New to Distilling

[Lakeman]

Hi, just doing the polite thing to introduce myself.
I will probably just lurk for a while to learn.
With Covid 19 I have more leisure time and thought I would learn to make hand sanitiser.
My brewing experience has been intermittent home brewing.
I do like a Whisky and had visions of making my own a few years ago but worked out I was best to buy it.
My thoughts now are to practice distilling for sanitiser and perhaps dabble with gin and lemoncelo with the possibility of making rum.
I am keen to try some barreling.

[Doubleuj]

Barrelled sanitizer won’t be very good 8-}

[Professor Green]

Welcome Lakeman.

I thought the hand sanitizer crisis had settled down now that every distillery on the planet is making it.

Sounds like you want to make a bit of everything which means you'll need a reflux column for the neutral (for sanitizer and gin base), and a pot still (for flavoured spirits like rum and for flavouring the gin base). There's a number of ways you can achieve this: modular still that can be reconfigured to suite the spirit you're making, a column that can be run like a pot still (known as a "detuned" colum), or two stills - a column like a boka and a basic pot still.

Which way you go will depend on your circumstances such as budget, how much room and time you have for distilling, how much booze you actually want to make etc.

Some options for you (off-the-shelf and other):

• 50 Litre milk can boiler and a 4" neutraliser from 5 Star. Not the cheapest of options but this combo is more than capable of handling any distilling job (neutral, single run whisky/rum, and gin although the addition of a gin basket may be advantageous). This is modular and you could break up the budgetary shock if you needed to by starting with the pot still part s(check out the 4" pot) then adding the pates, reflux condenser and packed section over time to bring you to the full neutraliser.
• 30 Litre boiler plus 2" pot still and 2" boka from 5 Star. A more budget friendy option and you could start with just the boka and add some bits later to add the pot functionality or you could start with the pot and add the boka later. These could also be coupled with a 50 litre boiler later if you want to up your run sizes.
• DIY a pot and a boka or even modular still if you have the skills.
• Watch the for sale space here to see what pops up.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

[Lakeman]

Thanks Prof,
I hadnt watched my post so only just saw this reply.
Seems sensible advice

[woodduck]

Welcome mate.

Yep the professor sumed it up nicely above.

I personally wouldn't go to the trouble of setting up a still just for hand sanitiser.

Enjoy the forum