home still: complete assembly, cooler, and temperature control

I haven't posted anything about the still in a while, but the work has been steady. In fact, the construction is complete.

Completed Assembly.

With some preliminary testing with water, I realized that there was a slight flaw with the condenser design. It condenses the vapors well, but since the condensed drops just fall off the coil, the liquid is still very hot. I decided to add a cooler in order to bring the temperature down.

The cooler is the smaller tubes in the foreground.

The cooler is a simple tube and shell cooler. The cooling water is plumbed from the outlet of the condenser so that I can operate both with a single pump. With this configuration I'm able to get the condensate to almost room temperature.

Another component completed is the temperature control for the pot heater.

Temperature control unit.

The control unit is the same as some DIY Sous Vide controllers that utilize a PID heater controller and solid state relay. The control unit powers a water heater element which is connected to the pot with a sanitary fitting.

Heater element with detachable cord.

I did notice some inconsistencies in the temperature readings as compared to other thermometers, but this heater unit can hold consistent temps. I believe this may be due to a slow reaction time of the RTD probe.

Other experiments have also shown that it will be better to use the dephlegmator to control vapor temperature, so I may use the temperature controller to power the dephlegmator pump instead.

The experiments will just continue from here...

home still: gin basket

It has been a while since I posted anything, so here is an update on the home still. I decided to make the gin basket first because it's small and simple. I also used it to learn how to silver braze so I won't mess up on the more complicated and expensive parts.

Side view.

My brazing was rough and I overheated a section so much that the flux burnt off, but I did have some clean sections and learned some things. The first thing I learned was make sure to sand and clean very well. The second was to heat everything evenly making sure not to focus on one part too much.

Bad section.

This is actually my second attempt as the first piece was much worse, and I didn't feel it was worth saving.

Top view.

There was a lot of oxidation that occured because of all the heating. I wet-sanded it with 600 grit sandpaper to get rid of most of it.

Bottom grill.

The grill was cut from a copper sheet with a waterjet. I even included a logo in there.

The next step will be to make the column, which will be the same in construction but longer.