Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Well I am pleased to announce the 5Star has produced the goods photo to follow.

i will use the pond for cooling.

A ginat stepped on your photos mate :laughing-rolling:

Looks like a 30l keg with a 9 foot condemsor :ugeek:

Well i have finally been able to try the results. it is about two weeks old and tasted passable. i spoke with swmbo and said i needed to store this and needed to buy a container. well H told me you have a 20lt oak port barrel why not drain the port into a plakey drum and put the rum in that.
well all i can say is bugger me it has only been in it for 24hrs and it is a different product.

Good stuff Hagrid. I find rum needs a lot longer time to mature than some other spirits. Doesn't really start to get to my liking till six or eight months down the track and comes real good after 18 months.

Try to run twice as often or twice as much as you need to and put half away long term. ;-)

Good opening question. I was thinking the same myself: I don't see too many coil-in-bin-of-water type condensors being used.

Thought I might make one. I've got a nice length of 15mm pliable copper tube and an old 50lt keg that I was using for a boiler. The keg has a big hole in the top that I put an upturned stainless bowl on to connect my still heads to. I'm changing to triclamp fittings on a new uncut keg, so now the old boiler is spare. I thought I'd use that for my vessel.

On vessel size, I was just thinking ... Obviously the calculations about how much water you need in your cooling vessel are based on heat put into the boiler and the amount of charge/wash. Pretty much the question being answered is "How much heat's going into the boiler for how long, and how much water do I need in my cooling vessel to keep the water cold enough that it's going to knock down all of the vapour produced?" Anyway, it seems to me that you could get away with a smaller cooling vessel, maybe a 50lt keg, if you added those reusable esky ice blocks to your cooling water throughout the run.

I've always got a few of those ice packs sitting in the freezer. The freezer's always running. Why not make use of it to cool my still. You know, use some of the temperature in my freezer to cool the still. With enough of them I might be able to get away with only having used 50lt of water to cool a whole run. And then I could use that again too. Might give it a try.

stilly_bugger wrote:Good opening question. I was thinking the same myself: I don't see too many coil-in-bin-of-water type condensors being used.

Thought I might make one. I've got a nice length of 15mm pliable copper tube and an old 50lt keg that I was using for a boiler. The keg has a big hole in the top that I put an upturned stainless bowl on to connect my still heads to. I'm changing to triclamp fittings on a new uncut keg, so now the old boiler is spare. I thought I'd use that for my vessel.

On vessel size, I was just thinking ... Obviously the calculations about how much water you need in your cooling vessel are based on heat put into the boiler and the amount of charge/wash. Pretty much the question being answered is "How much heat's going into the boiler for how long, and how much water do I need in my cooling vessel to keep the water cold enough that it's going to knock down all of the vapour produced?" Anyway, it seems to me that you could get away with a smaller cooling vessel, maybe a 50lt keg, if you added those reusable esky ice blocks to your cooling water throughout the run.

I've always got a few of those ice packs sitting in the freezer. The freezer's always running. Why not make use of it to cool my still. You know, use some of the temperature in my freezer to cool the still. With enough of them I might be able to get away with only having used 50lt of water to cool a whole run. And then I could use that again too. Might give it a try.

My first still used a worm. I was very happy with it aside from having to collect on the floor.

I used a mid sized wheelie bin for the cooling water and found it would heat up enough that i could just get two runs done in a day in winter but would have to top the bin up from the bottom in summer if doing two.
1 run was easily achievable all year round.

I kept the bin full so used virtually no water, maybe a litre or two from evaporation each run. The system worked fine.

Nice, but what's with the orange coating on the pot head?

I'll use my existing pot, which has a liebig. But I'll just use the liebig if the coil condenser needs a booster late in the run.

It's Dog Dick Red and it's paint.

To use a Facebook term, "Like" :))

Okay. So, inspired by 5Star's worm, I decided I'd make one myself. Here's the result.



The worm vessel is an old 50lt hot water service that I had lying around. Rustic. Might give it a pretty up. Joined the worm to the still head with a 15mm compression fitting so that I can take it on and off.

Just drilled a 15mm hole in a rubber bung that fitted in the old element hole and fed the worm through. Seals beautifully.

Even though I put 8 winds in it, the coil doesn't seem to have any flat spots as she flows nice and steady.

When I'm distilling water at 4,400W she gets pretty hot and steamy at the top but stays cool at the bottom. A 3lt milk bottle of ice fits nicely in the middle of the coil and could be used to assist cooling.

Now I can just use my liebig as a booster if needed. Much water saved / no need for a pump.

stilly_bugger wrote:Might give it a pretty up.

Maybe a lick of dog dick red might be the go??? :laughing-rolling: :handgestures-thumbupleft: