Pot still - turning a toad into a prince

[rockymars]

Dear all,

In my zest to distill something useful, I bought myself this cheap pot still -> https://m.vevor.com.au/alcohol-distille ... 0703858271. I had no idea what I was doing…

It features:
- 20 litre pot (pot ok, but lid is wonky and bulges/contorts under pressure; riser is 1/2”)

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- thumper (too small, 2 litres; no pipe going into the liquid so not really a thumper)

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- condenser is 3/8” copper coil, about 1.3m/52” in length)

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- silicone seals throughout.

I did a vinegar run, followed by a water run this week. It took me quite a while to wrestle the rig into equilibrium but I sort of got there. I was collecting distillate at about 0.5-0.75L/h.

I would like to upgrade this thing into a useable pot still that won’t take a century for each run. I’d like to get my hands dirty on brandy, rum and bourbon and I want it to be a pleasure, not a wrestling match every time.

I’m thinking of doing the following:
- cut a great big hole in the lid, and mount an upturned bowl on top (this should be stable enough to hold a reflux column… future upgrade)

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- cut a 2” hole in the bowl (dome) to accommodate a tri clamp connector.
- pipe sections (all 2” tri clamp): riser (300mm/12”), tee (c/w blanking plate at the top), 90 degree elbow, and 2” to 1/2” reducer
- replace the condenser with a 1.2m/4” liebig, 1/2” inside a 1” jacket)
- heating will be a 1,500W hotplate, SCR controlled
- PTFE seals throughout.

As I said, my first priority to is get a pot still going so that I can play around with brown spirits. In future I’d like to upgrade the pot still to CCVM so that I can do gin (the missus’ poison of choice), hence going for all the tri clamp stuff now.

Are there any glaring issues with my pot still design?

Cheers
RM