Hello, gents!
I'm sorry to have fallen off for a year or so. By way of re-introduction, I'm Wash, from Washington state usa. Some of you may recall seeing pics of my first build, a little 2" pot for a keg boiler. Well I had to scrap it an lay low for a while cause my loudmouth father in law got too chatty. Anyway I'm in a new place now with a well ventilated shed and I'd like to try again, only with more thought given to design.
I picked a few of the most interesting ones I've seen on this forum and others that I think I could actually build with my limited abilities - namely the Swan of McStill fame and a simple straight pot. Please see the attached sketch to get an idea of my thought process.
Any and all commentary and suggestions would be heartily appreciated, but I do have a few questions in particular:
1) would it be advantageous to have two dedicated heads - a stripper (swan seems to be legendary at that) and a spirit (maybe straight pot best for simple whiskies with a traditional flavor profile?) - or would one of these be fine for both?
2) a lot of people seem to reduce to 1\2" for lyne arm and condenser. Would it be better/worse in any way to go slightly bigger, to 3/4", in terms of speed and quality?
3) would a good sized (500-600mm) Liebig be efficient enough for high volume stripping, or should I man up and try to build a shotty? I plan to solder a single helix of copper wire to the inner cylinder of the Liebig in order to encourage vortex flow and better thermal transfer.
Any who thank you all so much for your time and expertise!
Wash