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First Steps: Initial setup, cleaning, sugar wash, and upgrade inquiries
I cleaned my new Vevor still with a water run, vinegar/water run, and vodka/water run. The purely water and water/vinegar runs I let each run for 20 minutes with no water in the condenser, then 20 minutes with water. The vodka/water run I ran with water in the condenser the whole time and took ABV readings throughout just out of curiosity. That should have thoroughly cleaned the still.Then I made a sugar wash by boiling 8lbs of white sugar and 2lbs of molasses in 5 gallons of water, then pitched one packet of Fleischmanns ADY. The molasses was just to try to get some kind of complexity. I let this ferment for about a week, which it did slowly because I keep my house <70F, but it steadily bubbled along. It was not done but if I didn’t run it this past weekend it would be another 2 weekends until I would be able to run it, so I went ahead and ran it. SG/FG readings were 1.086 and 1.080, but I heavily suspect something was wrong either with my measurement tool or my eyes.I did one stripping run collecting everything down to 10% and ended up with around 1.5 gallons of low wines that averaged 20% all together. I emptied and cleaned the still, then ran the low wines. I tossed the first 100mL as foreshots and collected the rest in 150mL jars, from 80% down to 30%. That gave me about 6x 150mL jars. My wife and I sampled small amounts (1-3mL) from each jar, some mixed with water and some not. Jars 1-3 had a good nose and smelled very close to good banana bread. There was no mouth feel as it would evaporate almost immediately. The taste wasn’t bad, just one note sweetness. Jars 4-6 had a progressively stronger yeast and grass smell and taste. We set those aside and might try to make vanilla extract or something with it. We combined jars 1-3 and proofed it down to 47%. That was the sweet spot of not too hot but still aromatic and drinkable.I understand the cuts between heads/hearts/tails, and I think we found the tails in jars 4-6, but we didn’t get any of the harshness or acrid flavors described in heads in jars 1-3. I tried to overestimate how much foreshots to remove, so maybe the worst of the heads was tossed out with that?My first attempt at something good will be Odins Cornflakes Whiskey. I may or may not upgrade my condenser before then, so I put together a list of parts from Amazon. Can someone give it a look and give me some feedback?I would seal the two holes in the pot lid with SS NPT caps and drill a hole to attach a 2″ tri clamp bulkhead fitting to:https://a.co/d/2wWhpTVOn top of that I would put a sight glass:https://a.co/d/hF28nzXThen a tee:https://a.co/d/fKtBwhWOn top of the tee I would put an NPT adapter and screw in the thermometer here to monitor vapor temps:https://a.co/d/a4FzHTqOff the side of the tee I would put an elbow:https://a.co/d/6vQC3HiThen an extension:https://a.co/d/i0NBbc9Then a real condenser:https://a.co/d/829jUdIThen another one of the extensions that my product would flow out of and into a collection jar. All of the silicone I would replace with PTFE gaskets:https://a.co/d/gEwXpDWAnd of course I’ll need some more clamps to hold it all together:https://a.co/d/0BGH1kG
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12 Replies
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Instead of a list of parts, it would be MUCH clearer if you posted a diagram of what kind of still you intend to assemble. The reason I say that is because it sounds like you intend to assemble a basic pot still, but use an 8″ dephlegmator as the product condenser.4″ VM Build
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That is exactly what I intend to do. What about it can I improve?
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A much simpler way would be to use just two 90 bends then the product condenser. Unless you really want to see the temps for some reason id leave out the Tee and thermo to save money. Also any condenser with the wording deflegmator or reflux is not the kind you want for a pot still product condenser.
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It sounds like what you’re looking for is a 2″ Shotgun Condenser. As far as shotgun condensers go, I’d look for one that has the most tubes inside. If you really want the best efficiency, I’d look for one that not only has the most tubes, also best if the tubes are copper. The longer the shotgun condenser is and higher number of tubes inside, the more knockdown power it will have. It does NOT matter if the exterior of the condenser is copper or not, ONLY if the inner tubes are copper is what matters.If you think you will be in this hobby long term, buy once, cry once and you’ll be able to use that condenser for many many years if not forever. Sure it may be WAY OVERKILL for a small still, but it will work and will also work on a much larger still as well. Sure you can buy a smaller shotgun condenser, but just don’t be too surprised if it isn’t ideal if you upgrade to a larger still in the future.4″ VM Build
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Thanks for the input guys. The tee and a 90 are the same price, but if I don’t really need the thermometer, replacing the tee with a 90 removes an extra hole to seal.I see the difference in intended use for a shotgun condenser vs a dephlegmator, but looking at them online, I see no difference in construction. At least not around the $100 price point.This is advertised as a 2″x23.5″ all SS shotgun condenser for a moonshine still:https://shop.distillery-equipment.com/p … ill-columnAnd this is advertised as a 2″x8″ all SS dephlegmator/reflux condenser:https://a.co/d/5tSNUlsI don’t see any difference between them, except for the length difference which makes the first one a better value. I did find this for $150, if the copper makes that big of a difference:https://oakstills.com/products/2-inch-c … er-450mm-lBut then that also has 4 tubes vs the others 7, so I wonder if the use of copper makes THAT big of a difference?I guess I’m not seeing the practical difference between the two.
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A dephlegmator behaves as a reflux condenser or ‘partial condenser’ in a CM still. The maximum a dephlegmator it is expected to do is to hold a CM still in ‘full reflux’ for a little while. Most of the time it is used as a ‘partial condenser’ allowing vapor to pass through it to control the reflux ratio.A shotgun condenser is a product condenser and behaves as a ‘full condenser’. It’s expected to knock down all vapor and to cool the exiting product as well. Its use is especially important during stripping runs. More power = strips faster requiring more knockdown power. A shotgun condenser’s performance is determined by:1. How much surface area the inner tubes provide. More tubes, more surface area.2. What the inner tubes are constructed of. Copper is 20-25 times more conductive than stainless steel.3. The overall length of the condenser. Longer aids in increasing the surface area.4. Shotgun condensers that have baffles within the water jacket are more efficient than ones that are not baffled.5. The water flow rate through the condenser can be increased to compensate for less efficiency of the overall design.In this pic you can see all of the baffles that force water to pass through and around the inner pipes more evenly. Without baffles, water could just channel the least rout of resistance and may not cool the pipes as well. Now add on top of that the lack of conductivity of stainless steel.
Last edited by Salt Must Flow on Tue Nov 12, 2024 2:34 pm, edited 4 times in total.4″ VM Build
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Probably because the people marketing them don’t know a thing about distilling or the difference. A shotgun condenser is normally long and used for fully condensing from vapour to liquid. A defleglamator performs a different job, For our purposes in this hobby it’s a partial condencer and is in most cases short and fat.https://www.thermopedia.com/content/691/
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There’s a LOT of garbage being sold online. The knowledgeable and discerning customer can spot the garbage because they know how it should be made. That’s why most knowledgeable and discerning distillers make their own shotgun condensers. With a quick search, I found these:Shotgun condenser 1Shotgun condenser 2Shotgun condenser 3Shotgun condenser 4If you’re not going to build then you’re going to ‘buy’. If you’re going to buy, it’s best to know as much as you can to make the wisest purchase.4″ VM Build
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Yeah, I probably shouldn’t trust random Amazon brands to be listed correctly. Thank you both for the explanations and especially thanks for the links!
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My 2 cents worth. For shotgun product condensers. The more tubes the better, as long as there’s space for cooling water to flow between them. Lots of 1/2″ tubes works good from the surface area point of view. A shotgun dephleg is a 2 way street. Smaller than 1/2″ and the falling liquid begins to get in the way of rising vapor. 1 inch or bigger and the vapor could go through the middle of the tube and miss the cool surface.On a side note, all the stainless steel dephlegs and PC’s on the market are designed to be sold.And not designed to work the best.My preference is a dimroth dephleg and a long, simple liebig PC.
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I’d plug one of the holes in the lid and use the other for a long stemmed analog thermometer that reaches down to the boiler liquid level. There’s more usable info from the temp the pots boiling at, than there is at “trying” to measure the vapor temp. Notice I said trying, because there’s reasons it’s difficult to do it accurately.
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I purchased this condenser which is 18 inches long and is lower cost than one shown in the original post. It likely has more capacity than you need. https://www.ebay.com/itm/275346111241?m … media=COPYI use a 48 mm knockout punch to make a hole for the bulkhead fittings. It’s much easier than trying to drill stainless.
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