s Home Distillation of Alcohol (Homemade Alcohol to Drink)

Designs & Plans

Check out the Photos of Stills section to at least see what they should be constructed like.

Both Pot & Reflux stills are relatively simple and both produce liquor. The difference is just that for a reflux still you have a packed column before the condensor, and you get some of the vapour to condense and drip back through the packing. You do this if you want to make clean/pure/tasteless alcohol of around 75%-96% purity for adding flavours to, or making gin/vodkas etc.

If however you just want to make straight forward whiskey / schnapps etc with some flavour, you can use either a pot or a reflux still.

An interesting note is that some copper in the vapour path is benefical. See the Materials page for more details why. Some people who have built all-stainless steel stills have found there to still be some smell +/or odour in their neutral spirits, which goes away when they put some copper in (usually replacing the scrubber packing with copper scrubbers).

Reflux Still Designs

For neutral spirits you want a reflux condenser, so that the falling precondensate washes the rising vapour, reducing the water and impurity content, giving a cleaner, safer, and higher purity product. The more contact you can achieve between the liquid & vapour, the cleaner and purer the product will be. To do this, increase the reflux ratio (the ratio of liquid falling to vapour rising) and the surface area that it is occuring over. A reflux can be made by packing the upper section of the column with inert packers (eg marbles (OK), rachig rings (better), or best - stainless steel pot cleaners (the ones that look like little springs, NOT the fine weave ones, or God forbid, those already soaped ready for use)), and cooling them by wrapping the cooling water hose around the outside, or passing a couple of cooling lines through the top of the column. Even better is to have either a separate condensor above them, or best - totally condense all the vapour above the packing, divert some to keep, and return the rest to the top of the packing.

Plans for Reflux Stills

There is plenty of information too on stills for making fuel alcohol. The Journey to Forever site has the following plans ..
  • see also Distillation of Alcohol and Denaturing by FB Wright, 1907 - available as a free download.
    • If you're looking for a supplier of small needle valves to use in these stills, try either hardware shops, or supliers of gas fittings for BBQ's or camping equip.

    Pot Still Designs

    There don't seem to be many instructions around for how to build pot stills. I guess this could be because there are just so many ways, and it really depends on what you have available to you. One factor to consider is the angle of the lyne arm. Even with a pot still you get a little bit of vapour condensing on the head & arm, and running back down into the pot as a bit of reflux. Depending on how much internal reflux is going on, the flavour will vary. An upward sloping arm will cause much to run back into the pot, thus cleaning & lightening the vapour more, whereas a downward sloping arm will send all the vapour towards the jar, and you'll collect a heavier flavour. See my Photos of Distilleries and Photos of Stills sold commercially pages to see what variations in this are around in commercial distilleries, and Portugese Copper Alambics and Alquitars. Some also have a bulge in the head. This constriction then expansion causes some of the vapour to drop out, and again increases the reflux, and lightens the spirit.


    Jack writes ...
    For a potstill, I've found that the lyne arm (as it comes off the still body) should go up at a 45degree angle for 2 feet, then it should drop into the condensor. The diameter of the tubing depends on the heat - for most stovetop models (typically built out of a pressure cooker) 1/4 to 1/2inch tubing is used for the lyne arm and the condensor. The narrower the tubing is, the lower the heat setting you need to use. The condensor running off of your potstill can be whatever diameter you have (provided it's no smaller than 1/4"). Also, remember that you don't have to have a coiled-tube condensor- you can use a jacketed model just as easily. With stovetop potstills there is a lot of room to adjust the materials dimensions, because the heat source is so easily adjusted.


    Wal elaborates ...
    The shape and height has an effect on flavor.
    1. Traditional Alambic. This is descended from stills used by alchemists. It consists of a domed cylindrical boiler with a bulbous still head. It sits in a brick furnace. From the still header chamber, the lyne arm usually slopes downwards or is U-shaped ('Swan's Neck'). The condenser is a coil in a tank of water. Raki stills, moonshine stills and the 'Alambic Charentais' for making cognac are examples.
    2. Varied Boiler shapes.
      • Conical, classic whisky pot still ('Springbank' whisky)
      • Onion shape, slightly fatter than the classic shape ('Glenlivet' whisky)
      • Pear shape ('Vintage Islay' whisky)
    3. Varied Neck (Column) shapes and heights.
      • Conical column from boiler. The smallest whisky stills are at 'Edradour'and the tallest at 'Jura', 'Bruichladdin', 'Glenfardas'. The stills at 'Glenmorangie' whisky distillery are ex gin stills and are the tallest at 5.3m
      • Boil ball and conical column ('Strathmill' whisky)
      • Boil ball and cylindrical neck ('Lomond Still')
      • Additional reflux feature in column. Column length and the Milton Ball header chamber create reflux, but some necks are cooled with running water to increase reflux ('Fettercairn' whisky). The traditional Australian brandy pot still has a 'Brandy Ball' water jacket at the top of the column. All are open columns. The 'Lomond Still' has 3 adjustable plates and is used as a wash still at 'Scapa' whisky distillery.
      • Carterhead Still. The column contains a basket holding the gin botanicals ('Bombay Sapphire' gin')
    4. Varied Lyne Arms.
      • Horizontal
      • 30 degree downward slope
      • 30 degree upward slope ('Deanston' whisky)
      • U-shaped or'Swan's Neck'.'Alambic Charentais' for cognac, 'Plymouth' gin', 'Talisker' whisky, 'Lagavulin' whisky.
    Ian Wisniewski's article "Still Very Important" in "Whisky Magazine" describes in more detail how the shape of the still can affect the flavour... Big thanks to Whisky Magazine for permission to reprint the following

    Knowing that stills of a certain size and shape yield spirit with a particular flavour profile is all very well, but applying this knowledge the other way around is far more challenging. In fact, designing stills in order to produce a spirit with specific characteristics is merely a starting point, as this is only one factor in a complex (and not always fully understood) equation, which also includes the spirit cut, heating method, rate of distillation and type of condenser.

    Even the relationship between the wash and spirit stills is difficult to quantify beyond stating that new make spirit is shaped by wash stills and refined by spirit stills. But if the low wines aren’t right, the spirit stills can’t correct them (and if fermentation is mismanaged, distillation can’t fix that either).

    (snip)

    As the degree of reflux (condensation) is a key factor in establishing the profile of the spirit, the length of the neck is an important consideration. The taller the still, the greater the degree of reflux. This is because heavier, denser, oilier flavour compounds have a higher boiling point than lighter flavour compounds and as they rise up the still the temperature becomes relatively cooler, which means they condense and return to the boil pot (base).

    (snip)

    As a shorter neck means less temperature variation, there is consequently less reflux. This promotes the progress of heavier flavour compounds into the condenser, yielding fuller-bodied spirit, with a creamier, earthier, oilier texture.

    But size doesn’t always matter, as reflux can also be enhanced by customising stills with various matching accessories, including a boil bowl, pinched waist or flat top, while cooling the neck of the still is another option.

    A traditional (cynical) explanation for a flat topped still has been the low ceiling it had to squeeze under. However, the technical influence of a flat top, as at Cragganmore, results in a slightly higher degree of reflux because the progress of vapours is not as gradual or progressive as it is with a swan neck.

    A pinched waist (as though a corset had been tightened around the still), can be seen in The Glenlivet’s wash and spirit stills. By reducing the surface area available to the vapours (by about two-thirds at The Glenlivet), a pinched waist initially accelerates the progress of vapours into the neck. The subsequent, sudden widening of the neck, and relatively cooler temperature, consequently increases reflux.

    A boil bowl (bulbous section between the boil pot and neck) can vary from being mildly to acutely convex (the more convex, the more reflux). When vapours carrying heavier flavour compounds expand into this larger, relatively cooler area, they condense and return to the boil pot.

    Dalmore Distillery effectively doubles up by having a cooling jacket (also known as a water jacket) between the boil bowl and neck of the spirit still through which cold water circulates (using the same water source as for the condenser). This practise dates from 1839, with the oldest jacket still in active service dating from 1874.

    At Fettercairn a different approach yields a similar result. From a circular pipe located at the top of the spirit still, cold water runs along the neck and collects in a trough fitted around the still (from which it also drains). This has the effect of “giving the vapours inside a little fright” according to Distillery Manager Willie Tait. His more technical explanation is that cooling a fairly short neck gives it the effect of being much taller.

    While purifiers are rarely seen, this is a feature of Glen Grant’s wash and spirit stills. As vapours leave the still and enter a copper pipe in a tank cooled by water, lighter elements within the vapour continue onto the condenser while heavier elements return to the still via another pipe. Without this proceedure Glen Grant’s new make spirit would be oilier and heavier, says Chivas Brothers’ Brand Ambassador Jim Cryle. Similarly, in the opinion of Site Manager John Reid, a purifier in the spirit still increases the buttery, creamy notes of Edradour’s new make spirit.

    But just as important as design features that make a still unique, is the manner in which the still is employed. Pungent, fruity esters are more evident in spirit collected between 68 and 72% abv, while a spirit cut extending to around 58% abv includes heavier, oilier, fatty acids. Consequently, altering or separating the spirit cut into batches collected at different strengths would enable varying styles of whisky to be produced from the same still.

    (snip)

    How [heating] is utilised also affects the degree of reflux. Heating the still more rapidly increases the rate of distillation, driving off vapours more readily. As this reduces the degree of reflux, it promotes a higher proportion of heavier flavour compounds. Driving vapours more rapidly also entails the risk of carrying over some undistilled liquid, showing as a sour note in new make spirit. Correspondingly, a lower temperature means a slower rate of distillation, more reflux and a lighter (some say finer) spirit. At the leisurely end of the scale this means collecting around nine litres of spirit per minute, compared to around 20 litres per minute in the fast lane. Additional reflux can also be prompted en route to the condenser, using a lye pipe (or lyne arm) extending at an incline, which drives heavier flavour compounds back into the still.

    By providing a greater surface area than a typical worm, a modern ‘shell and tube’ condenser increases the degree of contact between the spirit and copper, helping to strip out meaty, sulphurous compounds. However, worms (a coiled copper pipe of decreasing diameter, set in a worm tub with cold water) do not neccessarily result in a higher level of sulphurous, meaty flavours and the challenge lies in controlling the level of these characteristics to achieve a complex whisky.

    (snip)

    So, knowing these principles, is it possible to quantify the importance of the stills within the production cycle? Well not easily, that’s for sure. Beyond the usual 60% of the malt’s eventual flavour being attributed to maturation, I’ll leave dissecting the balance to an expert. “Less than 10% is accounted for by the barrel’s previous incumbent, then maybe 5% is influenced by the barley variety, and 5% by the strain of yeast,” says David Robertson, The Macallan’s Master Distiller. Then the crucial bit. “10% could be the wash still and 10% the spirit still, with the influence of the spirit still being divided into 5% each for the size and shape of the still and 5% for the spirit cut.” Sounds good to me.


    Plans for Pot Stills

    Regarding using pressure cookers, Jack cautions ...
    I've used them- I hate them. The pressure release valves ALWAYS leak (fire hazard, and damned wasteful), thay always come coated in some impossible-to-remove grease, the places to mount the thermometer is always guaranteed to give false readings (either high or low, never the same twice). They are expensive, heavy, the aluminum model pits to easy, and the steel is to expensive (with the same problems except pitting of the metal). Don't bother. Get a small keg or 5 gallon drum that's stainless and food grade- I've seen them for from $20 to $40US. Or get a milk can (US$100) expensive, but attractive.

    Below is a diagram of Harold B's pot still. Very cheap and easy to make. Harold suggests that you should adjust the heat so that the lower end of the condensor can be touched. The reason for this is that you can see water vapour if things are too hot, but you can't see the alcohol vapour.




    Another great simple design is Geoffs..



    Walter describes his pot stills ... "Volodia's Samohonka 1&2"
    Inspired by folk stills in Jamaica and East Africa made from 44gal drums, (see "Alcohol in East Africa. 1850-1999" - www.dur.ac.uk/History/web/distillhist.htm) I made an urban version using: No welding - just glue, silicone, clamps. All this is sitable for most kitchen stoves and sinks. Obviously this is an introductory still for the beginner.Paint tins are not heavily coated. Kept dry it should last years - rust remover will extend this.

    I forgot to mention Safety aspects important as we don't want kitchens going up in flames! I switch the exhaust fan on to take away any stray fumes, even though the ring clamp is air-tight. I made the lyne arm quite long for partial reflux and to take it away from the stove. The distillate outlet tube goes down to the floor, well away from the stove. An electric stove might be safer, although apparently slower.

    MooNShiNeR describes his 75 gallon pot-still, doubler and shotgun condenser below. See Moonshine Still Photos for a couple of photos of it.
    I use a medium sized (75 gal) pot still with a doubler/thumper (5 gal) and a shotgun condenser for my purposes. I also utilize a 20 gallon outfit with a 1 gallon doubler and a worm condenser mainly for running smaller batches and epecially for running backings or low wines to "up" the proof quickly.

    I use copper sheets soldered with silver solder to build most of my components. Shotgun condenser made from of an old, antique copper fire extiguisher. Cut both the ends off and sand everything inside and out. Clean it to the "eat off of it" stage. Cold water enters the shotgun condenser from the bottom and exits the top to force the hot water out and this always keeps the bottom part of the condenser way-cool.A shotgun condenser is basically a condenser with a water jacket too cool the steam and it has dozens of 3/8" copper line that the steam goes through. It's kinda hard to explain. Where the steam goes through looks like the business end of a gatlin gun. Bore two holes in the jacket about 3" from each end and solder a brass hose copper garden hose connector in it, top and bottom. On the one you use for the bottom, you will put a spigot used to regulate the amount of cool water coming into the condenser. On the top one you'll attach a garden hose and lay it out where the hot water can drain off the top of the condenser. Two copper sheet circles are cut and clamped together and numerous holes drilled through them. The circles are placed inside the copper jacket and spot soldered.(silver) in place with a few pieces of the 3/8" line in to keep things lined up good. The lines are cut about 4" shorter than the jacket. Start putting the lines in and soldering them in place and solder the circles in good, top and bottom.

    On the first run, you'll be able to tell if you have any leaks or not. you can fix them if it does.

    Make a tight fitting cap for the top to be sealed/pasted on with corn meal and water. The bottom does not require a tight fit at all. It is just there to collect the alcohol as it comes through and then out to the jug/bucket. With a shotgun condenser, you can fire the still as hard as you want to and you'll have no problem with it not keeping up. That's why people who do volume like them so much.

    A. Nonimus suggests ..
    First off - most homemade potstills in the U.S. are made out of 20 litre pressure cookers (they have all the fittings you need including pressure release safety valves)- If this is in fact what is planned, you MUST remember to NOT PERMANANTLY MODIFY THE PRESSURE COOKER IN ANY WAY -(remember, 3/8" copper tubing makes a nice coil, and fits the outlets on most stills!) if the law gets news about you running your own still- they can (with a warrant- not hard to get anymore, I'm afraid) raid your place, if they find a pressure cooker with a bunch of copper tubing attached to it, and holes drilled in it that are homemade- they will have the evidence needed to take you to jail for running a still. IF the pressure cooker is always returned to it's original state (normal fittings and weights) after you distill with it, and if you put your condensor next to some beer making supplies (or, rather mash making supplies- same thing)- when (if) the cops show up, they find a normal (unaltered) pressure cooker and something you will swear up and down is a wort chiller for the making of beer. If no moonshine is found- they have absolutely no case against you.

    Second - The average 20litre pressure cooker can be set inside a large stockpot (the 30 quart or larger models, just measure the cooker, and go out shopping for a cheap canning pot big enough to hold it easily). By placing 2 pieces of wood, pipe, etc. accross the top of the canning pot, the handles on the pressure cooker will sit on these cross pieces- this will keep the bottom of the pressure cooker off of the bottom of the canner. Fill the large tub with water and then fill the pressure cooker/potstill with your mash and cook with a nice even heat (if using gas this reduces the fire hazard as well- now the alcohol isn't in direct contact with the metal touching the flame). This allows you to distill mash that has a lot of solids (the more gentle heat helps prevent sticking and burning), it also allows you to do something else while warming everything up- Just put the water on to boil, and put the canner in after the heat is where you want it- better temp control- and unlike the still- you don't have to watch the water heat up (unless you are bored out of your mind)- just make sure the potstill body isn't touching the metal of the large stockpot (The "jacket")- there you go- a homemade steam heated still!

    Toms potstill ..The boiler is a 2.5 gallon soda canister. I heat it by securing it in a pot of boiling water, and run it like a double boiler. It works great!

    Thumpers, Doublers & Slobber Boxes

    Some moonshine stills have a "thumper" or "doubler" between them and the condensor. This is a jar of sorts, half-filled with liquid (water, mash or tails). See the Moonshine Photos for examples of them.


    Thumper

    This acts as a simple second distillation stage. Once its fully saturated with alcohol (hence better to start with something already containing alcohol), and up to temperature, the vapour leaving it will be doing the equivalent of a second distillation (usng the incoming vapour as the heat source) (see the wee applet in Reflux Design ... set it to 2 stages .... so the vapour leaving a 15% wash will be coming off at 65%, after going through a second stage (the thumper) it will be at 85%).

    Rudenoise's pot still shows an excellent example of a thumper in action ...

    I wanted to start out with a small still and this was the answer. In a matter of four hours I had a still made, using 3/8 copper tubing I made a condenser and encased it in a PVC jacket with water circulating through it. I use gromments to pass the copper coil ends through, and some brass nipples for a water entry and return, this is hooked up to a small tabletop fountain pump in a bucket of water that circulates the water through the jacket. It really works well. I used the stainless steel cooker. I first primed it (for no better term) on the stove with water prior to modifying it. While still warm (cooker) I washed it with soap and water and this took care of the grease they lubricate the lock with. In addition I added a "Thumper" or "Slobber Box", using a pickle jar and a couple rubber grommets (works great), and a hotplate.

    How does this work ? I'll try and describe it ...the main pot heats up, and begins giving off ethanol vapours (say at 40% purity at 96 ° C off a 5% wash)... these get passed into the thumper and try to bubble up through the liquid there. But because the liquid is cold too, the vapour will all condense if given the chance (e.g. small bubbles & water deep enough). A bit later on, the thumper liquid is starting to heat up and increasing in ethanol content .... soon the thumper is at say 84 ° C, and the ethanol content is around 40% - gees - that sounds like a second pot still doesn't it ? So the ethanol starts coming coming out of solution, though this time it will be at around 75-80% - hence the second distillation occurring - all for free, no additional cost or heating involved. Of course all this depends on how effective the thumper is at knocking down the incoming vapour - e.g. bubble size, depth of immersion, % alcohol in the vapour & thumper liquid etc, but you get the basic idea.

    Look at the energy involved ..

    Heat of Vapourisation/Condensation
    Water = 2260 J/g
    Ethanol = 855 J/g

    So an incoming stream of 40% ethanol will give up about 1698 J/g, whereas to vapourise a 75% rich vapour needs about 1206 J/g. Then given that the flowrate of the 75% product is going to be only just over half of that entering, you have HEAPs of energy left over, to first heat the liquid there during the inital phase, then to superheat the vapour once the thumper is up to temperature. So the stuff coming in can more than happily look after itself in terms of redistilling itself.

    I have a spreadsheet Thumper.xls which does these calculations for different scenarios. Play with the spreadsheet, and test the various scenarios .... With a small thumper volume, the contents are fairly quickly heated up towards the liquid boiling point, but its % alcohol is quite low.� For this situation, the vapour then tends to bubble up through the thumper, with no further enriching.� What goes in is what comes out - no real increase in purity.� The extreme case is one where the thumper acts to strip alcohol from the vapour, and produce a lesser strength vapour.

    This situation changes a little if the small thumper is initially charged with� a liquid of high % alcohol - eg the tails from the last run, say at 30-40%.� In this case, the excess energy available is sufficient to cause the thumper to act like a second distillation stage - once its up to the boiling point of the % alcohol in there, the energy goes into vapourising the vapour there, producing an output quite a bit higher in % than the vapour entering from the pot still.� Unfortunately, because of its small volume, this isnt sustained for too long, all the alcohol is driven off, and past a particular point in time, the thumper then simply lets the vapour bubble through & do nothing further, if not actually stripping the vapour & producing less than that off the potstill.

