Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I know this has been asked heaps and i have read the other posts so i am mainly wanting to confirm this will work.

I have a 50lt keg boiler, using a home made reflux still that only has 2 connections for water, my plan is to use 2 140l drums, the 1st drum will be full the 2nd drum empty, i will use this pump from bunnings.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/ozito-350w- ... p_p4816179

Pump from the full drum to the inlet of still, i will also have a T section with a line back to the full drum.

The water outlet of the still will drain into the empty drum, not sure if these drums are big enough but time will tell.

Hi Shaun,

I don't think 140L will be enough. Not sure of the cooling flow rate your still runs at but even if it's something like 2L/min you'll only get 70 minutes before you run out of water.

As a suggestion, you could try plumbing the drums together at the bottom so they're essentially one 280L drum. Fill them both up with water and have the cooling return go to the drum that doesn't have the pump in it.

It did this with two 240L wheelie bins and it worked OK on my T500.

Cheers for your suggestion, i guess my thought was the seperation of cool and hot water.

Do you have a garden as have also used 240L wheelie bins to collect tap water and then used on garden but could recirculate with pump.
Try and work out total quantify of water used each time.

I definitely don't use that much water when I do mine but it's only a 25L. I reckon I probably use 100L max

I guess it wouldn't hurt to try, i need the pump anyways.

With a 200l blue drum i could do 3 stripping runs in a pinch with a 25l boiler. I prefered to only do 2

Tesla101 wrote:As a suggestion, you could try plumbing the drums together at the bottom so they're essentially one 280L drum. Fill them both up with water and have the cooling return go to the drum that doesn't have the pump in it.

^ I'd do that, especially up in Brisbane where your cooling water temp might be in the mid 20's to start with. You could probably get away with one drum in the winter but I doubt it in the summer months. Fill both drums, plumb them together, pump from one and return to the second.

Have you got a swimming pool ?

No swimming pool, i could do the 2 drum idea if you think that would be the best way, the pump i listed will be ok with the the extra hose for pressure release?

Go to a wrecker, grab a car radiator and fan. Recirculate your water through the radiator with the fan powered by 12v you will need a reasonable current supply. My 50l boiler with 2.4 kw will keep water temp to a couple of degrees above ambient all day with a single 200 l drum.

:text-+1: and the water reservoir doesn't need to be large in this setup, mine is about 10 L. Makes for a massive space saver.

I was thinking about the radiator, i could use a normal fan, we have a couple good quality fans here than run on 240v

Shaun wrote:I was thinking about the radiator, i could use a normal fan, we have a couple good quality fans here than run on 240v

If can find a scrap air conditioner they have good radiators .

I can't get the pump i want they are all out of stock, i could go for a higher 550w that is priced at $117 or would a good sized pond pump be ok?

What about a 12 volt pump they sell for boats.

wynnum1 wrote:What about a 12 volt pump they sell for boats.

I've used one of them, worked well, only problem was I couldn't run my radiator and pump on the same transformer, even though it was 25 A. I reckon 240 V pumps are better for this reason.

Shaun wrote:I can't get the pump i want they are all out of stock, i could go for a higher 550w that is priced at $117 or would a good sized pond pump be ok?

I use a pond pump, means my gate valve gives excellent control on my RC cause the flow is already a bit slow.

Transformers do not look to be that expensive and the other option is to look at scrap some lap tops power supply's and other items are 12 volts.

I ended up with the Ozito pump as they had one out the back as a return, got it for $50 so will decide on the dual tub plan or radiator after some testing.

Sorry for being a pain, total fail, i understand why, i put on a couple reducers to bring the out put down so it will fit on my hose connection, i guess this was wrong as no water is getting through, can some one who has this pump tell me what type of hose they use and at what point they reduce the size for condensors, i have standard garden hose connections on my condensors