Home Distiller

Well, done all I can on my end so far. Waiting on the ferruel, clamp and mesh in the mail. Hoping it made it out of the states befor your guy's july 4'th (assuming thats a stat), dont want another day delay on this stuff.

Anyway, some pics of what i got so far....basic boka build.

In the one pic you can sorta see "3 shades of polish" was trying different things, the "high gloss" at the top(10" or so) i accually got from using a little 2" wire wheel on my drill...Its definatly not mirror shine, but its allot better then was it was when i started... could do the hole colum like that in about 10 min lol... save my wrist from sanding for hrs and hrs.

oh and yes, thats 3/8 line on the output. All i could find in needle valves at my local hardware store. The collection plate will still cover the 3/8 so there should be no issues right?

very nice looking craftsmanship .... I would have gone 3/8 over 1/4 if I did it again.... you can't strip with 1/4".. not fast at least

Looking good but piss on the polish, I want patina...

Looks good.

Thanks for the praises guys...

rad14701 wrote:Looking good but piss on the polish, I want patina...

Haha I havent decided if i want the petina look or not yet. As it was it was terible, you could see green handprints all over the colum, black smudges everywere.It been real wet and humid here for the last 3 weeks or so, dont think that helped.

I wouldent of drank anything that came outa a still looking like it was, like it was just pulled from the scrap pile.

Anyway tho, I polish it up real good cause it my new toy, see how it looks. And when it does petina, at least it'll do it somewhat uniform.

To lazy to go outside again for a pic of the green handprints, so this will have to do for now.

You will be pleased when its finished.
Ran mine today, cooked 40 liters of 40% stripped sugar wash.
Took seven hours, stopped when the tails got down to 70%.
Ended up with 13 liters of 96% and about a liter of tails.

Nice job cwalker, can hardly see the plates!

Well, check the mail again today... still no parts.
Just wanna get this thing up and runnin.
Goin crazy with it just sittin there. Feel compeled to go out and check on my new mistress like every hr lol. Checked to make sure ive got enuff propane for the first run like 3 times already... DAM YOU PARTS... GET HERE ALREADY!!

620rossco wrote:You will be pleased when its finished.
Ran mine today, cooked 40 liters of 40% stripped sugar wash.
Took seven hours, stopped when the tails got down to 70%.
Ended up with 13 liters of 96% and about a liter of tails.

Ya ive got about 10L of low wines that ive pulled outta my 1gl stovestop pot still, but it take so long to run that ive boxed it up and its on the shelf in the garage now. Will do a stripping run or 2 outta the boka and throw all that in for a good spirit run. Cant wait. Heard notting but good things about this design.

Messed up my usjm i had on the go so I will start a new batch tommorow in hope that the parts get here by friday. Fingers crossed.

620rossco wrote:You will be pleased when its finished.
Ran mine today, cooked 40 liters of 40% stripped sugar wash.
Took seven hours, stopped when the tails got down to 70%.
Ended up with 13 liters of 96% and about a liter of tails.

including warm up time and finding equilibrium? hard to believe such numbers

even without including the boil time and equalizing, its still hard to believe without mods.

including warm up time and finding equilibrium? hard to believe such numbers

even without including the boil time and equalizing, its still hard to believe without mods.

Twin elements and controllers, minimal heat up.
Probably should have equalised for longer.
Stopped as soon as it dropped into tails.
I checked the log and double checked ABVs.
2.5-2.8 liters/hr is about right for a 2"???
BTW its a double reducer Boka, not sure if that is important.

If you do the math there are probably a few extra liters in the wash that more patience would have produced.

astronomical wrote:very nice looking craftsmanship .... I would have gone 3/8 over 1/4 if I did it again.... you can't strip with 1/4".. not fast at least

Looks like 3/8 takeoff to me.
Nice work all around CW

So, still no ferruel today. But I just know itll be here tommorow .

Ive read that a 24:1 ratio is best for packin height ie 48" of packing. That just seems very tall to me, ive got 11" just for the coil and plates so 59" total if I go for "optimum" height. The colum is 6' right now, just dont know how much I should be takin off when I go to put the ferruel on. What are you guys runnin for packing height and what sorta numbers you gettin?

You could drop the packed section from 48" to 42" without much if any sacrifice in purity...

Mine is close to that length (48in).