One column or two?

[Steve Broady]

Been there, done that. The good news is, the plastic pail is cheap and it’s relatively easy to get the copper line to (more or less) seal in the hole at the bottom. The bad news is, it’s a mess, it’s awkward, and it quickly becomes more of a pain than it’s worth.

I started by filling the pail with water, then adding ice as it heated up, occasionally emptying out enough warm water to make room for more ice during a run. It worked. It used all the ice I had in the freezer. It was a bit of a mess. And then I was constantly worried about the seal at the bottom letting my cooling water mix with the alcohol dripping out of the worm.

And we haven’t even gotten to the part about the worm not having an even slope, with the consequent pooling and sputtering.

It didn’t take me long to decide that I wanted to move up to something more like the big boys use. It wasn’t too expensive, it was easy to build, I learned about soldering copper pipe, and even my first attempt was a vast improvement over a copper coil in a plastic bucket.

My point is that you can most definitely go cheap and simple, but my experience is that you’ll likely get more enjoyment out of the hobby if you take the time to build slightly better equipment. Especially starting out. Is been my experience in many different hobbies that it takes an experienced person to get the most out of beginner level tools, and that beginners are far better off starting with something better.