Home Distiller

I actually built this, and had it running for a week in january, when the temperature was hovering around -5C.
It worked rather nicely actually. Produced about a liter of 50%-40% per day. No oversight necessary. The condenser hose is aluminium. The product sits in my cupboard and will be used as a cleaning agent when I get my modular boka/nixon-stone/offset-vm -still built.
(Yes, I have ordered parts for all these options.)


More Pictures:
https://imgur.com/a/YqPor" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

WOW!! that's Different

that sure is posted in the correct category.

your pictures won't last on an outside host though.

viewtopic.php?f=52&t=15837

I like the comments

fizzix wrote:I like the comments

bbb.JPG

Lol

I don't have a picture, but there used to be this still over here called a Dooplast that was worthy of an honorable mention in this thread.

The Triplets.. Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

Edited By Yummurum : Copied pic from host site

More beauty than brains...
A lot going wrong here.

My new scalable "Easy filter"
No more coffee filters.
No more carbon washing. (in theory)
Haven't used this yet but will try later today.

This worked really well btw^^

I like that first one. The joints on it held together with super glue? Corn cob Hutchinson' last dam run o' rubbing alcyhol

I particularly like the gasoline, diesel, and propane containers next to the burner. As for the rest of the set up, I've probably ended up with similar connections on the weekends that I did 3 complete separate runs and made the cuts by taste in between runs.

Hi I am quite new to distillation, I started out of curiosity and my love for experiments ! I have built my very small scale easy to use still, it only does one gallon at a time, but is very energy efficient! I’ll post a bit of information if anyone is interested. I have read lots of this forum and learned lots from all of you so THANKS EVERYONE


The basics of my still : a glass gallon sits in a bath of hot water powered by hot water heaters that are controlled by a temperature sensor. The hot water and gallon sit in a large heavy insulated bucket with a styrofoam lid.

I use a small aquarium pump that slowly pumps air via a 1/4” copper line into the bottom of the glass gallon. I found the air bubbles and turbulence helps get the alcohol vapours to separate from the rest of the liquid faster. The first version of my still I found the room temp store air was cooling the mash and was causing my heater to run more that it should. The new version in the photos, now has a copper 1/4 air pipe in the Center of the 1/2” vapour out pipe. This pre heats the air going in and pre cools the alcohol vapour before it hits my cooling coils.

Also because of the electric powered system I am using, I can very precisely control the temperature. I typically start off at 180f and will run until 208f. I never let the water boil, helping control the concentration of alcohol. I shut it all down then the alcohol concentration hits around 38 percent. When double distilling i have tested the proof of the remaining liquid after it cools and it seems to remove almost all the alcohol.

Also the nice thing I find about this system is I have 6 glass gallons, I put my yeast fruit pulp and all to ferment in the gallon, when it is ready to run, I simply remove the airlock and place the gallon in the hot water bath. The remaining pulp from the fruit or any sediment never “burns” on the bottom. For clean up I just dump the mash down my sink, wash and sterilize the gallon. The heater coils only touch clean water. I run this I my house on my counter top. I measured the electricity usage to be under $0.40 to run 1 gallon.

I followed everyone’s advice here, NO PLASTIC ! The copper line is run though a rubber stopper for an air tight seal. I did originally document the internal/external temperatures, proof level, quantity of alcohol produced, with times of anyone is interested.

Anyway I’ll try to post a few pictures ! This is the 2nd generation still I made, the first wasn’t as pretty lol

Thanks again everyone thanks to all of you I learned how to ferment, how to measure gravity and proof levels and much much more ! Mod Edit: Trolling or not, this is a still NOT to make. Moved in what "not to do".

Glass boiler, not good.
Rubber stopper,not good
Temp controlled heaters, not good
1/4" pipe, not good
Condenser on its side, not good

You're post don't read like you're trolling but you've made many errors in this design.dont run it and read up. You don't want any fruit to clog your condenser, that would b'é a bad day out

Thanks for your input ! I decided to post this on here to get input from others. The 1/4 air pipe goes to the bottom of the glass gallon, but the 1/2” pipe is just at the surface of the gallon. I ran 10+ batches and so far have not had any of the mash get into the coils. The very first batch I had that issue, I noticed because the alcohol was fruit coloured ! but it was solved by leaving air room in the gallon.

