Home Distiller

I decided to try my hand at distilling. I have always been the type to manufacturer artisan quality products for my ingestion, and now I want to give alcohol a shot.

I am starting with a simple sugar wash, and with turbo 48 (yeast and nutes). I pretty much have it all down. I am going to use an old 10 gallon pickle bucket, drill a hole and attach a hose to a water container for an airlock.

My distilling setup is really what I am wondering about. I have a 24/40 chemistry distilling kit. While I have never even distilled water in my life, I am assuming the condensers discussed on the site appear to function like this one -
http://www.uicoglass.com/condensers/ui3535.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Will this work ok? I have a hot plate / stirrer that I will use on a 2L flat bottom flask to bring the wash to a boil once it is fermented. I will buy a water pump to pump cool water through the condenser. I have a thermometer port that will measure the temp of the vapor coming before it enters the condenser. My setup most closely resembles this -

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-24-40-Chemistry ... 286.c0.m14" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Is this adequate? (I have much larger flask to hold the wash and receive the distillate)

I can run it under a vacuum if necessary or would achieve better result. I was under the impression vacuum just lowers the boiling points, and would make it harder to see a temp difference between methanol and ethyl.

Will this work, or should I change something up? Any advice you could give to a first timer?

Welcome to the HD forums, xodusforever...

If you're seriously thinking about getting into home distillation you might want to steer away from using glass... We have one or two lab guys and glass blowers who use it but the dangers associated with glass are a bit risky... You can build a decent copper or stainless still for about the same money as lab glass and they won't break... Hot volatile high ABV ethanol is the last thing you want hitting a flame should the glass decide to fail... You also want to have some copper in the vapor path to remove sulfer compounds during the distillation process...

We've got plenty of information here and are willing to answer your questions... Good luck...

..Stainless steel pots cheaper ,much safer,use copper scrubbers. Good luck!.....DRJ

The glass lab aparatus is way too small. A 20l stainless or copper boiler will hold a 15l charge (must leave some headroom), if the wash is 10%alc then you will get a total of 1.5l pure alcohol or less. Of the 1.5l about 0.5l or one third will be hearts (good drinking) and the remainder will be heads and tails. That's only the alcohol, so if the still produces an average of 60% alc then you will get proportionately more volume with the added water and flavours coming through.

Also glass needs rubber to connect the bits together. Rubber or plastic are not advisable no matter how resistant they are supposed to be because hot alcohol liquid or vapor are in a class of their own. There is no way to tell if poisonous chemicals are being leached into stuff that you and others will be consuming.

Glass is not impossible, but for the reasons given above and in the previous replies it must be copper or stainless. Stills need to be very strong and solidly put together.

Well the glass is 24/40 ground connections, so it is only glass to glass, no rubber or plastics connecting them. Even the thermometer is ground glass connections.

However, I was worried about the size, as you pointed out, it will be way to small.

Hmmm, I guess a copper still is the way to go, but being a chemistry freak, I wanted to try and use glass. But I will look around and see if I can get a still made of copper.

Another question, if anyone has the time, but this is one about fermentation -

Is it better to keep it cooler and take longer to ferment, or hotter for quicker ferments? I want to produce nice neutral spirits, and the yeast package gives several options.

I was thinking of less sugar, cooler temps for a slower ferment, but i may be wrong. Opinions?

Would a still like this work?

http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/sho ... 0&format=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Seems pretty cheap, only 109$ shipped.

Edit - ohh and it is a 4gal size.

Edit 2 - Ive just found mile hi distilling. They look to be really good quality parts. The only thing is, there is no copper in their stills. I guess I could attach something to port where the alky comes out, and have it run over pure copper mesh.

I guess this will cost a bit of money, but i am not inclined to make my own still. I prefer to pay a professional to do so, and these guys seem very legit.

http://www.milehidistilling.com/30lt_St ... /16030.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I guess $359 isnt too much to put into making a quality product.

And after much lurking lately, I am finding turbo is kind of a no go.

Aye, I have a ways to go, but the learning is fun nonetheless.

While not the most up-to-date design, the Mile-Hi stuff is very well made.
Use copper mesh for the column packing and you are good to go.

xodusforever wrote:Would a still like this work?

http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/sho ... 0&format=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Seems pretty cheap, only 109$ shipped.

Edit - ohh and it is a 4gal size.

Edit 2 - Ive just found mile hi distilling. They look to be really good quality parts. The only thing is, there is no copper in their stills. I guess I could attach something to port where the alky comes out, and have it run over pure copper mesh.

I guess this will cost a bit of money, but i am not inclined to make my own still. I prefer to pay a professional to do so, and these guys seem very legit.

http://www.milehidistilling.com/30lt_St ... /16030.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I guess $359 isnt too much to put into making a quality product.

And after much lurking lately, I am finding turbo is kind of a no go.

Aye, I have a ways to go, but the learning is fun nonetheless.

If you buy a keg, a fitting or two, and some copper pipe, you can build a still much cheaper and you will understand the process better in the end. Learning to solder isn't to tough either.

Luck,

not a hard and fast rule, but cool and slow is usually the best way to go...

The auctiva unit looks like a peice of crap.

Steer clear unless you plan on rebuilding soon.

No offence intended.

The Auctiva appears to be:

- one 20L stainless stock pot with clips, lid and a connection for...
- one short copper column
- a leibig condenser with hoses for cooling water
- some sort of power controller for an immersion heater
- a thermometer

It's a basic pot still and the price seems reasonable. A thermometer is not necessary for a pot still; an alcometer and a parrot will provide more relevant information. A thermometer is cheap and ineffective in a pot still.

If there is some reflux happening then the thermometer becomes more inportant. The problem is many commercial stills are basically pot stills with a little reflux. They must be driven as pot stills.

A full reflux still will be capable of refluxing 100% of the product, that is all the product is returned to the column and nothing comes out. Then a thermometer is very relevant.

Fine control of the power is essential when running any still...a simple thermostat is not good enough.

The most common beer fermenter from the brewshop is 20 or 25L, so a 20L boiler is the minimum practical size to deal with the output of one fermenter. This allows for at least 5L loss due to racking and getting rid of the dross (cloudy stuff comprising the yeast and nutrients) ending up with a 15L boiler charge of cleared wash.

Thermometers and alcometer/parrot's beaks give equivalent information. Either will do the job fine, if used properly.

Neither is necessary for running a pot still. Indeed you should know how to run a pot still without either of them.

But a good thermo is pretty damn useful for running a reflux column.

Thermos with programable alarms can also be set for over temp alerts, which is a useful safety feature.

Another piece of advise. Read and reread the main site. Much gooder information there two. <---<< Sorry, my number 2 is a linguist and would have a fit if she saw that!

I like having my thermometer (in the pot still) because it's one more thing to glance at and get my bearings. It's especially handy while heating the still, so I can run at full-bore up to about 150 F and then slowly approach the foreshots phase.

Of course, I could do without it, now that I've been doing this for a while, but I'd hate to deprive myself of it. Also, because I flour-paste it in place at the start of each run, it provides a safety feature (emergency pressure release) that may not matter much, but makes me feel good to have.