Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Took the finished pot and soaked it for about an hour in a salt/ vinegar and water brine. Cleaned up the outside and thoroughly rinsed it in fresh water. Neutralised the acid with a bicarbonate and water bath for about twenty minutes. Was really happy as to how it cleaned up.

Performed a vinegar run to get the final few bits of crud out of the hidden corners.

The last task was a sac run. Used some foreshots and heads to help with the final clean.

This was the chance to play with water settings and see how good the PC was going to perform. Only used 2400W as it was a small run. 1L / hour water flow worked reasonably well to knock the vapour down to under 30 degrees. As the temp increased during the run, I increased water flow to 2L/ hour. Easily kept the distillate to about 27 degrees. Looks like I’m going to be able to throw a fair bit of grunt at it and still do the job well. Will perform a stripping run on a UJSSM in a few days and will then post a final report.

Looks the goods mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I would get a sight glass and seal where your blank cap is so you can watch it boil away :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Had that two weeks ago and broke it. Sad.

Bugger :crying-blue:

I broke about 4 before I got right knack..

Just one more turn on the tri clamp?

:laughing-rolling: yep that about sums it up.

Lesgold wrote:Just one more turn on the tri clamp?

Woop’s better hold my breath ..............

Gave the beast its first run today. Gen 2 UJ wash with Gen 1 low wines added. Only 23l in total. Found it handy to have the temp gauge hooked to the boiler. Gave me a good idea as to how the heat up was going. Being such a compact still, the setup was quick. It was great to be able to carry the boiler up to the house with the still attached. Only used one 2400w element due to the small wash. Ran the water at 1.6l/m to see how it would go. Dragged out 5 1/2 litres in the first hour. Pretty happy with that.


Water temp got to 22.5 max during the heat of the run. Temp then dropped to 20.5 towards the end of the run. 2/3 of the condenser was always cool to the touch which meant that it handled 2400w easily. Bluc was right about a 300mm shotty being able to handle 3.6kw. Thanks for that bit of info. That was locked away and put to good use. RC Al, your comment about 7 half inch tubes in a two inch shotty also came in handy. I reckon it may be able to handle about 4kw or more on a stripping run. The only slight flaw I can see with this design is the very small air space above the water outlet. Apart from that, it did a pretty good job.

Woot! Maiden run!
By your speed and use of a demi this was just another strip run?
Making it a 1.5 strip run? Not sure if that works in your favour overall - most would say no.... :think:

Doing a bunch of small ferments to get the number of gens happening is a good move, you would be getting 4.5-5l of low wines out of a regular small strip? I would save them up for one spirit run

No need not to use both elements for brown spirits, provided they are covered at the end of the run. The closer your average of the strip is to 40% or below, the less or no plain water is needed for the spirit run, increasing flavour. If it was for a neutral, slowing it down a bit is a good thing to reduce flavour carry over

Nah, it was just a strip run. Put the first generation strip back into the 2nd gen wash as there is not much flavour in it at all. By the time I get to about gen 4, some good flavours will start to come through. You are spot on with the numbers. Normally get between 4.5 and 5l per stripping run. Every still is slightly different. This one just hit 99 degrees and the abv (corrected) was reading 19%. Will give it a spirit run later when I build up enough low wines.

Just stripping off about 38l of UJ. Warm up with two elements was 36 minutes. Cut back to one element at about 1200w to take off foreshots and then cranked it up to about 3600w to see what the shotty would handle. Did it with ease. Spirit came off at about 29 degrees so I was happy with that. Dropped back to one element now so that I get a bit of flavour coming through. Should have enough low wines in stock to run a nice slow spirit run. Just need a rainy day to keep me house bound. :)) :)) :))

Nice build Lesgold :text-coolphotos:

Spirit run just completed. 33l of low wines @ 40% made for a bit of a long day but it was worth it. Took foreshots off and then about 2 1/2L of heads in a large jar. When some of the bite started to drop off, 6 jars were then collected. When I was sure that I was into hearts, a Demi of good stuff was gathered. Tails were getting close so it was back to another 6 jars. Abv was dropping quickly so it was back to stripping the remainder of the wash back to about 40%. Sampled some hearts off the still (diluted off course) and it tasted pretty darn good. Cuts tomorrow evening and then it’s on to oak for an extended holiday.

Cuts sorted and all put into Demi’s with a bit of oak @ 65%. Ended up with 7.6l @ 75%. Looks like the modular pot won’t get any use at this rate. With town water being quite cool at the moment, the good stuff came off at 15.5 degrees for the whole run. Water was run @ 1.2l per minute. Could have turned it down quite a bit but I needed my house tank topped up. The 7 tube shotty is a beast.

You have inspired me although I am a relative novice at this stuff.

Will get myself another meter of 2 inch and copy this, trigonometry wont be hard but soldering etc is another matter, my thought is to bring the shotgun up close top the V to make soldering easier and closer to the other end for similar reasons. Will try the 7 tube just for giggles, done lots of electronics soldering so how hard can it be?

Well done indeed, I dream of my own bourbon and this should to help me achieve this.

Stick at it your work is superb.

Thanks chipboy. Really happy with the performance and compact nature of this design. Just one point to consider. If you place the shotty too close to ends It makes soldering end plates and the vee more of a balancing act. You don’t want the internal soldering of the shotty to melt while other soldering takes place. I used a damp cloth to keep the heat transfer down. A 50mm offset worked well for me.

Thanks mate, yes I had considered that too I think the hose fitting like you did, should be silver soldered and the rest soft. Some creative work will make putting it down a bit easier.

I am so tempted, and this as I said is inspirational plus enabling.

Hi Les,

Great post mate, I also have PD reflux & was about to get myself the PD pot until reading this post, Love your work & although I don't have your skill to make I will keep looking for something other than the PD pot now. I was considering trying to make something up I guess I am in no hurry I'll keep an eye out & hope something decant comes up for sale.

Cheers Allan