I realize glass could explode, I do have it in a insulated bucket (actually 2 buckets with insulation between) just incase there was a breakage in the 1st bucket.

I am definitely not trolling,it would be a aweful lot of work for that lol and it’s may not be noticeable, but everything is soldered, I used a dremal To remove any excess solder from the surface.

I'll just comment on the coil. Stand it up and put it in a bucket. You can loose half the coils at least.
You should be able to drop a BB or bearing in the tube and it will run out the other side, all down hill.

In the fashion as you have it liquid will pool up in the bottom of each loop causing back pressure and smearing the product.

Thanks cayers!

I know exactly what you mean, I had that problem on an earlier version using thicker pipe. I switched to 1/4 pipe and found with the aquarium pump it “pushes” the air out of the coils because the system is air tight with only one exit. Originally I was experimenting with other diameter pipe and I did have the problem of alcohol sitting in the coil.

I built this just out of Curiosity, I read up lots on tried and tested designs, I just wanted to try something different to see if t would work.

I also understand the dangers of using glass now, if the condenser gets plugged it could explode. Also I typically heat the water while the gallon is in the bath, that way it doesn’t go from cold to burning hot at once. I hoped that if the pressure does build up in the glass gallon it would either pop the rubber stopper or the air line would disconnect from the air pump (not a very tight connection)

justforfun wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:32 am I know exactly what you mean, I had that problem on an earlier version using thicker pipe. I switched to 1/4 pipe and found with the aquarium pump it “pushes” the air out of the coils because the system is air tight with only one exit. Originally I was experimenting with other diameter pipe and I did have the problem of alcohol sitting in the coil.

I built this just out of Curiosity, I read up lots on tried and tested designs, I just wanted to try something different to see if t would work.

I also understand the dangers of using glass now, if the condenser gets plugged it could explode. Also I typically heat the water while the gallon is in the bath, that way it doesn’t go from cold to burning hot at once. I hoped that if the pressure does build up in the glass gallon it would either pop the rubber stopper or the air line would disconnect from the air pump (not a very tight connection)

Sooooo...what are you doing now?

tp

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:19 pm THUMPEER.jpg

Now that's cool. It's like having 5 hand grenades at face level.

Why stop with one jar when you can up your chance of getting injured by a factor of 5 or more?
And just for good measure lets put high ABV alcohol right above a very hot boiler just in case the hand grenades don't injury you enough, maybe the resulting fire will fix that.

Can't tell if that's gas fired or not but hell, maybe the CO2 would help put the fire out. LOL

Now that's cool. It's like having 5 hand grenades at face level. that made me laugh good cayars

I sure hope the pets aren’t there when that mess is being run. The human who built it, I’m not so worried about.

OtisT wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 12:41 pm I sure hope the pets aren’t there when that mess is being run. The human who built it, I’m not so worried about.

I had that thought as well but figured they are probably smarter than the builder.

Seen the one the "pros" are using on Moonshiners this year? I think it has 20 to 25 mason jars hanging from a frame.[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201912 ... 9ab939.jpg[/IMG]

What is that, a hillbilly flute?

That's probably a good description. They are trying to make vokda.

That stupid show is still on? That thing looks like someone tried to make Christmas lights out of gaslamps!

Built up so much back pressure that they couldn't keep the cap in the still and had to take a third off line to lower pressure. The big thing this season is a new idea: distill spirits twice to make it more palatable! Damn why didnt we think of that?

FLOB wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:44 pm Seen the one the "pros" are using on Moonshiners this year? I think it has 20 to 25 mason jars hanging from a frame.
[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201912 ... 9ab939.jpg

My god, the heat loss in that. I bet it would look out of this world if it was running at full steam & the jars started to pop & ignite.

FLOB wrote: ↑Tue Dec 17, 2019 2:44 pm Seen the one the "pros" are using on Moonshiners this year? I think it has 20 to 25 mason jars hanging from a frame...

Saw the episode. Too funny.

Best takeaway from the show was that fancy pipe cutter he used to make clean cuts on the copper pipes. I’d like to get one for my toolbox.
ss