    The best scenario for the thumper is where it is of quite a large size, and charged initially with a reasonable % alcohol. Even starting it with the same % wash as that in the pot still is an advantage.� In this case, the excess energy from condensing the pot still vapour goes into releasing a vapour of quite a high % alchol, always higher than that exiting the pot still.� In this scenario, the thumper is a benefit, as it allows quite an enriching of the vapour to occur, with no additional energy required.� The only condition is that the thumper is charged with a liquid of a reasonable % to begin with - if simply filled with water it wont work.

    To make the thumper effective you want Jim writes ...
    Note that thumpers aren't the same as slobber boxes (although they look fairly similar. The inlet in a slobber box doesn't extend down into the liquid, so no bubbling & hence further distilling takes place. Rather, it just provides a place for any rubbish (ie foam, mash etc) pushed up the neck of a pot still to settle out before entering the condensor. They sometimes have a small drain cock on the bottom of them to help empty them while the still's running. The original purpose for a slobber box was for stills heated by a fire beneath them - if the heating got too vigorous, and the contents foamed or bubbled up into the lyne arm, that it would settle out in the slobber box rather than go and contaminate the main spirits being collected. They're not needed on well controlled stills.


    Slobber Box

    Gin Heads

    David writes ..
    A Gin head is a large separate compartment that sits above the boiler on a gin still in which the botanicals (juniper berries, coriander etc.) from which gin gets its unique flavour are placed and through which the the alcohol vapour must pass before it enters the column. As such gin stills are pot stills rather than reflux. They are still specifically designed for making gin although they are and can be used for making other similar drinks. As such they have mostly been made by one British company for the last two centuries although I dare say there are now other companies that make similar stills elsewhere. Steam or vapour distillation is better at extracting essential oils and other more soluble components as compared to steeping which tends to extract tannins, phenols and the more harsh bitter components.

    UPS adds ..
    A gin head still is a pot still that has a basket like arrangement just at the start of the "lyne arm" (the part of the condensor coil that is coming out of the top of the boiler, but has not yet entered the cooling tank yet). In the basket goes the botanicals that turn what is essentially a vodka into a gin. This is the method that Bombay uses among others, and is thought to give a more delicate style of gin. Nothing really fancy, just a basket sitting on top of the boiler before the condensor- if you lookat some commercial distilleries pics, you often see a swollen bulb at the top of the still where the condensor line runs out from - if a basket arrangement was put there it would be a gin head still - appearantly, many scotch distilleries use a gin head still - they just don't put any botanicals in it. This is a holdover from the days in England when gin was the most common (cheap) drink to be found- when gin's image crashed the scotch distilleries bought the surplus stills.

    Ted also adds ..
    A gin head is a pot or column that steam travles through enroute to the condenser. A thumper works rather well. Just pack it with the herbs and run clean drinkable 60% ethanol in your still for gin. Pack it with peppermint to make schnappes. Pack it with... well you get the picture. Put just water or varying amounts of ethanol in the still for making oils from mint or whatever has an oil contenet.

    Condensers

    I have done a wee interactive calculator to help with sizing condensers.
    Andrew advises ...
    One of the easiest ways to increase a heat trasfer coeficient is to increase the velocity of the fluids. Temperature of the cooling medium helps, but velocity is MUCH better. This is why blowing on a spoon full of soup with your breath (about 90degrees F) cools it off much quicker than holding it in front of your nose, even on a chilly morning. What I'm getting at is that close clearances are desireable, as you will get lots of heat tranfer into your cooling water.
    A good design, utilising this is Tom's version, used in a Nixon-Stone settup - see here for his diagram.

    If you're wanting to make a condensor coil, like the Nixon-Stone style ...

    Paul offers ..
    if you are going to bend copper, get a tube bender. This is a wound steel spring that allows you to bend tubing without kinks. Your hardware or plumbing supply can help.

    and John ...
    Spring-benders while they aid in crude tube bending can be replaced with a die and mandrel type of bender. This will yield uniform bends.These benders are available from "Imperial Eastman Co." For larger diameters anneal the bend area, cool,pack with sand and form over wooden die that has been fabricated to match bend radius. This procedure will elevate the finished product above the amateur level.

    You just need to evaluate if the extra cost is worth the extra quality.

