Home Distiller

Good morning everyone. I've been a hobby beer brewer and love my rum and tequila. I set out to experiment a little bit and found that I was no good at building anything (or so I thought). Late one night, I found myself on Amazon and realized I had a years worth of gift cards saved up in my account, so I got myself a t500. Now, I've tried others before, but I liked the idea of plug and play (well... plug, play and fiddle less than normal).

I've read the forum here off and on a while, and I hesitated in buying a t500 but realized I wanted something smaller and compact that can set up and take down and be stored easily. Sounded good right? lol. My first batch with it wasn't horrible, but I soon realized I couldn't maintain temperatures with my well. That was probably the problem I was having with every other experiment but I finally got it through my thick skull. So more reading here, more research, more youtube videos. Pressure wasn't the problem, it was the 50 degree water that suddenly surged through my system. I needed a thermal buffer so I went to home depot and fixed my problem for about $30. I got a $20 pond pump/water feature pump, a brass gate valve with a couple brass barbs to control the flow in the water inlet side. Instead of 7 degree temp swings, I was now operating within half a degree. Just filled up one side of my sink, tossed the pump in, plugged it in, set the faucet to trickle and went with it. The well kicked in and the overall water temp didn't change much and soon went back to normal.

Now that I figured out why every other experiment sucked I have some options with equipment lol. Since figuring out my problem, I've ended up with a very nice smelling 194 proof rum. My problem is I had the still operating at 60c for close to 12 hours. Lesson learned lol, run it hotter or take all day for something that smells awesome. Taste testing later after dropping it to something more manageable. Gunpowder Proof?

Cheers!

boyd wrote:Good morning everyone. I've been a hobby beer brewer and love my rum and tequila. I set out to experiment a little bit and found that I was no good at building anything (or so I thought). Late one night, I found myself on Amazon and realized I had a years worth of gift cards saved up in my account, so I got myself a t500. Now, I've tried others before, but I liked the idea of plug and play (well... plug, play and fiddle less than normal).

I've read the forum here off and on a while, and I hesitated in buying a t500 but realized I wanted something smaller and compact that can set up and take down and be stored easily. Sounded good right? lol. My first batch with it wasn't horrible, but I soon realized I couldn't maintain temperatures with my well. That was probably the problem I was having with every other experiment but I finally got it through my thick skull. So more reading here, more research, more youtube videos. Pressure wasn't the problem, it was the 50 degree water that suddenly surged through my system. I needed a thermal buffer so I went to home depot and fixed my problem for about $30. I got a $20 pond pump/water feature pump, a brass gate valve with a couple brass barbs to control the flow in the water inlet side. Instead of 7 degree temp swings, I was now operating within half a degree. Just filled up one side of my sink, tossed the pump in, plugged it in, set the faucet to trickle and went with it. The well kicked in and the overall water temp didn't change much and soon went back to normal.

Now that I figured out why every other experiment sucked I have some options with equipment lol. Since figuring out my problem, I've ended up with a very nice smelling 194 proof rum. My problem is I had the still operating at 60c for close to 12 hours. Lesson learned lol, run it hotter or take all day for something that smells awesome. Taste testing later after dropping it to something more manageable. Gunpowder Proof?

Cheers!

Sounds as if you are off to a good start! Welcome aboard.

Hi boyd, sounding good

Welcome in