2'' Boka Build

[Matt_Pl]

Hi, Welcome to my 2'' Boka build.

Firstly I want to acknowledge the help/support and insight which these forums have provided, without the knowledge Ive gained so far from many nights of reading through here I never would have attempted this build. So lets begin...

It took we a while to make up my mind between a 4'' perforated bubbler and the Boka but went with the Boka due to the low cost and easy build, crawl before I learn to run :handgestures-thumbupleft:

So the way I figured I'm building a 2'' Boka reflux still easy flanged to a 50 ltr SS keg which will be heated using natural gas, packed height 1.5m plus plates and condenser should put me at a total height of well below the roof of the shed.


I made up a simple jig to assist the winding of the coil. It is 20mm plastic conduit with a 6'' piece cut off the end which is then drilled and cable tied to the long piece giving me my inner diameter for my coil

Condenser%20Jig.jpg

This is the first wind, I read that 200mm was able to knock most steam thrown at it so who knows..

Starting the wind.jpg

I used an old catalogue to space the two coils when i wound the second coil, when I attempted to remove the magizine i actually began to damage the coil. One way around it was to fire up the webber 30 mins at 255c sorted out the catalogue but left my coil looking like it was involved in a house fire (still to properly clean it). :angry-banghead:

Finished%20Condenser.jpg

So here is my first ever condenser, if you take your time its actually not that hard to wind one, Give it a Go :D :D

My%20First%20Coil.jpg

Coil%20Gap.jpg

Hopefully get back out to the shed tomorrow and continue with the build.

Enjoy

[Brendan]

Good job mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Look forward to seeing the rest of it come together.

[Smbjk]

Great job bud. Nice simple jig but has worked!! Get the build process coming along we havnt had a boka build thread for a while always interesting to see new approaches :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Zak Griffin]

Looks good Matt! I'm sure you'll get some good experience out of the Bok before you step up to a bubbler :)

Let me know if you need any bits or advice, I'm just down the road and might be able to help.

[Matt_Pl]

So the build is complete, I just conducted a vinegar run and detected only a small leak near the temperature probe which I can fix tomorrow!! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Only real issue i had was my awesome coil didnt fit into the 2 ' column so i straightened it out and rerolled it. The coil knocked down the vinegar steam instantly so very happy with that.

Enjoy the pictures. I enjoyed the build and would like to thank everyone who provided input and a huge thank you to everyone who provided insight through these great forums.

:text-thankyoublue: :text-thankyoublue:

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[Smbjk]

Looks good mare that thing is huge :scared-eek: you will certainly get some great refluxing :handgestures-thumbupleft: keep us updated on your first runs :D

[Matt_Pl]

Haha yeah it's purpose built for my shed. I've only got an inch clearance from the coil to the roof. I had the room so I went with the 60" of packing plus coil and plates

Will post some shot of the first run

[haze]

great work on the build. shes a tall bitch :) hope you are too so you can see that temp guage, you will be watching it a lot . Maybe you can get one of em that is a probe with cable and screen so you can mount it lower in future

Im running a bok as well. tips i can give ya.. wrap some insulation of some sort around the column from the bottom to the takeoff it will help a lot to stabilise.

looks like a brass ball valve you got there. id be interested to see how fine a control you will get from it. it might be a pain. i was using a brass needle valve until i got concerned with possible lead content. I didnt want to fork out for a stainless one but i found one cheap and its superb quality. Its a compression fitting 1/4"

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/141130016161 ... 1497.l2649

and a couple things that helped me a lot

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 46&t=13265
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=11640

I particularly like comments from Usge in this post.
http://ww.homedistiller.org/forum/viewt ... 36&t=31338

great build. happy stillin

[Matt_Pl]

Hey Haze,

What material do you recommend insulating the column with?

Thanks for the input

[BackInBlack]

Nice build :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Try Clarks Rubber for some insulation foam.

[Smbjk]

Hey Haze,

What material do you recommend insulating the column with?

