Home Distiller

Hi All,

I have gotten a price for a condenser coil to be made by vaportec (http://www.vaportec.co.nz) and am wondering whether general wisdom can tell me if this will have enough knockdown for my still (2 inch column with ~1500 watts in a 50 litre keg).

The condenser head is 80mm diameter by 230mm at the moment. The condenser will use the vaportec high surface area copper pipe with a maximum OD of 19mm. Because the condenser pipe is so large I am only going to get 7 or 8 winds into my existing container. note that the inlet will be fed down the centre of the coil to provide addtional cooling and easier connection. Think of it like this.

|-5mm gap-|-19mm coil-|-gap-|-19mm inletpipe-|-gap-|-19mm coil-|-5mm gap-| = 80mm

The theory is that the larger surface area and flow rate will make up for the lower number of coils. Vaportec have priced this up at $90NZD (45USD). It would cost me around this much just to buy enough small diameter copper and make my own.

Pro's
- Not horribly expensive
- Looks cool

Con's
- May not work.

I would think that you could make your own for less money than that. It's not too hard and you can make it fit perfectly.

I would think that you could make your own for less money than that. It's not too hard and you can make it fit perfectly.

Small diameter copper will cost me around 150NZD for a 15 metre roll. From what I can tell, I would use a fair chunk of this roll to make a double helix condener. I thought that this was pretty comparable price wise.

Don't forget the cool factor.

Why don't you try autoparts store. Get 5m roll of 4.7mm brakeline or 6mm copper fuel line. They should be considerably cheaper alternatives. That 5m coil is enough to condense ~3.5kW worth of alcohol vapors if you design it properly.

Cheers, Riku