Hi all from Melbourne

[silverbean]

I was bored with not much on the Telly so I was browsing YouTube when I come across guys building stills and seeing how I like to drink whiskey thought this doesn't look too hard. So I found a 9 liter coffee urn and made a 1/2 inch worm and started experimenting.
Then the Covid lockdown hit in Melbourne and I found myself in the shed a lot. I soon realized YouTube wasn’t a good teacher and found another forum which set me straight.
The flake stand was a bitch to keep cool so I built a 1” over ½” Liebig, added an inverted salad bowl to the urn with a 1” riser for height and things got a whole lot better.
After a few so-so all grain bourbon attempts where I struggled to get good conversion I pumped out 14 generations of UJSSM which started to get fairly good and a couple all grains.
I have now been playing with the yellow label Angel Yeast which is interesting.
I have a couple of problems, with such a small still I have to be pretty brutal with the cuts and although rerunning the tails works I have built up a lot of heads. I was lucky to be given a 3 foot length of 2“ copper which I silver soldered ferrules onto and today most of the rest of the parts for a CCVM arrived. I will build a new Liebig maybe 1” over ¾” or ¾” over ½” but longer than my old little one and if I can get it passed the minister of finance, a bigger boiler.
I thought I had better join this forum as it would be a better source of local info not to mention hearing Liters and Kilos is a lot easier than Gallons and Pounds, I struggle with that even though I first bought petrol in gallons and still tend to think in feet and inches (and copper pipe is still in inches).
Anyhow I still have a lot to learn and hopefully I can contribute in some way even though I think of myself as a newbie.

Bean

[Professor Green]

Welcome to AD Bean.

I'm sorry to say that the still you're describing sounds somewhat dangerous. An upturned salad bowl on an urn does not fill me with confidence that you have no vapour leaks. Might be worth pressing the minister for finance for a new boiler sooner rather than later for safety's sake.

Adopting a strip/spirit run strategy might help you with the quality issues - it sounds like smearing to me. What size cuts are you taking?

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

[silverbean]

Welcome to AD Bean.

I'm sorry to say that the still you're describing sounds somewhat dangerous. An upturned salad bowl on an urn does not fill me with confidence that you have no vapour leaks. Might be worth pressing the minister for finance for a new boiler sooner rather than later for safety's sake.

Adopting a strip/spirit run strategy might help you with the quality issues - it sounds like smearing to me. What size cuts are you taking?

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Thanks for your concern but no leaks the bowl fits snugly inside the lip of the urn and then pour in runny flour paste which sets into sticky gasket. Cuts jars vary start at 300ml 1 & 2 maybe 3 then 200ml for a few till I'm sure I'm into hearts then 250ml till I'm sure I'm into tails then run down to 10% in 1 jar. Often about 16 jars in total, maybe 6 -8 make the cut, around 2 liters at around 70% to go on oak.
The GLW has acquired a taste for gin recently and all I need now is to make a reflux condenser and my new CCVM will be ready for cleaning runs, I set it up on the little boiler and she laughed and said I need a bigger one. Birthdays coming up :dance:
Cheers
Bean

[The Stig]

Welcome .
Don’t coffee urns run on a thermostat ?
That would mean the heats on and off , no good for a still

[silverbean]

Welcome .
Don’t coffee urns run on a thermostat ?
That would mean the heats on and off , no good for a still

Not this one, it has a thermal cutout when it reaches boiling but I have bypassed that and run off a SCR controller. It has a 1300 watt element, If I run at 400 watts I get a slow drip, generally spirit run around 550 watts until I get into tails.

[Wellsy]

Welcome Silverbean