Home Distiller

first post, hopefully this makes sense - don't laugh, I don't drink I just wanna do it for fun I guess and give it away to family who do, just to say I can do it I guess.



cut and pasted a bunch of stuff together for a general idea...

1. A stainless steel stock pot

2. Copper/SS pipe - 2 Feet with 1 foot condensor piece

3. Electric hot plate - I want to use a smooth flat one as opposed to the coil type - instead of a water jacket (too hard for me lol)

4. I want to use either copper tubing wrapped around the pipe, or clear flimsy type rubber hose that can easily be compressed and wrapped around the pipe, which will use water from a 5 gallon bucket (blocks of ice in it probably) and a fish tank pump or something.

the lid of the stock pot will be either held on with clamps like these -



with a cork seal, or some other kind of clamp, if worse comes to worse I will drill holes around the lip and lid and install somesthing like these



so you only need to use wingnuts to tighten the lid down


my many questions -


1. Using ice water will obviously cause heavy condensation on the pipe, will this be an issue with it running down into the collector?

2. Will room temp water be good enough if ice is too cold?

3. Alcohol boils at 78.3C which is 173F, this will be very tricky - is it ok to just get the mash to a point just below boiling, like a very small rolling boil where you would just see little bubbles coming from the bottom of the pot if you cannot get exactly 173F ?

4. I want to have the column offset to the left a bit to stabilize the weight, is it ok if it is not in the center of the top?

5. Most important - how do you know when you have distilled all of the alcohol ?


thanks guys for any help, I appreciate it.

I can think of a couple of problems. Mainly with the condensor.
Using Plastic tube won't work very well because of the insulating properties of the plastic. Better off making a leibig condensor by using a larger diameter sleeve of copper pipe, and attaching two pipes to the side for water inlet/outlets.
The Heating element needs to be constantly on, not on/off/on/off like a cooktop element on your stove.
Basicly the desigin you have there is a pot still. Nothing new.
Here's a pic of one that Bujapat did.....

Using Plastic tube won't work very well because of the insulating properties of the plastic

i'm talking about the thin-walled flimsy clear type you can find at home depot... with ice water it would still be an issue?

The Heating element needs to be constantly on, not on/off/on/off like a cooktop element on your stove

I wouldn't use a stove due to the time it takes to distill, I'm talking about those sperate electric plug in hot plates, do they do the same thing?

Basicly the desigin you have there is a pot still. Nothing new.

I didn't intend to invent a new type of still, it's just a pot still with an actual pot.

You might want to change the direction of the water cooling flow. You want to cool the vapor from the opposite way the product is flowing. I would use copper tubing, it's a much better way to transfer the cooling affect than plastic. The hotplate is ok, but it will cycle on and off, trying to keep an even temp. Be sure to insulate your column.

Never seen such a condensor design, but I I think it could work.
Nevertheless I'm agree with Nimrod when he says that plastic has insulating properties. The coil should be made of copper. Otherway, this copper coil should be very close from te output tube, I'd say in contact, to get a maximum contact area to cool vapor efficiently.
Anyway, wouldn't be easier to buil a Liebig condensor?

wouldn't be easier to buil a Liebig condensor?

from the plans i've seen I don't really understand them, I get the idea but the way it's put together is confusing with the copper pipes.... besides copper tubing is insane right now, cheapest I can find online is $36 a foot

Maybe home depot sells it, or lowes - I can check them but copper is really high right now due to demand from China, I can get Stainless steel pipe at 2.5" for $18 a foot so maybe I will go with that and make a PVC jacket over the top of the stainless steel.

about the rubber tubing - if it's thin then you can wrap it around the pipe and half of it's surface area will be in contact with the pipe as opposed to 10% of the copper due to the copper being round and not flexible like rubber... if it is thin I doubt the insulating properties will really effect anything since it is evened out by more of it's surface touching the pipe - you can wrap it almost flat around the pipe, can't do that with copper....that was my idea anyway....the jacket is a little harder but may work better.

So, I don't think a liebig is the only solution. If you build your "external coil" condenser, let us know how it works!

Copper isn't cheap, that's right... But small sections aren't so expensive. The condenser requires 1" and 1/2" sections. If possible to buy small lenghts, it shouldn't be too expensive.

Some guys made a copper/pvc condenser : copper for the inside tube and pvc for the external one... I think it may reduce the price.

Good luck and good work.

Interesting. Always fun to see something different!

