Home Distiller

Hi. I'm thinking of building a copper still, but am having trouble finding exact specifications on what type of copper to use. Is there a specific gauge and grade that I should use? Also, is there really any advantage to building the entire still out of copper, or would it be exactly the same if I only built the piping out of copper? Thanks for any help.

If you're going to build anything big say 20 gallons or better you should consider welding your still. Oxygen free copper is better for welding. If your doing somthing smaller then soldering would be ok but, it's not as durable. Copper is expensive, I would do it right and weld. As for the gauge it all depends on how big your going to build.

If it where me I would do a stainless kettle and copper head. It's not as atractive but at half the price it will do the same job.

As far as I have been able to tell all copper, verses copper stainless is debateble. Copper is traditional but back in the old days stainless wasn't invented or it was to costly. I like stainless copper but thats just me, plus try finding some one to work on copper.

I doubt your going to find exact specs on grade a gauge but I would go thicker then you think your going to need.

Duck

For something up to about 15 gallons, .032 thick will work. Any bigger and I would move up to .040
There has been some discussion as to whether it's better to have a copper boiler or copper piping.
Most agree there should be some copper in contact with the wash or vapor though.

acording to xxx a site with engeneairs chemest etc. the best is copper boiler,, copper column,, stanless condenser and everthing after that.
to put it another way, anything where product can fall back to the boiler-copper ,where it cant stanless.
but you can put copper in a stanless boiler and of corse use copper packing. they advized agensted copper condensers etc. as some was
gitting exses copper in there product. but then we do not run as long as they do.

Hello jogo84--

I ordered this book, More Mountain Spirits (ISBN:0-914875-03-5), from Powell' Books online.

The book contains a chapter Building a Copper Pot Still. An old gent named Thee King walks readers through the process of building a 2 gallon pot still. Lots of photographs. For the 2 gallon pot still and thumper, Thee King requires a 3'x4' piece of 36 guage (16 oz.) copper. He specifies the copper must be soft and pliable. 3'x4' is actually a half-sheet of copper, normally sold 6'x8'.

Powell's also carries several manuals on beginning coppersmithing and tinsmithing.

I'm a newbie too, but it looks like a fun little project.

Good luck to you.