Home Distiller

Yes,ideal burner for one gallon is a single burner gas campers stove and a 3 pound bottle. Even the side burner on your grill.

Yup id check for leaks if is lopein.
Don't take much. Lopein makes for a long night.
Can't get no rhythm.
Use a mirror or a squirt bottle and soap suds.

One gallon you best be gettin a defuser like a cast iron skillet an that might help with the cyclein by help keepin it near constant tempeture.

So I'm tole

When my reflux still was surging like that it was bumping... I had to put copper chips into the boiler to keep a more smooth boil going.

Is the bottom of the pot 100% flat when heated up?
Cheap pots without sandwich bottom often form a bowl when heated up. Then the heat is not transferred well, the hotplate gets very hot and the thermostat switches off much more often.

I think it's the hot plate. The camp stove( if you don't have a gas stove) is proberly the best solution. With such a small still you would be able to run on a small stove. If the surging continues, you could make a wire 'coon pecker bone' such as this:http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 7#p7302059. Sorry can't get it to work, it's in what not to use under copper wire.

I think to start ima try what happened with maybe some boil chips and then use this

https://www.amazon.com/TruePower-123-Va ... ed+control" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Ill investigate setting the hotplate to max and using this in combination. Also after christmas I suppose Ill look into one of the larger stainless stills you can get on ebay fairly cheap.

Unless you've gutted the hot plate and run it with a controller it will cycle and shut down when it gets too hot. I removed everything from mine... thermostat, thermal breaker, all the wiring.... I have two high temp wires going to the coil, everything else is gone. My temp controller (home made) controls it from 0 to 1500watts by varying the current without cycling. It is surprisingly accurate at what it does.

Also, if your pot has a smooth surface on the bottom, you'll need to add boiling chips. As Der Wo mentioned, the bottom of your pot can deform causing the pot to rock.