First started doing this in '91 after several years of basic beer and wine making in the 80's and making the usual and obvious leap - another kick start was the appearance of the first stills in NZ homebrew shops with their high prices and basic construction - I was keen to build my own!
No internet back then so combed the local library and found many useful books, among them Mothers Alcohol fuel book with reprints from Joseph Earl Dabneys Mountain Spirits - incredibly useful, a book on spirits and Liquers with details on Scotch production, In praise of Poteen, and sevral more I've forgotten - in short, enough to get started and not poison myself!
After copious reading and long term plans for a "proper" still made up my first units - a polypropelene 5 gallon bucket and copper worm for the "singlings" and a stove top stainless pressure cooker for the spirit runs. They worked amazingly well and I soon moved onto my first reflux column (packed with well cleaned stainless steel pot scrubs) and I can tell you the first time I ran that and heard the reflux sizzling and re-boiling up the column while I adjusted the top condensor flow the excitement was almost overwhelming. (almost as exciting as the very first still run!)
Looking back I was very lucky, despite the lack of knowledge - with my choice of washes, I mostly stuck with malt extract and sugar based washes sometimes with added grain using my limited brewing experience, - with the still materials, using a copper column and worm removed those sulphurous rotten flavours, and keeping the plumbing simple and sealed with teflon tape and dough, resulted in few if any noticeable contaminants despite the polyprop bucket- and by reading enough I was removing enough heads and tails for recycling to make a fairly acceptable middle.
Then moved on to my next project - a proper stainless boiler with column that would hopefully also teach me how to weld. This was finally completed after several months of planning and lunchtime sessions in the workshop. By then internet was just starting to become available, but was a minefield of mis-information!
First attempt at condensor, it's a 5 or 7 tube (can't remember) and despite the small size & bubble gum welding works surpringly well easily condensing water steam at 2kw if plenty of coolant flowing.
It was tough making the lid out of 1mm (or was it 1.5) stainless, but finally nailed it
primary reflux condensor, never used as such but was useful practice and will still be handy.
"Shotgun" reflux condensor, not as useful as a coil type, but I was getting handy with these
Bottom view
A winding trial with stainless tube, seemed to go alright, never made into a complete reflux condensor tho
Boiler (60-70L ish drum I found at the scrappies, they were good to me!) and stainless 2" column. Also shows a high proof extension that was too tall to be used in the house and in practice it wasn't needed. First tried marbles in the column as I thought they would be more inert than pot scrubs, but the reflux was hopeless, & went straight back to pot scrubs.
Closed cell camping bed foam makes a terrific insulator, might look a bit tacky (esp with all my tape) but the outside gets barely warm and saves alot of energy. Lid has a cover too, seen to the left.
After all this first thing I discovered was that it was absolutely true I'd read advising distillers to use copper, the spirit had a terrible pungent stink. The let down after all that work and expense (despite as much as possible coming from scrap I'd also decided to use welded on commercial fittings) was pretty disheartening until I remembered what I'd read about using copper.
The next plan was to build a copper column and condensor, but then at that stage because the hobby was a bit too all consuming (in many ways! and the lack of hangovers also encoraged a bit too much enthusiasm sometimes, especially when sharing! ) moved on to the priorities of career, family and home ownership.
Well that stage lasted a long time and when I returned, found The Compleat Distiller and Making Pure Corn whiskey, and then this amazing site and community, and a whole lot more information than there was back then, so much I'm reading nearly every day and only scratching the surface it seems.
Searched hi and lo, collected heaps of bits from the scrappies and purchased several #s of copper mesh from the Amphora society to finally make the copper column I'd wanted. Most of the joins are not soldered but sealed with teflon tape so I can take it apart for cleaning, make any changes, and alter the angle of the leibig.
The support strut is a car washing wand that telescopes - very handy was sitting around staring at me in the face for a while as I was racking the noggin trying to think how to make an adjustable support..
That's a triac controller on the drier made in '91 adapted from a commercial light diimmer, with an uprated triac heatsinked to case, with fine and coarse controls and fuse. Has controlled 3kW no problem and sometimes controls my drill, also used to lower the heat from a fermenting pad on small brews. Also have an RCD/earth leakage circuit breaker on the wall which protects me (hopefully!) from electric shock. Quite important 'round water, heat, elements etc
I only tend to use one or two rolls of mesh in the column now just to provide an area to reflux foreshots, when I've pulled most of these out it runs pretty much as a potstill but can still be "tuned" with the reflux valve, mainly to remove foreshots or increase the strength of tails, but also mostly because i can't resist "playing"
After building the long awaited copper column & condensor last year (nope 2006 now) and trying many sugar and fruit washes to get myself and the still tuned in, I got started on UJSM and after several small trials with good results (all consumed now!) have enough strips for the first large spirit run, which is pretty exciting. Without this site I'd still be fumbling around in the dark, details are a mystery until one gets pointed in the right direction and gives it a go!
Sorry for the way excessive post very keen on this past-time and all it entails! and it seems hard to condense (pardon the pun) this down... you'll be glad this is over if you got to the end! I'll be queit now
Happy brewing and distilling! And many many thanks for all the help so far