But why not put the coil (regardless of what it is made of) INSIDE the column? then you'd eliminate one degree of separation, and greatly improve heat transference, espec if plastic tube was used - you'd be exchanging heat over the whole outside area of the tubing instead of the few small areas that happen to make contact.

Re clamping the top, the clamps you show would probably work fine, but so do the Bokabob style paperclips, and they are about 100 times cheaper than anything else. You want a LOT of clips with each clip having very little clamping power, to avoid distorting the metal - so spring clips are much better than screw clamps. Once the flanges on the top and the pot get distorted, they are never going to work as well again withotu gaskets/mud etc.

good tip on the flange, thanks.... might have to go with a thicker/squishier type gasket in case it dostorts to avoid any heat/vapor loss...

But why not put the coil (regardless of what it is made of) INSIDE the column? then you'd eliminate one degree of separation, and greatly improve heat transference, espec if plastic tube was used - you'd be exchanging heat over the whole outside area of the tubing instead of the few small areas that happen to make contact

explain a little... put the coil inside the column that rises from the boiler or inside the condenser part? if inside the condenser wouldn't condensation from the water dilute the product that is condensing?

fahdoul wrote:But why not put the coil (regardless of what it is made of) INSIDE the column? then you'd eliminate one degree of separation, and greatly improve heat transference, espec if plastic tube was used -

I agree with fadoul. Put the coil inside the condenser part. But I wouldnt use plastic for it, go with soft copper ( if you dont, Ill bet $5 says youll wish you had). The reason I say that is I seriously doubt it will condense the vapor fast enough to keep it from just blowing past. AND the plastic WILL leach bad stuff into your product.
You can make a leibig condensor (2 long and 2 short pieces of pipe and 2 fittings is not hard to do)or go with a worm or a coil inside, they all work great. PLEASE "Just say no!" to plastic.

will avoid the plastic.... but may use it to make a jacket out of pvc, not sure...

still wondering if the condensation caused by the cold water going through the coil will dilute the product when it condenses in the condensor if I choose to put the coil inside....

now I am thinking of a way to run a coil inside AND use a water jacket on the outside... hmmmm... a couple of ' Y ' connectors and a good pump

There won't be any water condensing on the outside of the coil unless there is water vapor in the air. All the water is on the inside of the coil. The vapors from your boiling wash are what will be condensing on the outside of the coil which is what you want (assuming you have the coil inside your lyne arm).

Cheers,
J

If you put the coil inside the column, then you'll get a bokakob's like still... You'll need to have valve to seperate output and reflux... It's a little more complicated...

If you put the coil inside the condenser... then you'll get a pot still, but in this case, regardless of the interest of a new design experience, Liebig condenser seems to be simplier to build.

wow I never thought that locating simple copper pipe/tubing would prove to be so difficult.

Home Depot - biggest is 3/4 "

Lowes - max size = 2" and it's $136 for 10 feet

Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) - 3/4" only

scrap yards - "we only buy it we don't sell it"

where did everyone else get theirs? I don't want to have to melt a bunch of pennies.... and as safe as polypropylene is with alcohol I really don't want to go that route.

edit - I have located some 304 stainless exhaust pipe at $8 a foot, I plan to use a 2 foot section for the column, then use a 90 degree copper elbow then a 45 degree one which will hold the 1 foot condensor, the jacket will be a 7 to 8 inch pvc pipe providing a half inch layer of water around the pipe pumping ice water from a 5 gallon bucket with a $12 submergible pump that pumps 185 GPH through it....

I will rig the electric burner somehow to stay on and not cycle.....must be a chip or resistor or something inside it.... and use a food thermometer to monitor the vapor temp..... higher than 173 = water and no more alc.

will an 800 watt electric burner be enough for 4 to 5 gallons of wash? I read about folks using 1500 and 3000 watts...

vairox wrote:.... higher than 173 = water and no more alc.

Can I have your dunder? - Higher than 212 = water and no more ethanol.

hornedrhodent wrote:

vairox wrote:.... higher than 173 = water and no more alc.

Can I have your dunder? - Higher than 212 = water and no more ethanol.

? not sure what a dunder is. I was saying that alcohol boils off at 173F, so since I don't know how to tell when you have gotten all the alcohol out of the boiler I will just have to go by temp, but thats not very accurate either after reading what I wrote since the temp will be held below waters boiling point.

gonna have to eyeball it, if you have it between 170 and 200 then you will get alcohol steam, and when your collection slows significantly it must mean that almost all the alcohol has been distilled and only water is left....