Home Distiller

Here's the new toy.
When shes mounted on my 10L SS fire extinguisher boiler she stands in at 7"''-10" << got a 8' ceiling.

That is a nice build. I'll be looking forward to hearing about how it runs. Nice narration on the parts, I always like that when I'm looking at something complicated.

Great looking build. How does it perform?
The only fault I see, is that it would be even better mounted on a Keg.

OD

ooooooh, aaaaaaaah, NICE!
a rig like that should crank out lots of vodka/neutral spirit.
very clean looking build. craftsmanship.
i'm thinking that your 10 liter boiler will get upgraded soon
with a build like this i think you will want a bigger better boiler

fester

it is so pretty. how did you polish it? and what is that blue stuff in the joints in the last picture? a silicone to seal joints together?

So do you use the VM for stripping and the LM for spirit runs? what do you do with each option?

EDIT Just re read... so the LM is for heads extraction, and then do you go back to VM? the one thing that puzzles me is your comment that you use the VM for stripping, I would have thought the LM would be more suited.

Nice combo rig, still crazy... My only concern is the thermometer placement... It is in the reflux liquid path rather than in a primarily vapor path... Reflux liquid may skew your temperature readings... You'll know soon enough whether placement is a factor or not...

Good luck with testing... Keep us posted...

Looks like modern HighTech, great looking built SC, congrats.

Joe

rubber duck wrote:That is a nice build. I'll be looking forward to hearing about how it runs. Nice narration on the parts, I always like that when I'm looking at something complicated.

Duck
I do stripping runs at a higher heat setting. Use my plumbers turbo torch with the 3/4" nozzle on high till she spit then turn it down till the flame just flutters and let is go till the output goes tails and starts to turn milky. With a soft flow of water it takes 1 1/2 hours start to finish to strip 10L of 14% birdwatchers.

When I have four stripping runs done I mix everything about I stripped about 3 1/2 L (3600ml) with 6L of distilled water (I inherited a medical distiller) and do a reflux run.
Dump the first 250 ml foreshots. Collect 300 ml heads. Then collect 200 ml at a time. Keep the jars numbered and when it goes to tails let it run out till the temp climbs.
Starting from center out I combine the 5 center jars (94% abv) into (2) 1L bottles mix it with distilled mark it "bullseye".
The next two on either side from center get into a 750 ml bottle to be flavored or aged with char later.
The remainder gets stored for the next reflux batch. Which is the next 20L strippings and this way I meld batches
Have run 12 strips to date and the consistency is super.

rad14701 wrote:Nice combo rig, still crazy... My only concern is the thermometer placement... It is in the reflux liquid path rather than in a primarily vapor path... Reflux liquid may skew your temperature readings... You'll know soon enough whether placement is a factor or not...

Good luck with testing... Keep us posted...

RAD
Straight up thanks for warding me off the CM I was originally going to build. Made me take a step back re-read and scheme this bad dog together.
Ya that temp port reads high but I caught on to it right away, got a digital now, and by my 3rd run had my own adjusted temp chart for running it.
Didn't raise the bridge, I lowered the river.
Waited till I had 100 # of sugar thru her till I polished her up for pics. <<< ed note THE WIFE POLISHED HER UP FOR THE PICS <gotta give props>

kiwistiller wrote:So do you use the VM for stripping and the LM for spirit runs? what do you do with each option?

EDIT Just re read... so the LM is for heads extraction, and then do you go back to VM? the one thing that puzzles me is your comment that you use the VM for stripping, I would have thought the LM would be more suited.

Kiwi
I use the 1" port (ball valve) VM and open her up about a third to strip. Monitor it to a pencil lead drip and collect everything no cuts.
See reply to Duck above.
When running full reflux I slow down the output to a nice quick drip and do cuts with the LM.
I value your input so any suggestions would be definitely looked at hard.

Fester wrote:it is so pretty. how did you polish it? and what is that blue stuff in the joints in the last picture? a silicone to seal joints together?

