Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

G’day brewing folks.
I’ve been dicking around with a T500 flux and pot for a year and a half and I’m sick of it. Too slow and average product (can’t get rid of that subtle sulphuric background flavour). Good to learn on though.

My old man has a wholesale scrap metal business so has tonnes of copper pipe. I’m sure there would be some good bits in there. So, I’m thinking seriously about taking the Pepsi challenge and to have a crack at building something to make GIN(only). I was thinking of a four inch number as I have a maximum ceiling height of 3.3m in my shed plus I do other stuff in there and don’t have heaps of room for fermenting.

I still haven’t quite figured out what’s the difference (apart from sex appeal) between the two options...

So the questions for a newbie are:
- should I go for a bubble cap
- should I go for a glasser
- do you think I could build it for a $1500 + boiler or so if I get the pipe for free?
- keen to ensure I don’t go thru the process to only find I should have done it differently twelve months later. Is there a build here that’s the ducks nuts? They all look pretty good to me but hard for a newbie to work out what’s what.
-to maximise flavour, would it be better to buy the Carter head set up and run that rig for the final flavouring run?

I intend to buy Macs milk can of joy with all the bits so I guess that’s my starting point.

Any tips would be appreciated.

3.3m will be plenty of room for a hobby sized still. 5 plates and 500mm packed section will easily fit in that space with heaps of room to spare.

4" is a good size and will give you excellent performance.

Glasser or sight glass tee is purely personal choice.

Bubblecaps vs sieve plates is also personal choice but I believe the latter requires more power to operate correctly. Both will achieve the same results.

I can't comment on the budgetary side of it as I'm a total DIY klutz so bought my gear from 5 Star.

The carter head is great still however if you're on a budget you can start vapour infusing with just the botanical basket on top of an RC and maybe a plate or two to get you going and upgrade to the full carter head later. Another option if you want flavour with a capital F is to simply pot still your gin. You can even hang a basket of botanicals inside the pot for vapour infusion if you want. It's not as convenient as using a botanical basket though and you also need to watch that you don't scorch the botanicals.

Good luck with your build mate, post plenty of pics.

If you can get copper for free, build it all out of copper.

Your costs then will simply be the solder, clamps and seals, sight glasses and the boiler. You'll want a voltage controller too. $1500 is far more than you need if you can get free copper.

If you're going for one of the 5 star milk can boilers, may as well get all your clamps and sight glasses through 5 star too. You can also get ready to go plates too. If you were considering sieve plates you'd need to make them yourself as 5 star only have bubble cap plates.

db1979 wrote:
If you can get copper for free, build it all out of copper.

Your costs then will simply be the solder, clamps and seals, sight glasses and the boiler. You'll want a voltage controller too. $1500 is far more than you need if you can get free copper.

Good luck with your build Rolls912! :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I would also think $1500 is more than adequate, i paid for most of my copper (secondhand prices) and wouldn't of spent more than that on mine.
If you know the right people and have a few skills you really can build these things on a good budget.

Not possibly the best place to start, but if the copper is free, A 6" would be stuff all dearer to build if you're easy flanging a plated still

Just saying

Never done gin mate so can't help there but I know you'll need to make neutral first so a bubbler if you want speed. If the copper is free, 6 plates at least and 500mm packed section. Like the professor said a gin basket to suit would be best option or build a carter head with the free copper.

On best builds to copy, I would suggest reading all the build threads and taking the bits you like from each and build something that suits you. You will learn so much by reading the threads, far more than we could tell you here.

$1500 should be more than enough, I recon you could build the bubbler and carterhead for that if the copper is free.

Good luck :handgestures-thumbupleft: