Home Distiller

I learned so much about making good spirits from this forum and community so I decided to share my findings and experience with you. I’m using a 5 gal still pot bough from ebay for $250. It is a double cooling system, very efficient for small batches heated with an induction cooktop ($100). The advantage of using an induction cooktop is that the temperature can be controlled very well and doesn’t vary. For strip runs I start with 500F till get to 75C reading on thermometer or first drops, it’s about 1 hour, and reducing the temp to 230F for entire strip run and collecting from 80-97C. For spirit runs I use the same method with difference that cooktop is set at 210F. For example a 16L UJSSM strip run is done in 8 hours and get about 3L high wines. After 4 strip runs I add everything collected in the pot and do the spirit run and get about 6L of good product and 2L of feints.
For fermenting I’m using a 50L carboy for neutral runs (like BW) and 2 x 23L buckets for UJSSM. When I run a neutral batch I collect the strip runs and add it into a 19L glass carboy and add 15g of potassium permanganate to separate the fusel oils from ethanol, and leave it to sediment for few days in a cold place. This method gives me a high yield. After that I filter the low wines through coffee filter and remove as much as I can the brown shit from the bottom and distill it two more times. After is done I do very tight cuts and keep the good stuff @ 65ABV in activated carbon for 2 weeks. After that filtering the carbon out and add the neutral in 1L mason jars (@ 800ml on each), add 5ml glycerin and nuke 2 times at two days interval. The outcome is very nice vodka.

I like all of your pictures! Thanks for sharing!

Odin.

I cant get my induction to heat efficiently. I have a copper pot so I have to place a cut circle of thin (3/8") sheet metal between the burner and my pot to conduct the heat. This must be whats causing the slow heating times. I want to use the induction because it does not cycle like my electric stove. Do you have to use something similar or does your pot work on your burner?

Beauty setup, small and working for you.

simpletime05 wrote:I cant get my induction to heat efficiently. I have a copper pot so I have to place a cut circle of thin (3/8") sheet metal between the burner and my pot to conduct the heat. This must be whats causing the slow heating times. I want to use the induction because it does not cycle like my electric stove. Do you have to use something similar or does your pot work on your burner?

I my knowledge the induction cooktop is not working with copper. My pot is stainless still and the head is dispersed uniformly to entire surface not only on the bottom, which is in your case. The pot is making contact with the cooktop, nothing in between.

right, copper is not a ferrous material, therefore I must have a conducting plate between the burner and the copper pot. This is what I suspect is causing the inefficient heating of my pot.

I will be using a propane burner for my outside efforts, and continue to search for an indoor solution.