Hello Everyone! -Notsoproud owner of Chinese Still

[Lowenthal]

Hi Everyone. I've been involved in home brewing for a bit over 10 years now, making wine kits and some fruit fermentations (I'm really proud of my apple cider). I first found this site two years ago I think it was, and spent hours every night it seemed reading through posts and trying to soak up some of the knowledge here. I should have kept reading because I think I've already made a huge mistake. I purchased a 3-pot stainless still setup (5 gallon boiler). Once it was delivered I discovered to my dismay that it had been manufactured in China, and the "support videos" were not available. As yet I've had no response to my email to the merchant either. If you look at the picture below you'll see that not only are there inappropriate materials used but the thumper and flake stand/worm are ridiculously small. There is another problem I saw which is the input to the thumper is a hole in the bottom of the pot. Can a still setup like this even work as intended? If I ever get a response from my email I'm going to see about getting a refund but if that falls through...would it be better to try to fix the issues with this setup, or just toss everything but the boiler and start from scratch? I already have enough 1/2" copper line to make a reasonably sized worm for the boiler capacity. FYI be forewarned. This still was from Ama+TrulyStep on Amazon.com aka FayeLong on AmazonEurope. Don't waste your money on this trash.