Home Distiller

Hi everyone!


2.5 years! Really? Actually yes...but only working on it in my spare time, so not that often. Sorry for the clickbait
But I must admit that when I looked at the date of the first picture I was like


After using my little still for a while now I wished to go for a bigger one for different reasons. After a very long time reading the forum and searching for all kind of possibilities, my mind began to boil, conceiving "my dream still".

I wanted a pot still with:
- a double bloiler, electric powered and insulated.
- a thumper.
- a shotgun product condenser.
- the possibility of filling both boiler and thumper for an other run without having to disassemble everything.
- easy to drain and to clean.
- I also wanted it to be easy to store.
- a good look

So I started drawing plans and for that I clearly underestimated the time I would spend on it .
Here a want to give a special thanks to "Myles" for his final check on the double boiler plans!

Then I read everything I could about controlers, I knew really nothing about electricity. And here comes my second special thanks to my brother who really took time and effort to understand what I needed, and helped me find and assemble a first class controler. I'm really happy about it!

The stainless steel part wasn't a problem at all as I work as a welder. So I was able to get and weld eveything I needed.

For the copper lids it was a different story. Now 20 years ago I had the chance to be teatched by an old coppersmith. He learned me to form copper sheets into shapes. With the use of an hammer and differents "anvils". But I didn't emboss copper for more than 15 years now, so I admit I sweated a lot before I get the results

But enough words! Here is are the pics:

The complete still: boiler (50L)>thumper (35L) > shotgun product condenser > parrot.
Some numbers: stripping run (without thumper)= 32L @ 8~9abv. Product comes out at 61 abv. 2h40 (from firing up to @20%)
Spirit run: 29L@40abv + thumper charged with wash and some feints (3L). Products comes out @83abv. 6h in total.
Response time 5 minutes
Hammering "mesurements" makes easier to know hom much product you actually have. (I'm a little bit obssesed at keeping records of eveything I distill.)

My thumper is placed on a "special tripod" made off two parts.
One part is the base, a ring with pins (adjustable in height).
The second part is made of two rings joined with pipes. One ring has an iside diameter slightly smaller than the other one. So the thumper can stand on the smaller ring when in use. Or, when the tripod is turned upside down, the thumper can go through the larger ring. So I can store tripod and thumper inside the boiler. Space saving! And my "fine tunned" controler with main power switch and cooling fan. The ammetre makes it really precise in use.

The lids are made out of 0.7mm copper sheet, embossed, strain hardened and polished. Is the expansion chamber of any help? I don't know! I wanted one only because it looks sooo coool

The shotgun product condenser is made of 7 pipes diam 15mm and 550mm long.

To be honest it's too big and heavy. People from this forum warned me, I know. But I had so many issues with my previous SS liebig and wanted to use as less water as possible, that I didn't took the risk to make my condenser too small. My first idea was to make a recirculation water system, to use as less water as possible. But I gave up after a few unsuccesful attempts. Now I distill in the basement and use rain water that comes from my garden above thanks to the connected vessels system.
And it works too good also , even with my valve (I buyed an other one than on the pic) at the smallest water flow I can't control the temperature of my product. Products comes at ~10°C all the time.

And at last but not least: my parrot.

Wow! Well worth the time you took.

Please, please go into excruciating detail about how you did the copper work! I am very much interested in learning.

Same here, very curious about working with copper like that, very well done!

Congratulation.. beautiful work..

Lots of hour of work of tinder loving care.. just super...

Mars

Truly inspirational work, Fred. Yours shows the most craftsmanship and patience I've seen here.

Thanks for sharing.

Twisted Brick

Looks great!

That looks incredible. A really nice piece of kit, as they say. You have some real talent brother, and thumbs up to ya bro for showing ya the electricity ropes. And as others said, please impart us with more knowledge of the methods and the tools

Guys,

I'm working on a "tutorial" with pictures and complete explanations about the methods of sinking and raising copper.
Keep you posted!

Very nice indeed.

I've always wanted an 'onion' like that too....looks fantastic!!

Kudos to you. That is a beautiful rig. You should be proud. Yep, and I'm like everyone else, I'd love to learn the coppersmith art.
SF

Thats got some serious cool factor. One hell of a home built kit there Fredistiller.

Beautiful work, looking forward to your copper working tutorials.

That is some beautiful craftsmanship! I'm looking forward to giving this a shot in the not so distant future

A member asked me about the wiring of my installation. I thought I could share it here too even if I'm a noob when it comes to electricity. As I said, my brother helped and I just followed his instructions, so sorry for the unprofessional explanation! But something is better than nothing...so here is what I can do to help others with wiring:

Gradator = device that permits dimming your current in the warming element (the green plate)
Resistance = warming element (here connected with the white outlet)
Potentiometre = device to crank up or down the currant (not on the picture but see below)
Ampere metre = device used to "read" the currant. (not on picture)
Neutral= Blue wire.
Line = Brown wire.

Maybe the term are different/not really correct in English!!

Bring your line and neutral to your gradator.
From the gradator:
1: connect your potentiometre. (the stuff with poti 100k A-S-E)
2: Neutral goes to Ampere metre to resistance.
3: Line goes to resistance.
4: if wanted/needed: use port for line and neutral (in gradator or before) to connect transormator for the fan

Important:
-Never connect Line AND neutral to Amperemetre.
-Never connect your transformator AFTER the gradator.

I hope I could help.