Reflux / Pot still

[hillzabilly]

G-day mate,the workmanship on that looks good and if she makes good neutral wich is what the desighn suits ,leave her as is and realize the extra length of your 1meter colomn with passive reflux will allways rob your spirit of flavour even if you change the water pipes,my advice would be to make a short 2inch colomn of 500mm with 2by 90'bends into a 2inch shotgun condencer 400-500mm long,on a 50lt keg on gas for stripping and spirit runs it will cope better than the lieburg and all parts could be used if you decide to go the bubbler path at a later time.cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Zak Griffin]

My pot has a ~1m 3" copper column and I always pulled plenty of flavour out of it :think:

[scythe]

Probably due to laminar flow.
But also because vapours are pushed through at the rate they are.

Just try it and see.
Its always easy to change later.

[hillzabilly]

I have tryed to modify a couple of similar stills I have made ,and on both after all the extra time and effort and cost ,I just was not able get the same amount of flavour as my Ozark pot or Macs 2inch bubble caps,a short stripper is an invalueable assett too a distillers arsenal and the shotgun will future proof any extra time and cost,Zac I agree 3inch will carry more flavour and I presume ya had a shotgun condencer hanging of her wich deliver a cooler product with less water than a leiburg,they say each still will produce a unique spirit and depending how ya run it ,will also make a diference here lies the art and mystery of distilling,I would so love too be able for us all too meet up and taste each others product to make some of these decsisions easy ,wich is why I am on this site to one day we can all come out of the closet to a legitimate hobby.anyhooo cheers hillzabilly ;-)

[Zak Griffin]

Good call mate. My 3" pot has a 2" shotty and I used to strip washes at over 10L/hr (running on gas). I also insulated the column, which I forgot about until just then :laughing-rolling:

[toadskin]

Okay, so I gave it a run and it works pretty good, although the product was coming out at about 70%ABV peak, which is a bit higher than I expected. I had 20 x 100ml jars before the pump on my rainwater tank packed it in and I had to shut down but think I was getting into the tails by then anway.

So, the plan is to build a Pot still in the new year. I have a 50 litre keg boiler which I will convert to electric and I'm looking at a still based on a 2" column. Suggestions? Plans? Guess I'll head over to Pot Stills.

[Zak Griffin]

Is that 70% temperature corrected? And what was the wash? Strip or spirit run?

70% ABV isn't particularly high for a pot.

if you're set on building another pot still, make one with a 2" shotgun condenser :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[rumdidlydum]

Was the distillate warm coming off the still?

Are you using the liberg that you used on page 1 of this thread? :think:

[Flowerpot]

Hi, it'd be pretty easy to modify that still. Just separate the cooling lines and have the product condenser running water flat out and the "reflux condenser" water flow controlled by a valve.

WARNING: quick and dirty paint pic follows....

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If there's enough room to get water fittings in you may not even have to desolder and spin the PC

That would allow you to use it as a reflux still with better control and without packing or reflux cooling as a sort of pot still. All whilst leaving the PC nice and cold.

[JamieC]

I have a 1M copper reflux still that I can halve and remove packing to give me a 500mm pot still of sorts. With a power controller set at 180v I can get a steady toothpick stream at 65%. I know this is not up to bubbler standards, but its not bad. if you can get 65% with packing removed, and are prepared to double distill, I wouldn't be too worried. Just be sure you can make your cuts correctly.