Hello from North Georgia

[jhuisman]

Hello!

First, thank you for maintaining such a great and helpful site. I have been accessing the site regularly for a few years to research and get into home distilling. I have been distilling at home for about 18 months or so, and have mainly experimented with sugar washes, UJSSM, and a batch of rum, using almost exclusively recipes from this forum. I am very much a beginner.

I have a T500 that I purchased online, originally with the Still Spirits stainless column still head. I managed to break that after trying to add some copper scrubbie packing to add some copper, and then using that column head without the cooling, essentially trying to use it as a pot-head. That was before I found the threads in this column warning against that approach for various reasons. As predicted by members of this forum, FAFO. I ended up breaking the SS column head trying to disassemble it to get broken/burned up copper scrubbie bits.

Since then, I have purchased a copper dome, and the AlcoEngine copper pot still top with barbs, and it works really well. I have also put together a column with a 8" deflegmator for a cooling management column, that is 2" diameter and about 36" tall, or so, all tri-clamps, with both copper and SS "saddles" packing inside the entire column below the dephlegmator, and run that with the AlcoEngine top on it, which has plenty of condensing power for the 1600 watt American T500. I usually turn it down to 1100 watts during a spirit run. I don't have a wattage regulator other than the 2 switches on the pot. I've had good success with the PTFE gaskets with no leakages.

For cooling, I have two 50gal drums in my crawlspace connected together with a bernouli tube with a pump that pumps the water up to my still in the garage right above the tanks, and a return drain to the same drums, and a small transmission radiator in the drain wth a small fan blowing against the radiator to cool the hot water down a bit before returning it to the tanks. All that is connected to an extension cord with a switch in it located at the still for easy turning on and off when I'm running the still. The water supply tubing has a needle valve for the dephlegmator, but not the condensor (I haven't seen a need to manage the condensation rate, but like to have it wide open regardless).

The rig has served me well once I scrapped the T500 column. The AlcoEngine pot head works like a pot still. I can get 188p from my column when I remember to do all the steps right (start slow, turn power down, with no cooling, then slowly apply cooling to the dephlegmator to get get just a medium drip). When I do it wrong (full power, full cooling at the beginning) my dephleg is not really strong/big enough for 1600 watts power, and I get bursts of low grade distillate hosing out when the steam overpowers my dephleg, which comes in waves. Not fun, but I think I've learned my lesson on that.

Anyway, during the week I practice law, spend time with my wife, and help my adult kids with whatever is going on (no gc's yet). After some initial basic success (hey--you can actually do this) I'm slowly getting more into the craft of getting higher quality products and results, and the patience needed to do that, and the satisfaction from it. This forum has been an enormous help. I spend a few hours searching posts for any question I have, and usually find what I need. I haven't had the need to post until the change in the rules to become a member to search (totally understand).

I appreciate the moderators of this forum and the work they put in for all of us!

J