Recently I acquired a 5 L stainless beer growler (single walled) for use as a bain-marie boiler for my old 2" bubbler. I'm also going to use it as a 2" pot still for gin.
It came with a non-standard threaded lid, so I got its lid welded to a 2" triclamp end cap. Got the end cap from Andrew at 5 star :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I drilled a hole in both before taking it to my preferred welder.
Seeing as my 2" bubbler has its bottom plate as part of the column and the bottom downcomer extends down below it, I needed to have a spacer between the column and the boiler. Also the spacer can be used in the pot still config instead of using the plates.
Gave it all a citric acid bath soak and a steel wool scrub and here it is as a bubbler:
And as a pot still (with RC empty and flow turned off):
The RC was made a bit crooked so it isn't vertical, but it works.
Still gotta:
1. make a base for the boiler (it's just sitting on timber offcuts at the moment),
2. modify the boiler so its cable enters on the side so it takes up less height, and
3. some kind of stand to keep the growler off the element (I might just copy Professor Greens approach).
When it's all done, it'll look like this:
I'll also cut out some styrofoam to place around the growler to help keep it steady and keep water boiling away.
Big thanks to Professor Green for the inspiration on the boiler and Andrew at 5 star for the end cap.
Getting closer to making some gin :D