Fester /Old Dog
Wife takes all the credit for the polish she plugged the outlets with rubber corks and used Tarn-X. I even saw a toothbrush in there. Got to put her back in her insulated jacket, the copper that is, now that shes been documented.
I have (2) 1/4 pony kegs and am awaiting the clamp to use that boiler so your ESP was right on.
The blue stuff, its actually muddled gray in the right light, at the joints might be the type solder I used it super high tensile strength we use for fire sprinklers copper systems. Kinda a bitch to get it to flow but when it does its foolproof ,,,"the problem with making it foolproof is that fools are so inventive"
Any how my first clean was with salt and vinegar and that's when it turned color. ????? It is 95% tin with a lot of silver, lead free.

snips:

still crazy wrote: Ya that temp port reads high but I caught on to it right away, got a digital now, and by my 3rd run had my own adjusted temp chart for running it.

That's interesting, I would have thought that reflux temperature would be lower than vapour temperature, considering it has been cooled and condensed.

still crazy wrote:Kiwi
I use the 1" port (ball valve) VM and open her up about a third to strip. Monitor it to a pencil lead drip and collect everything no cuts.
See reply to Duck above.
When running full reflux I slow down the output to a nice quick drip and do cuts with the LM.

I would have done the opposite, personally. With stripping all you normally want is a quick and dirty distilation, and LM is much more suited to this, as the reflux ratio can be taken down below 1:1. The VM will be a better performer in the spirit run, as the reflux ratio will remain constant to the setting you choose over the course of the run. Hit me back if you want elaboration on this. Or do it your own way, whatever works for you is great by me

Anyway looks like a beaut piece of work.

still crazy wrote:

Fester wrote:it is so pretty. how did you polish it? and what is that blue stuff in the joints in the last picture? a silicone to seal joints together?

Any how my first clean was with salt and vinegar and that's when it turned color. ????? It is 95% tin with a lot of silver, lead free.

Tin based solders do not like acid (or alkaline) conditions. The salt probably does not help either. But that blue-black shit should clean off pretty easily.

Looks complicated. But I understand the concept...

Nice...

S.

Very inspirational! I like the way the various attachments, tubes and controls have been mounted and routed, that's often a hard (effort wise at least when sometimes you want something going NOW!) part of the job to finish to satisfaction and safe practical use. Nice work, enjoy!

Few more pics
Some in operation

These are pics of a mini bok I build while doing (2) 10L stripping runs from left over copper parts.
Have to get some scrubbers and figure what to use as a boiler to test it.
If it works good think I will put em on ebay

Great work SC. Almost too nice to use.

blanik

I will add my keg and keg adapter pics here.
Descriptions are with pics

EDIT I deleted the pics cause while it didn't leak the coupling was toooo wobbly and I felt it was unsafe went to a standard 2" Sankey coupling.

Holy crap! That thing is... superfluous.

It would be interesting to see if Victraulic or Groove Lock made Teflon gaskets for their groove couplings (maybe for food processing applications).

When I built my still I took some pics of my plate setup. They were trapped in my cell phone. I finally got them on a SD and can now post them.
This is how I built my 2" x 48" column that is pictured at the beginning of this post.
The levels of plates are set 2 3/4" apart. There are 3 types of plates and 8 levels of each style, There are 24 levels.

Finally decided to turn my 10L stainless fire extinguisher into a pot still stripper.
Found that a 1 1/4" female copper pipe adapter was the same thread as a water heater element for screw in.
Got this liquid flux at my supply house . This stuff is the bomb.
While i was soldering if the solder wasn't sticking just add a drop and retouch eeeeeeeaaaaasssssyyyyyy.
I was posting the pics and noticed I can almost see myself in em.

Added a valve position indicator to the needle valve.
It is just a couple of # 12 wires twisted together and soldered for solidity.
Then I tacked a pointer wire onto the needle valve knob.
Now its easy to see the tiny movements of the knob.

For the season I spun a web
Copper of course
Seems like every time the wife says I have too much time on my hands, I prove it!

Houston, we're ready for take off. Nice job. I couldn't even begin to figure out how it works.

still crazy wrote:Seems like every time the wife says I have too much time on my hands, I prove it!

Yup...