Distillers Lounge

husita

Well-Known Member
Well, to kick off, I was distilling this saturday. It was a wine brandy, 200 l so far, another 200 l to go. I have 120 l copper pot with copper cooler.
I tried crushed apples, apple juice, pears, plums, black crane? (Aronia melanocarpa ), and wine juice. Aronia and plums are my favourite.
Distilling for more than 15 years. Realy enjoy drinking my own spirits, especialy on croscountry skiing trips.

Other people enjoy my spirits too:D. Distilling is about the passion as weed growing.
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I have the equipment to make my own spirits and have in the past made just plain sugar mash alcohol for making cannabis extracts with but being a non-practising alcoholic almost 2 years now will just be using non-potable solvents like ISO and naphtha in them.

Some years back I made a condensor using 3/8" copper tubing to fit in a coffee can and use 2L pop bottles with salt in the water to freeze and use as my cold source as I have no running water in my shop. Automotive antifreeze in the can to prevent it freezing. Extra bottles in the freezer for longer runs as I have a 4L glass bottle to use as boiler too. Using toluene here to make some cannabis extract. As toluene boils at 114C I believe there's vegetable oil in the pot.

DIYstill01.jpg

DIYstill02.jpg

A simple countertop still I use to recover solvents that has a temp control and holds 4L. Can't use with naphta as the silicon seal seems to absorb that then swell up and break the seal so it was running down the side on my test run.

CBDisoReclaim.JPG

Got this 12L still off amazon . ca and used it to distill Coleman's Camp Stove fuel to get clean naphtha. It too had silicon seals for the thermometer and copper tube outlet that were incompatible with naphtha so I got some automotive gasket material and using hole punches that fit made gaskets that work. I put 3 cans of fuel in there and cooked it all at once. It has a pond pump to circulate water from a 5gal pail so doesn't need a running water source just snow added to the pail if winter or lots of ice to keep the water cool enough. It has a thumper tank, (not in pic), that can be connected for alcohol runs from mash. Was only $150Can about the same as the countertop one.

NaphthaRun.JPG

NewStill01.JPG

For the finer work I have an all glass lab distillation setup. I bought a new 3-neck, 2L boiling ball but still haven't used it. Used to have a single necked one but my dog knocked over a box it was in and it broke years ago. Somewhere I have an electric heating mantle to fit that ball but damned if I can find it so will use canola oil in that bowl to heat the ball. I also got an 8" lab jack to raise and lower the hotplate and bowl of oil as needed. Still trying to get the vacuum fitting and column to do fractional distillation when purifying ISO to remove ketones that can cause explosions when reusing ISO.

3NeckBoilingBallStill01.JPG

You can get tons of info about distilling at homedistiller.org but maybe @husita has some tips too.

:peace:
 

husita

Well-Known Member
OldMed:

Love the first one, Its cute.

Mine looks like this, but condenser is different- homemade, this one drikns too much water.
100 l still
1676919157876.png
It´s got double coating, copper pot floats in oil, so you don´t have to stir dense mush and it reamins longer hot when working continually.


I have another one, made of aluminium, about 10 l, but is more museum exponate....
 
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OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
OldMed:

Love the first one, Its cute.

Mine looks like this, but condenser is different- homemade, this one drikns too much water.
100 l still
View attachment 5262224

I have another one, made of aluminium, about 10 l, but is more museum exponate....
Is that a firebox I spy at the bottom? Old timey moonshine stuff right there eh. Nice.

:peace:
 
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