Home Distiller

So I have a feeling I know exactly what everyone is going to say, but I'm gonna ask anyways. I have been using flour/water mixture to seal my pot still ever since I started distilling. The only thing I don't really like is that it seems like everything has a doughy/yeasty taste to it. I have tried using less of it but I still seem to get that taste. I have been thinking about using some type of plastic as a gasket around the lid. I was thinking about getting some tygon/teflon/silicone tubing and splicing it and running it along the rim of the pot and then putting the lid on and clamps around the edge as usual. Which of these materials do you guys think would be best? From what I've been looking at tygon/teflon would be best. I don't know whether I should go for the "beverage" type of tubing or the "chemical" or "heat" stable version of these. I was looking at ordering from mcmaster. I appreciate any advice, thanks.

Edit: Part number 5033K31 looks best right about now

If I was absolutely gonna have to try a gasket instead of paste, I would look at something like part number 45925K75, PTFE gasket material. MM

you can get a bready taste from yeast sometimes... specially if it isn't cleared.

A yeasty taste is more healthier than tasteless noxious. Flourdough has no yeast and is absolutely safe and effective as a sealer. The only downside is that it must be cleaned off and re-applied every time the joint is broken.

I had an aquarium grade silicon bead around the lid of my boiler but one day it leaked. Now I use flourdough and it's 100% reliable.

My mix is flour and water to a stiff paste, then add salt and alcohol foreshots and blend to a thick cream consistency. This will keep in a jar for a long time, spreads like butter, and is a very good sealant for small gaps up to 1mm. The dough that is in contact with the steam/vapors stays rubbery, and the dough on the outside dries off but remains stuck inside all the gaps.

After ageing for a month or two the above flourdough mix behaves like pva wood glue. Mmm...is pva wood glue toxic?

Hi, I'm new here and I have only done reading so far and can't tell you what I use, but I have read that RTV (room temperature-vulcanizing) Silicon is really great, I believe a specific type of loctite automotive silicone is great, as it is solvent resistant (oil, fuel etc.) and obviously a motor gets hot so should withstand heat, and pressure resistant also. With regard to the safety-food aspect, i'm not totally sure.

With regard to making a gasket, I read of a guy using 2 pieces of wood (sealed in some way (such as lacquer), so as not to be absorbent) and applying 2 thin layers of dish washing liquid to the sides of the wood, applying a layer of the silicone to one side of the dishwashing liquid and pressing them together with washers to make the thickness required.

Hope thats posibly of some help to you.

I believe PVA glue is toxic , (polyvinyl acetate)(white glue) not as toxic as some others but still toxic if ingested..

braddie77, do not use ANY sealant that you cannot prove via MSDS to be safe with high temperature high %ABV alcohol vapor... While the sealant may look like it's doing a fine job you have no idea what is being leached into your spirits... We have very narrow hardware guidelines for use with distilled spirits and aquarium or automotive RTV isn't one of them... As soon as you use the word "vulcanization" you're throwing up a red flag... I've used many commercial sealants in my lifetime but I wouldn't think of using any of them where they would come into contact with anything I was going to drink...

Safety, first and foremost...

the only "glue" that comes to mined that is non toxic is "school" or milk glue you can make it but it is not waterproof.

Braddie:

Dishwashing detergent is not a good idea to use as a sealant. In my early days of stilling, I cleaned my still perfect for every run. One batch i must have not rinsed it properly, and my batch ended up tasting like the soap I used to clean it with. Not good.

I've seen a few posts which uses cooked wide pasta noodles (linguini) to make the seal.

Hooch.

I have tucked away under one of my work bench,s two bags of new saddle leather. And I wonder if it could be used for a gasket. Some of it is pretty thick, would the tannins be bad for a distilled product?
Radman

ok that sounds good guys. Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll just try and use less yeast and let it clear more.

Some of you guys scare me with your ideas for sealant and gaskets. Be safe not sorry.

If you can't use flour and water paste , a few turns of PTFE tape around the Sankey fitting on your keg seals OK


OD

useing less yeast wont help,, yeast multiply to fill the container , this is called "lag"
and using leather is not a good substitute, most is processed with toxic chemicals.

I'm using this a lot (wherever I can):

http://www.chesterton.com/ENU/Products/ ... odelID=185" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

50 feet roll is about 40 USD here.

Sorry wrong link edited

I'm with OD here.

The thing that baffles me is that if one needs a gasket or sealants whether they be pasta, silicone, leather, cork or the hundreds of other sealents discussed over the years they have to be applied anyway, so why not use something known to be simple and safe and apply that??? Flour paste seems to fit this criteria perfectly.

blanik

Sorry about my post. When i was in the brew shop, their boiler lid had a type of silicon on it (commercially made). It looked like some sort of medical grade silicon, was a cloudy clear colour and was sticky to touch. Id love to know what that stuff was called

braddie77 wrote:When i was in the brew shop, their boiler lid had a type of silicon on it

There is lots of dodgy stuff in brewshops.

OD

braddie77 wrote:It looked like some sort of medical grade silicon, was a cloudy clear colour and was sticky to touch. Id love to know what that stuff was called

Call me crazy but "and was sticky to touch." kinda makes me say "Hmmm..."...

Not sticky like glue, sticky like rubbery sensation... But fair enough. I know nothing about this business yet. Give it time

Also rad, (not to hijack) if you could help me out in my other post I would appreciate it... You are a wealth of knowledge

I think I know where these questions are coming from
its realy not the sealant these guys are looking for... but rather somthing they dont have to clean off and reaply each time they put the still together for a run.
I can relate but there realy isnt (as far as I have found ) a better way than the recipe on the other page applied with a cheffs Icing pump.
I use my wifes icing pump, run a beed round the hole in the top of my keg (boiler)and walllaaaa a good, safe, none toxic, none leaking seal.
I clean my keg with a high pressure hose after the tun and the paiste just blasts away (i think the dog aight the last one) if it sticks it will scrub off easily.
Hope this helps
by the way not my idea, got it from another post on this forum.
keep up the good work guys and girls