Home Distiller

I traded for this recently, I think it's made for melting candle wax and soap.
I'm not sure what to do with it.
For now I'll use it for a mash cooker and a heated fermenter.
The thermostat controlled heater is 115v 1500w that's probably too big for heating a fermenter.
Figure to use a controller to turn the power down.
In the future, I might make a water sealed lid and use it for distilling on the grain or pulp.

shadylane wrote: The thermostat controlled heater is 115v 1500w that's probably too big for heating a fermenter.
Figure to use a controller to turn the power down.

Given your mad scientist skills I would think that a warm water circulator would be just the ticket to maintain ferments at the desired temperature.

I assume the vessel has fill and drain ports ?

That's freaking awesome. Can't wait to see the water sealed lid.

Best to just send that this way . Seriously that is an awesome score no matter what you decide to do with it.

Ive never seen a vessel that thick.

Nice find!

bearriver wrote:Ive never seen a vessel that thick.

Nice find!

It's not that thick, it has a water jacket

Spent the morning cleaning old wax off the dadburn thing. Figured it was time to quit cleaning, and start playing with it.
Beyond a doubt, the 1500w heater would be useless for distilling. It's made for melting wax and holding it around 140f.
The pot is 24 gallons and the water jacket holds another 8, with 32 gallons total, saying the 1500w heater is slow and gentle is an understatement.
I'll probably bypass the mechanical thermostat and control the heater with a stc-1000 and a solid-state relay.
Figure it should make a great temp controlled fermenter for this winter

With a PID controller, it would make a nice mash tun also. If you wanted to, you could easily do a step mash with that rig.

Fit a medium density 5500 watt element to the element fitting and put glycerin or oil in the jacket. Then seal the lid somehow.

I was going to do a water seal in my new project but decided against it. Loved the idea but you need something on the inside to keep it from constantly filling the water trough with liquid condensing on the inside.

I'm using water in the bain marie for mashing and fermenting.
When I use it for distilling, I'll need something with a higher boiling point than water.
There's a 18 gallon mash, made from corn and oats fermenting in it at the moment.
A side benefit of the water jacket is, it makes a good wort chiller also.

Brutal wrote:I was going to do a water seal in my new project but decided against it. Loved the idea but you need something on the inside to keep it from constantly filling the water trough with liquid condensing on the inside.

Something I've noticed, all the water seals I've seen on youtube have the inner lip 2 to 3 inches lower than the outer lip.
Figure the water seals are made that way so instead of overfilling they drain back into the pot.
If they were compensating for boiler pressure, the inner lip would only need to be a 1/2" shorter

I don't understand.

Brutal, do you mean the water seal overfills and overflows all by itself? More than you would expect from heat expansion? I have to leave my water bath about an inch low at the start to keep it from overflowing when it gets up to temp.

Shady, here are some pics from Al-Ambiq. It looks like their inner lip is higher than the outer. I thought the lid sat on the inner lip. Note the overflow tube at 4 o'clock.
EDIT spelling.

I tried using oil in the water jacket. I found it was a good idea to keep a thermometer in it to keep the oil well below the smoking point. It gets pretty nasty when it gets too hot. I've never tried glycol.

The inner lip being lower is done so that if there is parasitic reflux the alcohol laden water will overflow into the boiler rather than down the outside where it could ignite or quench open flame heat beneath...

That would make sense. The height of the inner lip would establish the maximum depth of the seal and anything more would have to run down inside.

Brutal, does it work like that? or did you do it differently?

The seal would have to be deep enough to overcome the boiler pressure, but with a potstill that shouldn't be more than around 1/2 inch, IIRC.

Here is what Al-Ambiq says. http://www.copper-alembic.com/ns/catego ... category=9
It sounds like they are more concerned with the lid resting on the inner lip than about its height.

skow69 wrote:Here is what Al-Ambiq says. http://www.copper-alembic.com/ns/catego ... category=9

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 What is unique about this still is that it uses water to seal off vapours from the interior, thus having no need to use any other sealing technique as in other models. The pot is built with two separate walls on the top side creating a chamber or corridor where the water is placed.
The inner wall is higher than the exterior one, and this is one of the essential elements of the water sealing system, as this wall must touch the lid to aid in sealing off all vapours. The complete system, independent of its size must be mounted on a perfectly level surface to avoid water spilling from the water corridor when in use.

It sounds like they are more concerned with the lid resting on the inner lip than about its height.

That says the opposite... Perhaps they rely on evaporation...

Skow, I did not actually go with a water seal. In my case I'm fitting a SS bowl shaped lid to a SS container. As vapor condenses on the inside of the bowl it will run down the sides and into where my water seal would have been. I just didn't have room for that, but I hope to build something with a water seal one day.

Guess I should have started this post in the boiler section
Here's how I'll make a water seal for the bain marie.
Two strips of SS will be welded around the top for the seal and a copper lid will be made.

Yes. I think the question, at this point, is what supports the weight of the lid? Because that will heavily influence which lip is higher and therefor the fundamental design of the seal.

shadylane wrote:I'm using water in the bain marie for mashing and fermenting.
When I use it for distilling, I'll need something with a higher boiling point than water.
There's a 18 gallon mash, made from corn and oats fermenting in it at the moment.
A side benefit of the water jacket is, it makes a good wort chiller also.

The key is to only have enough water to safely cover the element. For this method you must have some remaining head space within the jacket that will allow for vapor. It is the vapor that gives the heating capability at distilling temps. Not the actual boiling water.

1500 watt element would have no problem making enough vapor (steam) for a kettle that size. 1 bar will give you 250 degrees F.

You will have way more control if using water than you will have with oil. You will need a PRV no matter what heating medium you use.

Maybe not worth it to mod your vessel but seems like it would be no problem to replace that existing fill port with a ferrule so that you could pressurize the vessel.

Ah,, just saw where you said a thermostatic controlled element. Obviously that would have to go. But 1500 watts would work nicely under 1 bar with that small amount of heating medium to bring to temp.

Your right, using steam would be the most efficient way.
But, I'm shy of boiling water in a sealed vessel.

That's what the PRV is for.

15 psi (1 bar) is less than a bicycle tire and you'll likely only need a half bar.

F............. Lbs per sq.inch
212.......... 0.0
214.......... 0.6
216.......... 1.2
218.......... 1.8
220.......... 2.5
222.......... 3.2
224.......... 3.9
226.......... 4.6
228.......... 5.3
230.......... 6.1
232.......... 6.9
234.......... 7.7
236.......... 8.5

LWTCS wrote:Ah,, just saw where you said a thermostatic controlled element. Obviously that would have to go. But 1500 watts would work nicely under 1 bar with that small amount of heating medium to bring to temp.

The thermostat is adjustable to 245f and I have a couple steam rated 15psi relief valves, one of which has been modified to open from 3 to 10psi.
There's also several pressure activated switches in my junk pile that could be used to shut off the heater before over pressure.
The water jacket on the Bain Marie could be easily made into low pressure boiler
But, I'd rather not post about building something as dangerous as a home made, unvented steam boiler.

Sounds like a perfect set up.

Sorry. Not trying to impose.

Your ideas are good and I might use them
But I'll do it quietly, don't want any newbie's reading about our bad habits.

The vessel appears to be very high quality.
Who made it?
Do you know the wall thickness?

Printed on the thermometer is "Candle Equipment Sales" that the only writing on it.
The batteries are dead on the micrometer but it appears to be 14 or 16 gage.