Greetings from the alberta rockies

[stillinserenity]

How is everybody doing,
My name is Taylor Im a 22 year old father and journeyman welder. I have a three year old daughter and nice patch of my own land in gods country,alberta. We grow our own vegetables hunt every year for goose duck deer elk moose. I recently came into the interest of distilling more for alcohol more for the fabrication experience building a still and distilling the liquor and being able to make another product from scratch, as i myself am not a big drinker. I would like to thank your board in advance for the knowledge you guys have to offer cheers.

[Tokoroa_Shiner]

Welcome to HD. You've found the best place to be. Good to see another young guy signing up. I'm 21 with a 9 month old daughter. Do all the needed reading and you will be making some fine liquor in no time. Have a good look through the column builds and construction threads. Lots of ideas there for still builds.

[oilguy]

welcome, always nice to see a fellow Aberta shiner, journeyman welder -should make a nice still ,As stated, lots of reading to do, but well worth it,
Have fun .

[MoonBreath]

Welcome to HD!
Good move to have a still out where you live ..Come in handy before you know it ..
Plenty of good info on the Parent site to digest ..Good Luck!

[HDNB]

Welcome! hope you have fun with the build, one of the many rewards of this hobby.

from not quite the middle of nowhere- but you can see it from here...fellow Albertan

[moosemilk]

Welcome to the forum. Any ideas of what type of still you may be interested in yet? And you may not be a drinker, but once you get some good product going that can change lol.

Since you are a welder, maybe try a plates flute with sight glass and send it to me to test for a few years lol.
Enjoy!

[stillinserenity]

Thanks you all for the welcome, Ive been lost in this vast archive of knowledge for the last 3 days.For my first still I wanted make a all copper sheet metal still nothing real big right now just something to get familiar with stillin and comfortable with what I'm doing I'm partial to the pot still for the low budget setup side to it but have been looking at reflux stills as well. any thoughts and tips greatly appreciated.

[HDNB]

ifnyou are undecided on what you want for beverage, a bokakob design will probably be the simplest and most versatile unit. made with a removable column section for packing, it can be used as a pot still mode for flavoured bev's like wikki and rhum...place the packed column and choke the reflux down to get a 95% neutral.
then you can make something for everyone.

[moosemilk]

flavoured bev's like wikki and rhum...

Wikki? New drink? Lol. Damn auto correct! Seen another post of yours HDNB, same auto correct. Phones can be a pain!

[HDNB]

flavoured bev's like wikki and rhum...

Wikki? New drink? Lol. Damn auto correct! Seen another post of yours HDNB, same auto correct. Phones can be a pain!

nah, just being stupid ..like putting a h in rum. we've called it wikki for a long time, usually after the third one. have you noticed though that the spell check is not working anymore? (i know i did) thier, there,their, ther...i'm gonna become (even more) un-readable!

[stillinserenity]

thanks for the replies guys and mainly want to make whisky and rum my dads use ti tell us a bunch of stories about the shine they got when they were younger i wanna try vorn mash too homefully we got fresh corn coming out the ying yang.

[Scribbler]

Welcome Canuck!!! From SK myself.

I'm a potstill guy but am looking at getting into plated columns for whiskers and brandies!!!

Plenty of good reading here!!!

[Scribbler]

One tip: since you can weld, a copper boiler vs stainless steel boiler is immaterial.

Go with what materials you can find easily. The magic happens once the wash is heated up into hot vapour: THAT is where you want the copper....

I think the prevalence of "copper stills" is because most people cant weld..

Modular modular modular!!!


One other tip: you say you want to start 'small'... Can I suggest that you start out 'simple' instead?

'Small' is difficult and tough to learn on. It is counterintuitive, but sepArAting out the undesirable portions from the desirable is easier on a 15 gallon still than a 1 gallon still.

Food for thought.