Thanks for the input

I just used hot water pipe insulation from bunnings and zip ties :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[haze]

Yeh i used the clark rubber insulation with like an aluninium backing cos i had some laying around but i thinks its expensive to buy. like everything at clark rubber. i like the bunnings pipe insulation idea. i used duct tape around the whole lot to install

[Brendan]

The silver and black stuff from Clark Rubber is the nuts :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I use it on my boiler, used to use it on my reflux columns, and now use it on my mash tun...holds the temp in the 90 degree range for several hours.

[Matt_Pl]

Well the cleaning run went through no problems at all, 60 ABV then I threw it all out : (

Pulled off a stripping run last night, discarded 250ml and bottled the rest. Nice clean product!!

What does everyone use to store their stripping runs? The no plastic rule really does suck and after driving around town for 3 hours yesterday Ive completely given up on the idea of a metal funnel :angry-banghead:

Well Im very happy and once again thank you to everyone who has provided such great input to my build.

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Cheers and Beers

MP

[Zak Griffin]

I store all of my low wines in 700ml-1125ml glass spirit bottles... I'm looking for a more efficient solution though.

Glad to see you're having a win!

[Sam.]

I take it off the still in 5L glass demi's then it goes straight into the boiler (I have two boilers :D )

[Matt_Pl]

Hey Zak,

Yeah Im doing the same mate low wines in any 750ml bottles I can get my hands on.

Im hoping next week I can strip the other fermenters and play around with attempting to run the low wines and make some cuts.

With Vodka do you normally just save your heads and tails and mix them up with the next low wines run or do you mix the heads and hearts together?

I have no plan on filtering my novice belief is that If I feel I have to filter anything, Ive made poor cuts so I will redistill.

Looking forward to next weekend :music-deathmetal:

[Zak Griffin]

Get your cuts right and you shouldn't need to filter, but the Doctor filters all of his vodka and he makes a living out of the stuff so I don't think it's a bad idea, on top of good cuts...

I haven't finished my Boka, so I haven't really done a proper vodka yet, but I would;

strip 200L of wash, save everything except foreshots as low wines

rerun your low wines (diluted to 40% of course), make your cuts.

keep the hearts to drink, save the feints (heads and tails)

once you have enough feints, do another spirit run. You won't get heaps of hearts out of it, but it's worth the effort. Discard the heads and tails from this run...



Keep a bottle of your neutral for me, next time I'm down your way I'll swap you for a bottle of my Cornflakes Whiskey :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Brendan]

Hey Matt,

Good start with the bottles. When your runs get a bit larger, you will find you might need a few larger vessels at least 5L for low wines storage. I've found one of those Chinese run $2-like shops (Hot dollar, hot bargain, bargain-4-u) which has heaps of glass containers, so I have a few big 12L ones which I use for low wines. If I've got 4 fermenters of stuff to strip, I usually get 12L from each, pour them into that container off the still, and then combine the 4 strip runs into an empty keg for storage (as it's about 45L of low wines).

In terms of a funnel, I usually collect in a 1L Pyrex jug ($10 @ Woolies), which allows you to keep track of measurements and easily pour it into bottles to make cuts :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I'm sure others have a more efficient strategy, but when I'm doing vodka runs I actually throw the heads and tails out. Many would keep them for a later run of all the feints you've collected. As for your hearts, definitely don't add any heads to them! And for a vodka that doesn't need filtering, I actually only bottle half of my hearts for vodka, and the other half which isn't quite good enough goes for fruit macerations and flavouring :D I'm going to do a thread on how I do vodka soon if you're interested...

[Yummyrum]

Like Brendan...toss the heads and I don't even bother collecting tails ....as soon as the temp starts to rise, I samrt increasing reflux to compress tails .
I collect in 100ml increments at that stage. You suddenly know when the mouth curdly tails begin...I then stop collecting and dump the bioler...it will smelll so putrid of consentrated tails ,you will understand why I don't bother to collect them