Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Sweet :handgestures-thumbupleft:

After soldering the copper tube in (and drilling 1/2 holes before) I ground it down and cleaned it up with flap disc. Soldered on the flanges and cleaned it up a little more. Just need to solder the 1/2 copper tails in to connect water supply



This is what I have complete so far. A little slow but getting there

This is the condition of the 100mm copper I started with, thank Jesus for citric acid :-D

:happy-partydance: looking great mate :handgestures-thumbupleft: let's us know how the leak test goes.

You'll be seeing bubbles pretty soon, getting the RC down is a huge achievement :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Step drill bits rock :music-deathmetal:

Thanks db, you did say last week to get it done so I left the other 2 tee pieces and decided to get it done today. Felt good to get it (almost)finished hopefully there's no leaks, it wasn't too bad in the end, the other builds have helped me cut out a lot of trial and error and just get it right first time ha.
Is there a situation where the water in the RC can be too cold? I have the luxury of having a machine that chills water and circulates it through 8mm John Guest hose. It also has a thermostat to lower between 1-8 range but worried it might chill the water too much?

Chilled water is not a problem although a gate valve on the RC may not cut it, a needle valve might be a better option seeing as you may need a very small flow instead of a pretty small flow. The biggest problem with cold water is keeping it cold. If the temperature rises you'll have trouble maintaining the reflux ratio on your bubbler.

I will try a gate valve first, if not I will have to fork out for a needle valve. I will have saved enough on the equipment to justify it, although the machine I will be using is worth about $1500 :-D There won't be an issue with keeping it cold, but like you said I might have to throttle it right down if it's too cold

Joycy wrote:I will try a gate valve first, if not I will have to fork out for a needle valve. I will have saved enough on the equipment to justify it, although the machine I will be using is worth about $1500 :-D There won't be an issue with keeping it cold, but like you said I might have to throttle it right down if it's too cold

A gate valve is all i use on my RC and havent had any problems with it as yet.

It'll come back to the design of the RC too. Mine is quite short at 85 mm and I need to have copper mesh in the tubes to maintain full reflux in summer, otherwise it copes fine. But a longer RC with cold water will need very slow flow. Otherwise you just won't get past it.

I've made mine 140mm with 7 X 3/4 tubes. I've never used the machine for anything like this before so I don't really know how much range I have with chilling without restricting flow. I guess that part will be just trial and error

Yep give it a go :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Finally got a few hours in the garage after a busy couple of weeks. Managed to get the 4 modules (almost) finished, along with the RC and the block head. Next step is cutting the holes in the tees of the modules and tidying up, solder some flanges onto the 60mm piece that will clamp to the boiler, make up the packed section, make up the 2" branch for the block head and test the RC. That will just leave the PC and the parrot to have the tower mostly finished. Still sourcing a 50l keg, hopefully will have one next week and I can begin to prepare that.

The updated plan. The reason I am going with the block head design is to maybe add an offset Gin basket/ Carter head between the 2" flanges on the horizontal. Has anybody added this type of basket to their rig and what was your experience? Have read a little and seen some designs here but it's always difficult to choose

Finally starting to take a bit of shape. Still waiting on clamps to arrive from fsd. PC, parrot bubble plates and boiler to get it almost ready to start making some of the good stuff

Awesome work :clap:

Thanks Bluc, theres a lot more involved than i first thought but enjoying it. how have you been going with the new fsd plates?

Yea very happy :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Very nice work Joycy, it's going to be a cracker when it's finished.

Good stuff Joycy :handgestures-thumbupleft:
They look good when they get a bit of a shine up!
Its a pity it fades so quick without giving it a clear coat.

Cheers guys, i reckon the 100mm copper that I got was in such bad condition, it won't shine as good as new copper but I'll do my best to get it as clean and shiny as possible. What kind of a clear coat would go on to keep its shine?