StillSmart

Howdy Folks

Just joined the Forum. I've been brewing beer on and off for quite some time, started brewing kits as a teenager and now some 20 *cough* years later just brew all grain.

I'm interested in trying out a few things in Distilling, from whiskys, vodkas to just extracting the alcohol from a messed up beer batch. Just want to have fun experimenting and see If I can make anything actually drinkable.


I'm currently planning on building a Boka refluxed column out of stainless steel, with the current price of copper there is quite a saving to be had.
I thinking of a 2" diameter, with approx 80cm of packing.

I want a stainless 30L or 50L keg for a boiler if I can find one cheap in the North West. Nr Manchester. Anybody have one for sale?


I bought a pack of stainless pan scrubs from Quality save at the weekend 50p for 6.
I figured they must be coated carbon steel as they attract a magnet, however I placed one in a very strong salt solution 5 days ago now, and it shows Zero signs of rust. So maybe they are fine. Do I need any copper in the packing or is that not really required.

If you go with scrubbers, another 20-30cms of packing will really help in ensuring you can achieve azeotrope 95.6% ABV.

If you are after vodka from the column, then you don't really need any copper. Most eastern europeans actually think its detrimental to the product.

If going for grain whiskeys or rum, then you need copper to deal with the sulphur compounds - this copper is really only needed on the stripping run.

So maybe building a very simple (sort) pot head out of copper with a copper condenser for doing the stipping runs.

Hi, Cheers

what is and why do I want a azeotrope 95.6% ABV?

That is the purest alcohol that you can get by distillation. Is it the most neutral tasting thing you can distill. It could be used for Vodka, a base for Gin, or adding other flavours too. If you want rum, whiskey, etc, azeotrope is NOT what you want. You want a pot still.

Chuck

A simple pot still might be a good starting point for whiskies and other flavored spirit.

My tuppenceworth Think before you build! After a couple of years limited to my Airstill I went all out to build a VM head and column as well as a pot head and thumper for my 50l boiler.

My first VM build wasn't very successful but you'll find a thread hereabouts about the Re-incarnation of my VM where I completely rebuilt the head and it worked perfectly.

Nearby to that you'll also find another thread called "What I did today" in which I posted about the decommissioning of my VM immediately following it's maiden run and it's been consigned to storage ever since.

Despite it working perfectly I discovered, before I'd even finished the re-build, that a reflux column was not going to meet what I need. The only reason I re-built it was because I had made something that didn't work and had to prove to myself that I could build it properly.

I make Vodka and Whiskies - that's it! So I don't have any use for the high strength neutral produced by a reflux column.

My pot still and thumper produce spirits at an initial 85%ABV. I get to recycle the Heads & Tails from each spirit run so I get plenty of activity and I love it...but that's me, you need to take time to think about what you want and when you make that decision you'll know exactly what you need to build

AM

An azeotrope is 2 or more liquids that are mixed and act as 1 new liquid meaning they have 0 glide so all the mixed liquids boil off at the same temperature ensuring that the blend stays the same throughout the boiling process

Superslim007 wrote..
2 or more liquids that are mixed and act as 1 new liquid.

Bourbon & Ginger mixed to act as a delicious new liquid does this count?

AM

Only if you boil it instead of drinking it!