    Jack suggests ..
    A fancy mandrel type of arrangement is easier to get than you might think - most people in this area just wind the copper tubing around an old paint can. It works a lot better than doing it by hand or with a spring tubing bender. Past about one half an inch in diameter it gets to be a little hard to do.

    Another approach is to air cool the distillate. "Vonmantik" writes ..
    I had the fortune of befriending an old distiller from the smokey mountains who had a ten liter cooker with reflux tower. The unusual part was that he had designed a air cooled condenser. It was made of about 25ft of 3/8 copper tube coiled tight and centered in about 4ft of pvc pipe, on top was a small box fan (from a recycled computer) that drew air through the pipe. Intake was controlled by a homemade collar with allowed the operator to contol air flow. This an idea that can be expanded on it there is a problem plumbing water to the place you want to set up.

    Homer has a diagram of how he has fitted the coils into his reflux column. Click for a larger diagram :


    Walter describes the "gattling gun" condensor ...
    I noticed that the N-S stills have a coiled vapor condenser consisting of 3m of 5mm tubing through which water flows, and from comments seems inadequate. What about using a mini shot-gun condenser? On a typical 50mm diam. column this would mean say a 300mm length of 50mm tubing, with a plate on both ends with 12 holes drilled in a geometric pattern to take 12, 5mm open-ended tubes welded in place. It is still open to the sky for safety. On the side there is a water inlet at the bottom and an outlet at the top for the cooling water. In effect we have 3.6m of vapor in 5mm tubing surrounded by cooling water rather than the other way around. The unit can be welded on the top or attached by a standard 15mm threaded plumbing connector so that it could be replaced if necessary.

    Vacuum Stills

    Using a vacuum allows the use of lower temperatures, and can attain higher alcohol concentrations, eg at 42 mm Hg (cf 760 mm Hg = atmospheric pressure) the column only need be at 35 C (ie just use hot tap water to heat with). The azeotrope (the point where distillation ceases to work because the vapour and liquid purity are the same) moves towards 100 % as the pressure is lowered; below 0.1 atmospheres it disappears, allowing you to distill all the way to 100% alcohol (provided you beef the reflux ratio up to >20). They can also be more energy efficient, and allow for a greater capture of the available alcohol. The lower temperatures also mean that they're use a bit in the distillation of essential oils (which would be otherwise be broken down at higher temperatures).

    The graph below shows the reduction in temperature. I'm not quite happy yet with my calculations for this (the Textbook & 1 Atm lines should be the same), so don't go and design from it, but you can see the basic principle at work ...


    To create a vacuum, you can either use a mechanical pump, or a a venturi ejector (water jet pump). The venturi ejectors (vecktors) are commonly used by laboratories etc to assist with filtering material. They just use flowing water to create the vacuum, and cost around US$20.

    Joel describes his vacuum still
    Not only is it all lab glassware with ground glass connections....but the entire system runs under a 25"Hg vaccuum. The vaccuum makes the whole process much more eficient and keeps the boiling temps very "true". The vaccuum is also used to change batches without having to take anything apart.

    The tank in the picture is the main coolant resivior. I built a cooling tank that sits outside and uses the cold winter ambient temperatures to chill the coolant. It consists of a 35 gallon garbage can with 125 feet of copper coils inside. The can is filled with automotive anti-freeze and the little pump in the pic pumps winshield washer fluid through the closed loop copper coil system and then through the condenser coils in the picture. On a really cold winter day....I can get a 100 deg. ambient drop between the inlet and outlet ports on the chiller.

    After distilling the "product" 6 times and paying close attention to the temperatures (to make sure all the methanol has been separated from the "good stuff") I end up with distilate at 180 proof that WILL NOT give you a hang over.


    Ólafur describes his vacuum still ...
    My pot is around 60L. It is enclosed in a rather large plastic barrel and I heat the system with hot water. The water is around 80C so I don't need a lot of it and, besides, it doesn't cost a lot here in Iceland. The column is 2" X 60cm SS packed with ceramic rings. The water for the jector I let straight through so as not to create resistance on the out end. The cooling water I let in at the bottom end... The jector suck out of my collecting jar which is in turn connected to the condenser so any vapour rising up the column has to go through the condenser before it gets to the collector before it gets through to the source of the vacuum. The cold water in iceland is somewhere around 4-5 C so cooling is not a problem.

