A collection of stills

[emptyglass]

Hi guys,
Some of you guys have seen my stuff before, but since I'm the new kid in town, I thought I'd pop some pics in of some of the stills I've made.
I'll start with the pots I've made. I'm into whiskey, and occasinaly rum, so they suit well.
And I'm still sussing out site limits on attachments, so it might be slow going.

500mm long tapered arm, 2" to 1/2" This still collects up to 9 litres an hour on a spirit run and is "traditional", i.e., no forced reflux.

As you can see, photographer, I'm not. This still collects up to 9 litres an hour on a spirit run and is "traditional", i.e., no forced reflux.

250mm long tapered arm, 2" to 1/2".

[emptyglass]

Heres some of the plated columns I've made.
On the right in the first pic is my coolant system. It suffers evaporation (5 litres every 2 months) but works great. Other than the loss mentioned, I use no nett water to do back to back runs.
Highly recomended, even if not sexy.

My first one. Its a copy of "olddogs flute", with a 3 way coolant control valve.

This modular arrangement worked well for experiments. 3, 5 and 8 plates possible without a spanner. This one has 2 individual coolant control valves.

This one is a culmination of all I know, and works great on bourbon whiskeys and excellent on rum.

At least I'm starting to get better with taking pic's.

[Magnu420]

a nice collection you got there
i envy you

[chill]

Those look beautiful!

Chuck

[YHB]

Stunning.

Never having run a bubbler of any sorts, there is one question that I have been meaning to ask for a while, which is;

Why do you need sight glasses? What is it that needs to be monitored?
Sight glasses look cool and will give you something to look at but are they essential?

I ask this now as I am starting to gather the bits and pieces for a bubble ball thingymebob, should I be putting some transparent disks on my list of things to find? or can I do without?

Brian

[Frank]

Hi emptyglass (bl#ody hell, I didnt even see you come in...welcome mate)
you've been busy........
which one do you now use/prefer the most for those flavourful whiskeys you like?

[emptyglass]

Hi YHB,
There is lots of different opinion on the sightglasses. My opinion is once you have run it, you don't need them, but untill you know how to run it they are invaluable. The bigie I think is you can observe for negative conitions, i.e., flooding, plate collapse, etc, but once you find the right settings, they are just eye candy.

Hi Frank,
I just slipped in quietly. I like the 5 seive plates for my UJ, and should work ok for All grain bourbon, once I get that sorted. I'm guessing 5 would work nice for scotch, 4 seems to do the trick for rum.
You can always remove a plate if you are loosing too much flavor.

Thanks chuck and magnu.

[Almanac]

I just love shiny copper and those stills look amazingly cool

Your cooling system is something we will all have to consider in the future with conservation and water metering/charges becoming so widespread. I pump water from our own well because we're too far out in the country for mains supply but I'd still prefer to be able to recycle coolant to my condensers.

Maybe you'd consider posting some specs for building your self contained coolant system

Being a Pot man myself I searched far and wide to find a 500mm copper eccentric reducer for my lyne arm, like the one on your pot, but never found one and had forgotten all about it until I saw your pics.

Lovely kit EG, I'm green with envy

AM

[FullySilenced]

I just wanna spend a week or two in the shop with EG would be a great learning experience.... however i am metrically handicapped but i learn rapidly..

Good Stuff EG keep on doing your thing...

[emptyglass]

Sure Aidan,
Its pretty simple, its just a case of finding the approptiate bits. I'll describe my system,

Main tank is a 50 litre poly plastic tub. I used the thicker style but a thin hobby one would work.
The radiator is from a 4 cyl Nissan. I used m4 bolts to attach the radiator with some stainless brackets.
There is a 240V ceiling exhaust fan and a simple sheetmetal box used to mount the fan so it "pushes" the air. It was conveinient to mount this "box" to the other side of the radiator as it had its factory mount holes, I picked up on them.
The fan is the style that you get for say, $15 to $20 (Au) and come with a plug usually (here anyway). A circle hole cut in the box and fan installed.
The pump is a "drop leg" style pump from a factory roof "coolboy", with a 3/4 outlet and a head of about 1.5m max. It would only be about 250 watts at a guess. It is held in place with some SS self tappers on the edge of the tank (or kerbside recycling container, as in my case)

The hot water in is plumbed to the bottom tank of the radiator, with a riser hose to keep the radiator full, the outlet at the top is returned back to the tank, ideally in the opposite corner to the pump intake. Without the unit full, there is not enough time for the fluid temp to be exchanged.
This is really the only important thing.

My first trial was with the tank on the floor, the radiator almost horozontal, with the bottom corner outlet propped over the tank and a desk fan wedged in there amongst the bricks to move air. Worked a treat, so I got excited and mounted it on the tank verticly, and it wasnt running full anymore. Didn't work. Added the inlet hose and it was all good again.

Then a plated column entered the frey. Case and tube condensers (shotguns) love flow. My little pump dosn't like the tank on the floor, given my boiler base is 12" off the floor to allow drainage, and a plated column is no shortie, the pump cant cope unless I have the tank on a stand. It dosn't suck much power and is quiet, so I use a stand to reduce the head lift. It moves 12 litres a minute (height dependant), thats enough to run a flute.
Of course, you would have to match your pump to your needs and budget. A smallpot still and a little fountain pump might be enough.
A small radiator gives me about a 20c drop so one from a medium size car would give more I suspect. Cross flow ones work as good, just be a bit mindful of thermo syphon and get the hot going in down low and pump flow not oppsing it (hot rises, cold sinks sort of thing)
Some shelf brackets would be convenient to use to mount the radiator.

I can do continual batch runs. as many as I can in a distilling day. might have to top up 5 or so litres for evaporation in a big weekend running. I use more water washing jars and things.
In summer if it starts looking iffy, I throw in 1/4 cup pool chlorine. I dump it every so often and refresh it, as I don't want it to become corrosive.
I've outgrown stills, outgrown boilers, but this thing that took a week or two to make is still arround. Has paid for itself.

Hope that gives some inspiration.

[Almanac]

Thanks for that EG, I can start looking for the bits and pieces and build it over the next few months as I'm not in any hurry.

AM

[emptyglass]

Sorry, I dribbled on a bit there.
Long and short of it, if you can rig up a car radiator as a heat exchanger, the tank need not be large.
And work with the thermo syphon as best you can.

Heres some boilers.

[Gaztops]

Fantastic looking rigs......real eye candy.