Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Gday all. Heres a few photos of what ive been working on over the last couple of weeks. ive wekded 2 1" bsp sockets onto the keg for elements and another for a thermometer. 25mm drain pipe coming out of the bottom, all purge welded. the column is 1500mm high at the moment. I will have a 1 meter copper packed section. just gotta make a copper coil for the top and buy the elements
Ben

nice mate! looks great!
are you going to pack the copper in that or add another section to it?

thanks. im going to pack the copper into this. the plate is welded 1050mm from the bottom so will be just enough room for a meter of packing.
Ben

Looks good mate, just a couple of questions:

1. You didn't mention completing your distillate line? At the moment it returns to the top of your keg. I assume you'll make a parrot and mount that to the bottom of your PC?
2. 1m copper packed section in a 1.5m column? I would be looking at 1.2m of packing as a minimum. I'm guessing from that then your 1.5m include your RC?

Cheers,

Mech.

Really nice clean job .Are you going to pack the remainder with SS srcubbers because it looks like there will be a lot of room in there still with only a meter of copper packing .

That Ball valve will be really touchy to use ,I have one on my LM part of mine .Can't afford a needle valve .

I got around mine by marking with a Texta on the handle /body the position where the valve Just Closes .( did this before I screwed it in by looking through it and see when it just cut off)
This gives me an exact starting point when adjusting to know where I am as there is quite a lag from when you adjust and spirit comes out .

Taking off spirit will require a drip a second particularly at the start of the run when you trying to remove fores and heads .Adjustment of the ball valve is more like gently tapping the end of the handle rather than grabbing it and turning it a few degrees

im not to sure what im going to do with the distilate line yet so I left it pretty long. its 1/2 tube with 1.6mm wall so is pretty easy to bend if I need to. I might be able to just fit 1.2m of packing with a bit in the adapter that I machined up to weld onto the top of the keg as the 2" tri clamp ferrule was to small for the hole that was left once the spear was removed.
I will trim a bit off the top once I finish the condenser and I have the final length of that sussed out.
I will make up a plate that will go behind the ball valve handle with markings engraved on it. to show when fully closed.
thanks for your comments they will help me finish it off
Ben

gday. can anyone recommend a digital thermometer to fit into the column? ive had a look about on ebay. seems to be a lot of cheap rubbish on there. I want sonething thats not going to quit on me. ive got a dial thermometer ordered for the boiler but wanted something a bit more accurate and easy to see minor changes in temperature for the column.
Ben

Nice work Ben.

Your welding looks much better than mine! I bought some staimless rods off ebay and borrowed a friends arc welder. How did you do yours?

With regards to the thermometer, I'm using K type thermocouple wire and a fluke multimeter that will read the K type thermocouple. You can buy thermocouple wire by the meter and all you do is bare the ends and fuse the two wires together using oxy acetylene or you can buy crimps to do the same job instead of fusing. Might be worth looking into.

Great build mate...I use one of these thermos from Jaycar (saw it recommended in another post) http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.as ... rm=KEYWORD

If you wrap a couple of layers of Teflon tape around it, it fits into a 1/4" pipe perfectly with out any leaks. I started off with a cheap thermometer of eBay, but it was very slow to come up to temp and automatically switched off after a few minutes. No complaints with the Jaycar one..

:text-+1: for the jaycar one

thanks for that info on the thermometer fellas I will get one or 2 of those ones.
Navarau this is all tig welded and I fully purged the keg out with argon when I was welding to make sure I had smooth welds inside as well. the distilate line is also purge welded.
I went to mitre 10 the other day and found some rubber feet that fit over the legs just nice.
just waiting on elements and thermometer from fsd and some copper packing when he gets some more in stock.
I was going to convert my other keg into a fermenter but a guy at work had a screw top plastic drum im going to use instead. will be less mucking around
Ben

Sounds like it's all going to plan, very nice boiler work BTW.

elements and boiler thermometer can today. from Wa to tassie in a couple of days awesome.
will get the electrician at work to wire me up some switches and cables tomorrow night and will see if I cant coil up and double helix condenser out of some 1/4 copper tube.

beautiful job on those welded sockets mate, flash as ! :happy-partydance:

thanks mate and thanks for getting the stuff posted out quick.
Ben

great looking rig mate. coming together nicely. U put a wash down in anticipation yet :P

gday Andy. nah not yet. want to get everything ready first and am moving in a few weeks once my builders finish then I can move all my gear into my shed. currently in a unit and not enough room to swing a cat. will clean everything with some phosphoric acid first then rinse and do a vinegar run followed by goon run. should of brought some the other week when it was on special at $22 for 15 liters.
will be using the tpw recipe I reckon doing 40 liter runs. might take me a while to get the hang of it as ive only ever brewed my own beer.
Ben

just knocked up my condenser. 1/4 copper tube full of caster sugar to stop it flattening out when rolled.
Ben

effyair that'll do the trick :handgestures-thumbupleft:

shit yeah man!!