Home Distiller

The bipod will stay. I will make a better mount for it rather than go with zip ties and also drill it internally to make a 45°, stop just because I can.

The acrylic clamp it a quick one I did just to stabilize the supply pipe against the outer shell of the condenser. I will clean it up to make it prettier.

Some added pics. The thermal probe is a DIY one made of an LM35 (degrees centigrade) temperature sensor pressed down into a closed ended 1/4" copper tube with reducer and cap to complete it. The first pic it was not finished and was basically just a copper thermowell. The LM35 outputs 10mV DC for every ℃ change in temperature, so full scale for our purposes 1V DC out at 100℃. I use a simple panel voltmeter with the decimal point set to read out in ℃.

The pressure reducing regulator really improves the usable range of a cheap needle valve, CM guys take note!

http://al-ambiq.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/4120.png Hope this shows, I just bought this...anyone ever seen one like it?

Not Pictures of my Rigs , Sorry.

Wanted to share though, from 2019. Visited Majorca/Mallorca Spain. Spanish island a little south of the mainland and found this antique, sewing, knitting factory. They had many older "all copper" stills laying around from back in the day. Interesting place.

Just finished my first electric rig today. Tea urn with a 1200mm Liebig; ss outer with copper 1/2" vapour tube, spiral wound on water side.Testing with vinegar right now. Excited!
No cooling as my wife does not like hosepipes running through the house
Proper test tomorrow.
I know, I know; bin the thermometer!

I don't think I ever showed you all the big girl.

2" copper Nixon stone.
Rubberised Bud barrel boiler.

She fills that 4.5l demijohn with 90% in about an hour and a half.

She's not pretty & I don't really know what I'm doing. But all my friends say I'm making the best damn whiskey / corn liquor / Apple brandy they ever had?
Reckon even a blind hog finds a nut ever now and then
Cheers

Royco wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2020 8:34 am Site mod, I took all the pics with the same orientation. Some are rotated 90deg?

Rotate it in an app and resave. It likely is the result of the device’s orientation sensor and how you hold the camera, landscape or portrait...horizontal or vertical, respectively.

Here, I did it for you (this time). ss

Here's mine. The lid cost £13 delivered from Ali express, and I took the column from a previous pressure cooker set up.
On my 1st stripping run and it works very well.
Is there enough copper?or should I add some to the boiler?

My humble contribution. Excuse the mess in the background. The shop was a mess last week when it got here.

Deplorable wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:23 pm
Thats all I have to do? Damn it.

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Consider the following image:
This is successful because the intent of the image was to include all of the elements you see. The array of fermenters in the foreground lead the eye to the main event, the Chichibu pot still and condenser in background. If a homedistiller, wishing to to capture just an image of his still simply rotates his phone to orient horizontally, he ends up with an image like this:
. It's readily noticeable that the image is cluttered with unnecessary items that distract from the focal point that is the still.
Looking at the images distillers post of their rigs, the overwhelming majority of them are oriented vertically because stills are inherently taller than they are wide:
.
.
and
.
As much as the admins would like all of the images to appear in their proper orientation, they do not have the inclination nor the time to fix all of the 'horizontals'. As such, it is the responsibility of the originator to 'proofread' his post and correct any horizontal pics himself.

This is easily accomplished using a photo editor or image preview tool to rotate the horizontal image into a vertical orientation prior to submitting. Like having to contribute an intro post prior to being able to ask the forum's advice, this function should already be understood and fluent when posting a pic. This would be a common courtesy requiring but a few minutes to research, really.

Twisted Brick

Mh head and beer keg just toying around since my real still is in storage

My 3” CCVM setup.

6"/4" hybrid column/2" valved Vapor Management takeoff

Updated Arrangement: 4" column with VM takeoff to a 1.5" Inner Diameter liebig.
Both reflux and product condenser can handle up to 9kw each, providing plenty of knock down power when used in tandem during a run.

Simple yet effectively

Rebuilding my still.

Using the old small still as a whisky helmet on top of a bigger boiler.

Old still.
Cut off bottom and soldered a 5" ferrule on. End plate and voila, operational small still.
Mount it on a bigger boiler and ...

My old trusty offset head still. I'm looking into replacing the 2" column with a 3" boka style and increasing the heating capacity.

My seven year old build isn't as shiny as it once was, but continues to work it's magic at least twice a year. The only change I'd make is a larger boiler. I added a SS ball valve to facilitate easier charging and draining, especially during stripping runs.









Maxx

you can tell your cooler to start paying up alimony.
No way in hell this is not his offspring

Fantastic, is there anything SS bowls can't do?

Here's a shinier time.

The Loser Scumbag's rig. It has evolved quite a bit over the past year. All the big components are in place. A few tweeks in order.

The copper is 1 inch and 2 inch.

The 8 gallon can has a 5500w 240v heat element. Not in the picture but it's running through an scr for power control.

It pushes steam in to the 16 gallon can which holds the mash.

Then condenser is a 2 inch shotgun condenser.

The cooling water reservoir holds 18 gsllons, it's recirculating through a transmission fluid radiator that's been zip tied to a box fan. Doesn't work as well as I hoped it would. I wonder if it would work better if I found one without the black paint?

So far this is working very well.
No more squeezing out my mashes and no more scorching.
Also, stripping runs are fast so I can run down pretty far.

plans said 12 gallon i never run more that 10 gallon and a 4 gallon thumper. hyd cooling fans cooling condenser water.

This is my small setup (Kentucky style still), it can hold ½ gallon of wash.
The other is my 20 gallon pot mostly for fruit washes.

My DIY pot still and liebig condenser for my t500 and parrot

Here is my grandpa's old copper still that I resurrected. I don't know much on its build as he is gone and my grandma doesn't remember. There are a lot of cool old stories about it like being run in the basement on a wood stove, dumping gallons of wash in the ditch behind the house cause the sheriff was coming, and things like that. I replaced a few old parts and found zero leaks and went to boiling. I have done 5 runs through it and it works great. I still have lots to learn, but been having a blast and making some good hooch along the way.