reading I realized the sacrificial run is just that and nothing else) but I will be saving it for sentimental reasons. Out of frustration, I went to the state store and bought a bottle of Climax Moonshine in 90 proof to compare the smells of it to my "spirit". The Climax smells like straight Turpentine while mine smells watered down. I can't believe that is what un-aged spirits smells like lol. I don't feel like a total failure now and am going to try it again. This time, I will not be using a Brita as a filter. I think I'll go straight to a barrel or flavor it with apple slices.

[NZChris]

Don't save it. It could be toxic and if it is and some idiot, or hero, drinks it, they won't be the first to spend a day on the crapper barfing into a bucket.

You will soon have some nice clean foreshots to use for cleaner.