New Member from the old country.

[The Stig]

Hello from Old Blighty and Lawford Boy.

I am new to all this stilling stuff. I have had a few runs with my home made still, each one slightly different from the previous one. I keep modifying the coolant delivery of the coil and the lie-beg. I think I'm sort of where I want to be now. I have watched numerous videos on design etc, etc, and have made a reflux still with product production management, product management cooling, vapour management cooling and it seems to work quite well. Most of my ideas came from Clawhammer and Anthony Rainier. I made my still from an old copper hot water cylinder. I cut the cylinder in half, cut a section of the round out and soldered it back together to the size I wanted. This leaves me with about a third of the volume in air space before the column. The column is packed with copper mesh which I bought from the US of A. It was cheaper than buying it from the UK??? I also bought the 54mm copper pipe for the column from Ireland again this was cheaper than buying it from the UK??? I did buy the copper for my coil in the UK and wound it myself. I bought a few bits from the dreaded China we just don't make anything at a sensible price anymore. I have 5 thermostats just as interest to see what's what. One in the boiler liquid, one in the boiler vapour, one under the collection tray, one on the top of the cooling column and one on the product outlet pipe. Over kill or what? but interesting to see how each area performs. I would post a couple of photos of the monster, but I can't, or perhaps I did?

[bt1]

Welcome bloke,

Sounds like your organised and well underway. Hope we can offer a few choice tit bits for you to take away!

enjoy
bt1

[Urrazeb]

Hey mate :wave: Love to see some pics of this thing! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

5 thermos! Geez louise :teasing-tease:

[The Stig]

I just fixed the pic posed in the original post :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Urrazeb]

Hey mate what size is the column on your still? What kind of ABV is she pulling?

Looks the goods :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[BackInBlack]

Welcome, nice looking still :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Lawford Boy]

Hi all you nice guys. ( no I don't bat for the other side just being friendly )

1 I like that bike. I just wish!!!!!!! or is it envy?
2 I wish I could make a babbler.
3 Why can't I post a picture like that? I would put a few more up, but the ****ing about that one put me to forget it. But thank you Stig.
4 The column is a meter of 54mm copper tube loosely stuffed with copper mesh, the cooling at the top is a foot (300mm) of the same size pipe and the coil is a double wound affair of 6mm copper about (10") 125mm with an umbrella of beaten into the shape I wanted of copper which I think is about where I want it to be. I did make and try a few variables. Thanks to Anthony Rainier of Rainier Stills. I also used some ideas from Kyle Brown of Clawhammer. Look listen and learn. I did my first second run today as in alcohol run. I thought that this run went smoother and easier that wash runs? I thought the temperatures were never going to increase. The alcohol level was not as high as some report but I am not a greedy person so I don't think I will be altering anything else, at least not for a while. I let the whole thing settle for a short while about 15 minutes then opened the product outlet tap about a third and adjusted the cooling water. I made some notes, top cooling coil 60ºc dividing tray Tony's idea along with the bicycle innertube which is edpm rubber food safe, makes a perfect gasket for the dividing tray coupler and the cooling coil coupler 76.8ºc boiler liquid 83.6ºc boiler vapour 80 3ºc product out via cooling 20.1ºc and this went on for quite a while before temperatures started to rise. This was on propane by the way. All the time this was going on I was getting 450mls per 8 minutes which continued to the very end. I was quite impressed by my endeavours. The best bit of all, it was producing 88 to 89% abv. Unfortunately at the end the abv was way down and I stopped at about 10% but it's all grist to the mill for the next run. The first runs on sugar wash was 68% and 76% but this involved a lot fiddling about with things to get a feel for the machine. I switched off today when the boiler liquid was at 94.6ºc but the stuff was still coming out at the same rate, just not much alcohol in it. Same. All in all I got 14 x 450ml pots and a 1 uk gallon demi john plus about 50mm in another DJ. It all started with 3.5 gallons of about 70% watered down to 30% . I sit here tonight quite satisfied with the day.

[Brendan]

I wish I could make a babbler.

:teasing-blah: :teasing-blah: :teasing-blah: Babble Babble





:laughing-rolling:

[Lawford Boy]

Do you spell everything correctly every time you write something. I wish I was as cleaver as you. posting.php?mode=reply&f=3&t=5679#

[Brendan]

Just something to have a chuckle at mate, not to be taken too seriously...that's what we're about here, it's the Aussie way :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Bootross]

along with the bicycle innertube which is edpm rubber food safe

I wasn't aware that inner tubes were EPDM, so I went searching the net when you mentioned it. My brief search came up with them being made from butyl rubber. How do you know that your inner tube is EPDM?
Just trying to look out for your safety. ;-)

[Lawford Boy]

Hello down under from up here.
Or will you be up and us be down when you read this?
Anyway I was only yanking your chain Brenden when I asked if you spell propper all the time. I have included a link for the inner tube (http://youtu.be/unXl7Iqvens ) but bear in mind in does not come into contact with the juice. Now I may have to wash my mouth out, with alcohol, but I did post a bit on Home Distillers using my LB name and it is much much easier to post pictures of your gear on that site. So if your interested have a look but I was limited to 5. Perhaps it could so hear with a little tweak hear and there it would make things a bit more interesting. How did The Stig get my still on so easy. I am willing to put some more photos up but I can't go through all that again. I would also like to know if any of you know if there is a forum on here for how to make the best volume producing wash as in 25lts in 24.5lts out (I wish) I have only done sugar washes so far because it is simple no hassle and the output seems reasonable.

Cheers.

[Urrazeb]

This helped me viewtopic.php?f=57&t=3097 :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[The Stig]

How did The Stig get my still on so easy.

Its the one thing I do best :-B
Just take the image url and paste it between the [img]pasteURLhere[/img]
so your post would look like [img]**http://www.imageurlhost.com/images/oq3x6h6hg9pq8izfepcy.jpg**[/img]
But without the ** and **
See, easy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Lawford Boy]

Everything is easy if you know how & what your doing. It's easy for a bloke to stand up and pee but it's not so easy for a girl. She may know what to do but it's not easy. I have that trouble with computers. It all seems easy but if you can't control the equipment then you can't do the do. I read and read but the knowledge don't seem to stay for very long. I think it would be better if the site had an easier way to up load pictures. If the admin didn't like it then they wouldn't let it publish. Simple.

[Brendan]

I would have to say that is the easiest way to upload a picture.

There is an alternate method if the file is on your computer, you can upload the attachment when you type your post and insert it into the post.

But if it's on an image hosting site, I don't think it can get much easier than clicking the img button and pasting the link in the middle...after all, if you've uploaded it somewhere else, the only way would be by inputting the link in somewhere here... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Lawford Boy]

Hi Brendan.
I'll give this a go. http://t.imgbox.com/PCsfsyND.jpg This should be part of my workshop. Got this via imgbox.

Regards. LB

[Brendan]

Hi Brendan.
I'll give this a go. http://t.imgbox.com/PCsfsyND.jpg This should be part of my workshop. Got this via imgbox.

Regards. LB

Almost...

Now if you hit the 'Img' button when making a post (above where you're typing), it will come up with two brackets like this: [img][\img]

If you put that address in between those brackets like this: [img]http://t.imgbox.com/PCsfsyND.jpg[/img ]

Then it should come up like this:



Let us know if you don't care here, just trying to help :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Lawford Boy]

OK I'll give it another go. [img]]http://t.imgbox.com/elnjfRiJ.jpg[/img] This should be a picture of my parrot.

[Lawford Boy]

Is this one working?