Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

OK so the story here is that I'm planning the build of a Boka still using bits and pieces I have lying around. I have a 1.8m length of 2 1/2" stainless tube and want to use that as the basis.

Now I know I need copper in the still to remove the sulphides and was planning on the condenser and packing both being copper to perform this job.

Me being a tight wad, I'm looking for alternative column packing that won't cost the earth. I have time to burn and a heap of copper offcuts and electrical cable lying around. It got me thinking, can I make my own packing? Looking at the ceramic Raschig rings available couldn't I make copper ones. As well as this I want more surface area so could I add copper coils as well.

Here is what I came up with. It is 1/2" copper tube cut into 6mm lengths and 1mm copper wire wound into copper springs about 10mm long and 5mm diameter. I placed some in a glass and shook it up to see how they settle and to me it looks good.

I plan on holding these bits in the column with stainless steel scrubbers at either end in the column and have a packing length of around 1.2m.

I would welcome your input to this, either good or bad.

Yep will work fine, ferromit uses similar stainless steel offcuts in their removable packing sleeve for the Alex n25.

Thanks Kiwikeg for the reply. I hadn't come across the Ferromit stills before.

I had a look at their site and it has thrown up another question. This is an extract from their site

"the sliding column made out of stainless steel and packed with stainless steel coils (no copper and stainless mix as some other stills have with stainless N25 alcohol still column and copper packing - two different metals = electrochemical reaction)."

Should I be concerned about electrochemical reaction?

Don't worry about the dissimilar metals debate at all, Alex is a genius but sometimes he overthinks things also I think english is not his first language so his website is best read with a heavy Russian accent... 'We make vodka, then have party ya!' :laughing-rolling:

So I have about 2-2.5 kilos of these used high definition plasma electrodes sitting in a bucket at work. They are 100% silver and I've been saving them to go cash in as scrap silver. But I got to thinking, would these be good for column packing? They are hollow like a cup and vary from 6-10mm diameter by about 20mm long. At the moment I'm using copper mesh packed into my 50diameter 1.2m stainless column. I was thinking of stuffing a roll of copper mesh up the top, then filling in behind it with the silver electrodes and then finally packing whatever space is left at the bottom of the column with more copper mesh. What do you guys think?

I assume your RC is also copper?
You can't get enough copper in your vapour path.
Will what you're proposing work? Yup.
But will it be any better than what you have right now? Nope.

You could pack your column with marbles and it would give similar result to what you're proposing.
Now, if you were to cut those into thin slices you would vastly improve your packing density and surface area.

At the end of the day. ..keep it simple I reckon :handgestures-thumbupleft:

TheMechwarrior wrote:I assume your RC is also copper?
You can't get enough copper in your vapour path.
Will what you're proposing work? Yup.
But will it be any better than what you have right now? Nope.

You could pack your column with marbles and it would give similar result to what you're proposing.
Now, if you were to cut those into thin slices you would vastly improve your packing density and surface area.

At the end of the day. ..keep it simple I reckon :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yeah the RC is copper, my still is made from scrap I had at work, so there are parts that are stainless (2/3) and parts that are copper (1/3).

Fair call, without packing I get a constant stream of around 75%, but when using the copper mesh I can only seem to bump it up to about 83% by lowering power input and running high reflux (single run starting with a 10% wash). I'm just trying to get above 90% on a single run and I thought the copper mesh would perform better, maybe I'm just not packing it tight enough.

The closer you can get to copper Pall Rings/ new or improved versions the better.

The spring/coil nice touch to fill the voids.

Personally I'd buy the Pall rings ... if your talking %'s then strive for the max.

bt1

You have a 2" reflux column that's 1.2m tall, fully packed with mesh and you're having trouble getting above 90%?

How much power are you using?

TheMechwarrior wrote:You have a 2" reflux column that's 1.2m tall, fully packed with mesh and you're having trouble getting above 90%?

How much power are you using?

I've got twin 2000w elements. So I use 4000w to get the still up to temp in about 35mins. Then I turn one element off and just vary the power to the single element.

At 2kW you should be hitting 94% easy. I'd be looking at your RC and the temp of your distillate.
How tightly packed is your column?
Any centering rings?

Pics would help.

You should probably start a new help topic thread mate ;-)

TheMechwarrior wrote:
You should probably start a new help topic thread mate ;-)

I agree a new thread with some pics of your rig.. Your description doesn't say what style of still you have, the % sounds like my old CM still.

:text-+1: but where is it ....I think you should sell the silver for scrap and invest in some still upgrades .To me , 2Kw in a 2" is bordering on too much .I'm guessing your RC can't reflux enough , the product is pissing out the outlet like a donkey and that's why the ABV is so low ...yeah a pic would help .

But guarantee that swapping copper mesh for those bits will make things even worse :naughty:

I am using a 1" copper pipe column and packed it 112" copper tube offcuts with excellent results. But I first cut the rings in two and rebent them into smaller rings, to get closer to the recommended column to ring ratio of 10:1