Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey all.

I've very new to the distilling community and have enjoyed distilling with my beginner setup. I'd done about 5 runs of various washes, though I am interested in making/buying a potstill for stripping and maybe in future brown spirits.

Since I bought the ... T500, I can't really do quick stripping runs to accumulate low wines for spirit runs. And since I'd rather not start getting into filtering, I'd like to look at stripping a couple washes then doing a slow spirits run.

Everywhere I've looked says it's easy to build a simple pot still head, I've seen a couple of made for the T500. Though I've yet to find a guide on building a simple pot still head for T500, I wouldn't call myself a handy man, but I don't see why I couldn't put something simple together with enough instruction and info. If I've missed something, it would great if you could point me in the right direction.

At the moment, since I can't seem to find any basic instructional info on building a pot still I was thinking of going the route of a cheap Keggomax T500 Condenser Pot Still head, as the still spirits copper dome and condenser are quite pricey (also read you don't get much for what you pay with SS condenser/dome).

TL;DR - I'd appreciate some advice on build guides for simple pot still heads, or would it just be worth purchasing a cheap one on eBay since it's will mainly be used for stripping.

Cheers.

It would be a good idea to give out your general location and you might find a helping hand close by that could help you.

The Stig wrote:It would be a good idea to give out your general location and you might find a helping hand close by that could help you.

That would sure be a great help. I'm in the Sydney area.

I've done a couple of runs now with the Turbo 500 condenser and it's been working alright. I got the condenser only for about $180, as I'm not handy either and wanted one ready to go, couldn't afford the one from 5 star or I would have got the modular one from there. There's a lot of feedback that the condenser isn't big enough and vapour escapes, however my water is pretty cold so I haven't had that problem.

I've ordered a voltage controller off ebay too, still waiting for that to arrive, which I believe will make a fair bit of difference.

If you work out the cost of sourcing the parts locally to build your own, and it's cheaper than the T500 condenser I'd give that a go. I just couldn't source my copper at a decent price in Bunbury WA and didn't want to drive 2 hours to get some, would have ended up being the same cost all up as the T500.

Hi mate the pot still is a very simple build. Basically your looking at a column (copper preferred) with an elbow on top that drops down into a 500mm 2" copper 4 barrel shotgun. The templates for the shotgun condenser are available in the workbench section. Just continue to read and look at build threads, it will make sense soon enough. Solder together with mapp and lead free soft solder and your on your way

If you don’t already have the tools you will need to work out how much that’s going to cost on top of parts.

That Keggomax pot still seems bit overpriced too. $280 at the online store I just found it on. I think you'd be better of saving a few more pennies and pay the extra $170 for the 5 Star 2" pot.

Professor Green wrote:That Keggomax pot still seems bit overpriced too. $280 at the online store I just found it on. I think you'd be better of saving a few more pennies and pay the extra $170 for the 5 Star 2" pot.

:text-+1: you'd also be getting a quality condenser and elbow that could be used for a 5star bubbler when you decide to go down that path.

Nathan02 wrote:Hi mate the pot still is a very simple build. Basically your looking at a column (copper preferred) with an elbow on top that drops down into a 500mm 2" copper 4 barrel shotgun. The templates for the shotgun condenser are available in the workbench section. Just continue to read and look at build threads, it will make sense soon enough. Solder together with mapp and lead free soft solder and your on your way

Cheers! I'll take a look.

Professor Green wrote:That Keggomax pot still seems bit overpriced too. $280 at the online store I just found it on. I think you'd be better of saving a few more pennies and pay the extra $170 for the 5 Star 2" pot.

A five star would be very nice, but the Keggomax I was looking at (on eBay and on Kegland.com.au) were $150-160 AUD (+$15 postage).

db1979 wrote:

Professor Green wrote:That Keggomax pot still seems bit overpriced too. $280 at the online store I just found it on. I think you'd be better of saving a few more pennies and pay the extra $170 for the 5 Star 2" pot.

:text-+1: you'd also be getting a quality condenser and elbow that could be used for a 5star bubbler when you decide to go down that path.

Yeah, it is an attractive option...

Nathan02 wrote:Hi mate the pot still is a very simple build. Basically your looking at a column (copper preferred) with an elbow on top that drops down into a 500mm 2" copper 4 barrel shotgun. The templates for the shotgun condenser are available in the workbench section. Just continue to read and look at build threads, it will make sense soon enough. Solder together with mapp and lead free soft solder and your on your way

After getting a better understanding of what a shotgun condenser is, reading in the workbench section doing some researching on google. I knew it'd be a lot simpler than what I thought. A YouTuber I've a watched before even had a build for one, looks similar to what you had recommenced but instead with 5 and brazing instead of soldering. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxblncdgw7Q)

This sounds like it could be a really fun project. Thanks for the pointing me in the right direction, however simple it might be to you, it really helped!

Jess has made it a bit easier visually taking you through the steps.