Putting older posts here. Going to try to keep the novice forum pruned about 90 days work. The 'good' old stuff is going to be put into appropriate forums.
A- For the boiling pot for my still I am planning on using an old keg from a friend being boiled over an old open flame fish fryer. I have read a lot about boiling in the pot and I plan on adding salt but I am unsure about what to use for boiling chips, I imagine marbles would be the easiest because broken chips of glass and pottery could chip after clinking around and leave shards inside and that is very undesirable. A question I haven’t been able to find on the site is where to put the thermometer at on the keg. Do I put it in at the top and use a long one that will go all the way down into the liquid or do I put one in the side that’s shorter that sticks in the top of the liquid? Also on a keg I have no idea how people are getting liquid in and out so easy? What’s an easy way to have a removable lid where you can effectively clean the inside? There is also the question of the angle of the arm; I plan on making whiskey and vodka what's the best angle to put the pipe on to get a good abv?
B- The thumper- this is there to raise the abv with just one run. I have heard people say use your heads, tails, or water i’m not sure which one is better and its pretty much an opinion just wondering about what everyone else uses and why any info would be great.
C- Big open flame so I plan on doing this outside away from a running hose, which means that I will have to use a bucket of ice water for the duration of the run. The question I have is will one bucket be enough without having to drain it and refill it with some ice water. I plan on using a 5 gallon bucket and making a pretty steep slope on the tube maybe coiling two or three times total so there is no spot for it to sit.
D- Your basic parrot this way it will be easy for me (a beginner) to tell between heads, hearts and tails and I will have a decent idea of what % alcohol i'm getting in my spirits
Best thing to do Fuzz is start here in novice distillery and go back as Far as you can and take some time and read the post here. All those questions have been answered. I know cause I asked them my self.. there all basic questions pretty much... After you read and figure most of them out. then post some questions that you may still have.
Just a suggestion Fuzz I'm a Newbie here also....
Reading all of the posts is a great idea. If you want specific information just use the search function.
We've all been there. You'll get all of the info you need on Thermometer placement, water temp and how to construct a keg just by searching those key words.
Since your building a Pot Still you might want to read the Pot Still Construction thread as well.
I've been reading for about 3 months now and am just finishing up building a still.
I'll try to help but remember I am a newbie. My experience is that it is preferable to have the thermometer above the liquid level. I say this because if it is in the liquid it tells you temp of the liquid and this is not all that important. More important is the temperature of the vapors coming off the liquid. if it is in the liquid you see it pretty steadily climb from ambient temp up the whole time. if it is in the vapor it will go from ambient to about 150 pretty steady then when the vapor starts to come off of the wash it will jump pretty quickly up to the boiling temp of your wash. Then you know to expect distillate coming soon.(within few seconds) Also this initial temp reading can be used to estimate the ABV of your wash. You might also find this useful.
I was using an electric pressure cooker with a worm in a bucket of ice water. This pressure cooker put out much less heat than your LP burner will and I was using 4-5 gallons of ice water. I had to replace the ice water at least once per run and the pot was like 1 gallon. My solution was to put a hose in the bucket of water. didn't even need to flow fast.
There is some info on this site about thumpers or doublers. I just learned something on my last run. I started my run with some 80% ABV and I put just a little water (just enough to cover th bottom of my tumper tube). To my surprise what came out was again 80% ABV. But it was much cleaner than it was and the heads hearts tails were more defined than they were on the previous run. I will be putting some 80%ABV hearts in next time because I want to up the proof to as close to 95% as I can.
thanks for the info have been reading here for faithfully for three or so weeks but i was unaware of the search function and trying to ready everyhting on this site wasn't working for me will be able to get more answers that way thanks guys