    Note that in most cases, the vacuum is applied to the distillate collection container, after the condensor. This way there is little loss of vapour from the process, and there doesnt need to use much vacuum. Many of the comments below are concerning the setup where the vacuum is applied to the vapour line.

    There are several problems with Vacuum stills though: Often the vacuum can be made by using a "Venturi" or "Vektor" which uses the cooling water, and causing it to go through a small nozzel increases its velocity. This causes a corresponding decrease in pressure, and hence can "suck" vapour from the still. However, this can eject some vapour out of the system.

    The heating can be a simple water jacket around the pot, using hot tap water.

    What can also be confusing is when the mash begins to boil, the vapours will expand into the vacuum space, and your gauge may go back to zero. This doesn't mean you've lost your vacuum, but if you can have some of your still appliance in glass or plastic so you can see what is going on, this helps so you know you have some action and not a leak.

    One of our visitors is in the process of working on an improved vacuum still design. We'll keep you posted once he's happy with the results (including maybe a photo, design, info, history & performance.)
    Atm = kPa = mm Hg (mercury) (torr) = mm H2O (water)

    David suggest how he would go about setting up a vacuum unit ...
    I would go for a batch method where the still, condenser, and receiver were under vacuum; cooling would be circulated car antifreeze which was cooled with an ice/salt mixture. The condenser would be a multi tube high surface area low-ish volume of copper, the salt/brine would attack the copper hense the car antifreeze. This would give a nice big temp change. The pump would only have to maintain the vacuum so it could be a smallish piston perhaps a good diaphram might do. The exhaust routed through a secondary condenser although I wouldn't expect much if the primary condenser was doing it's job, the reciever could sit in a bucket of ice/water to stop any secondary boiling.

    Another way of cooling would be to use a freezer, make a dummy door "if you want the freezer after" with a couple of holes in it, inside have a tank of antifreeze and circulate this through the condenser, it could run as low as -18 oC !. Any condenser after the vacuum pump would only have normal cooling as it would be at atmospheric pressure.

    Tip if you're going to make a multi tube condenser these hints may save you some time. The endplates can be cut from sheet copper or a piece of tube opened out. Cut a circle out about 0.5 inch dia larger than the tube. Find a socket from a car socket set about 3mm dia less than the bore of the outer tube, trap the annealed copper disc between a thickish "6-7mm thick" metal plate" in a vice, and beat the edge of the copper over the socket. With dividers find the centre of the disc on the inside not out. If you use 32mm bore copper tube seven 10mm pipes will fit in nicely. Draw the 7 circles evenly spaced. Don't try and drill the holes! it's disasterous! Just drill a very small hole and use a metal cutting fret saw better still a jewellers saw if you have one. I use mine frequently it's a great tool. Make two plates. Silver solder or use the copper/phosphorus rods to solder the 7 tubes to the end plates,then slip the unit inside the outer tube, solder in place, make end plates to reduce the size down to a more convenient size "you gone metric yet" 3/4 or 22mm as we use here now.

    Laurance adds ..
    Don't use any old car antifreeze! Any trance leaks will contain poisonous ethylene glycol. Use propylene glycol (typically RV water line antifreeze or other antifreeze for use in potable water systems)- it will work just about as well and there's that much less chance of poisoning yourself (with antifreeze, at least).

    Plates instead of Packing

    Gaw has made a hobby-sized column with plates in it, rather than using packing. He elaborates ..
    I built a bubble plate still using the encyclopedia and the pics from message #1560 posted by Peter of the Netherlands. Not being happy with the scrubbers or marbles and not being able to afford the threaded unions he had used, some $200 US each, I created a bolt together system using stainless plates from a salvage yard and 4 inch copper pipe. My still will now produce 3 1/2 US gallons per hour of 95% after a thirty minute warm up time, using two three KW elements in the main thirty gallon boiler and one 1500 watt element in the smaller six gallon water heater at the base of the still which I have converted to operate on separate temp controllers.

    Other Design Sites

    Other design sites include : Other texts which you'll find out there in the Net include:
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