[stillinserenity]

i was more partial towards copper being it has better heat dispersing qualities and was hoping to keep it simple by not having scrubbers and doing a pot still made of copper as from what I have read its helps strip some sulphur out. as for size the still i have drawn a print for which is a pot style made from copper 20l of boiler space and another 12 inches of headspace before it reduces to 2" copper then down again to 3/4" copper to a union so i can run into thump keg, then into a slobber box the reduce to 1/2 flex copper into my condensor. Or if my budget falls short straight to condenser until i can finish the ss thumper and slobber box. but i do agree the price off copper around my area is 30.19 per sqare foot for 0.032. stainless might be the better option.

[moosemilk]

Check out guttersupply.com for copper if that's what you are looking for. I built mine out of 16oz and a sheet of 10'x3' cost me $200 CDN all said and done. I had it shipped to,a border pick up, and only paid a little over 20 bux taxes. No duty because it's made in the USA. Just an option if you,are looking.

[stillinserenity]

yeah i head my whole still priced out at 24 oz copper sheet 0.032 and its was 202.21 canadian from westernsteel

[stillinserenity]

i was thinking going 24oz on the bottom only and slightly thinner like a 24oz or 20 oz

[moosemilk]

Thicker on bottom is a good idea, but if you are only going 20l (5gallon approx) the 16oz will serve you well without breaking the bank. My entire 12 gallon is 16oz, and only used half the sheet. I used the other half for a six gallon with flake stand. Still had a 2'x3' left after that to tinker with. Many here have gone with the 16oz. It does get rigid after being worked, and mine is solid as a brick shitter. Also, it's easier to work with and faster to heat up when annealing for things like forming the pan or getting a nice curve on the lyne arm. In the end, it preference and what you want. I've seen 50 gallon rigs done with 16oz, although personally I would go thicker for that size.

If I had to build the same again, I would do the same, but in all honesty I would go thicker for the boiler pan to help with heat.

Btw, does your source sell by the sheet or charge only by square foot? I am looking at another build that o could use thicker for, and if prices are right on our side of the border, I'll go with that.

[apdb]

Hello from the land of the newly wed or nearly dead...

[stillinserenity]

how does the 16 oz hold up to the heat? like has it deformed at all since building it. another thing that has sent me back to the drawing board is the heght above the mash i should have for free space to avoid bubbling into lines. Right now the design Im working with has about 12'' headspace for foam with a copper plate thats got holes drilled in so its almost like a splash guard. And it depends how much copper you buy they said in small amount sq ft large orders by the weight. But they will cut to any length which is fine because the full sheet was huge it was like 12' long. What kind of heat problems do you get with 16oz, like parts of the mash burning? I think i might even go a bit thicker as I want to weld this up with oxyacetylene rather than have soldered seems.

[stillinserenity]

Hello from the land of the newly wed or nearly dead...

what part of the rock you from ? i got lots of family out your way

[moosemilk]

I haven't had a single problem with any distortion, and I have had my 60,000 btu on full to test out the efficiency of my worm. As for scorching, I have had none at all, and I have done runs immediately after racking from my fermenter. I don't distill on the grain though. Scorching is a higher risk with stills containing an internal heating element. Not saying it won't happen with propane, but I have never ran it hot enough for that, even stripping runs.

The main downfall though is heat retention. If there is a cool moderate wind, my times do increase slightly. But nothing a little flame retardant insulation won't fix.

*edit*. Forgot to mention, take a look at pintoshines design. It's what I used. Even if you are designing your own, it'll give you a bit of an idea.

[apdb]

Victoria... thats pretty general I guess

[stillinserenity]

yeah i seen his design im actually got the idea for this one from his and the onion shape whiskey stills ,ill try to post some picks once i finish workin it out on autodesk. im definately going with external heating source i welded up a stand for the rig, might even put up some wind block walls around the boiler basically a steel shelf right now on wheels. thanks for the help i think im going to go with 16 oz exept for the bottom.

and apdb: same general area my relatives also around.

[moosemilk]

I had an old bbq grate I tossed on top of my turkey burner to set on, just to make sure of a bit of extra support, also because it didn't quite sit properly and keep from wobbling (or wable if ya watch duck dynasty lol).