Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Gidday people,
Firstly I’d like to say many thanks for the inclusion into this forum, I’m a returning member that has been away for a number of years due to a few life changing events (mostly not of my doing or choice but enuff of that!!!) I haven’t brewed for about 3yrs, so certainly a little on the rusty side. I was previously using an airstill to produce a reasonably acceptable elixir and successfully produced at last estimate around 100lt in total over a year or more, so I was pretty happy with that.
I’m looking forward to reigniting my former passion with a renewed vigour with the help with some advice from some of the fine folk here. I reside in Perth WA in the northern suburbs if there’s anyone local that would like to compare notes etc at any stage.
My equipment is as follows :

2 x 30lt fermenters
2 x airstills
1 x pure distilling Spirit maker copper condenser} =
1 x 50lt boiler (Keg) and gas burner} =
= {As yet untried}
And assorted paraphernalia ie air locks, vessels, scales etc

Please feel free to contact me as I’m a bit of a babe in the woods at present and would appreciate any feed back.

Regards CarlF

Welcome back Carl
I am sure it will all come back to you mate

Welcome back CarlF.

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Greetings People.
Has anyone used a gravity fed water supply for coolant , I have a couple of 200 litre plastic barrels and was considered elevating one (safely) above the column and using gravity to feed it and using the second one to collect the water at a lower level. Both barrels have taps at the base of them with adjustable flow to control the water speed. Also if the brains trust could please provide with an idea of adequate flow to best produce the correct temperature range required. The pure distilling mentioned about 1 litre per minute so far this is the only reference I’ve really found that states a number thus far unless I’m searching in the wrong places.
Regards CarlF

(PS. my garden isn’t worthy of watering as yet lol)

hi carlf.
i'm NOR as well.
just my thoughts, you would probably be better with a small pump of some description, rather than gravity.
maybe pump from the lower barrel to the condenser and return to the higher barrel.
then gravity feed down to your main supply barrel.
i believe that the supply of a constant rate flow of water is preferable.
i don't know how much water those condensers use, but there are probably of people on here who could fill you in.

Cheers Howard,
Yeah that could certainly be a good option, I guess it would certainly provide a more consistent level of volume/pressure that would be beneficial, the difficulty I have is procurement of a pump with a variable speed that can push a liquid through a pipe to that height. Economically as well. Hmmmmm.
So you’re NOR as well maybe we could catch up sometime and compare notes over a cool beverage matey if you would like to make contact let me know but I’ll put up my email or something.

there's a few submersible pumps under $100, you could just chuck it into the barrel.
hmmm the ozito 350w & 750w dirty water submersible seem to have disappeared from the big green shed (i have the 350w ozito).
just make sure it has a half decent head rating (5m maybe?)
if you get one that's too powerful, you can always put a bypass arrangement at the condenser.

Cheers Howard,
I’ll certainly check out that theory with a pump. I predominantly want to try and conserve water and the other consideration is potentially for economic reasons I guess but could be barking up the wrong tree. But anyhoo thanks for the input mate much appreciated.
Regards CarlF.

Hi Carl,
I just use a 20 year old 12 volt flojet pump that has stood the test of time fed from my 5,000 gal rainwater tank for my 4" bubbler/pot still and for my smaller stills I use a 25 watt 240 volt magnetic pump. Now both use a zero head input and output 19 litre/min, with my flojet I made up a speed controller and i find running it at 30% is enough cooling.

Now for that 25 watt magnetic pump if i want to slow it down I just connect the pump to that 5 star power controller I won in the comp last xmas :handgestures-thumbupleft: I have given that power controller a good workout on other stuff and it just plain works. The magnetic pumps can be bought from the HBS cheaper that one can buy a submersible from the big green shed and will last 10 times longer too. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

So just a couple of options mate

Cheers Bryan

just in case you have got the wrong idea mate.
i'm suggesting pumping from a barrel, through the condenser, then returning to the barrel.
no wastage.
the question i can't answer is, as the water gets hotter each time it passes through the condenser, will a 200l barrel be big enough to cope?
it may be ok, or you might have to connect the other barrel as well.

Ok cool maybe if I run them in tandem so facilitating a volume of 400 litres which should be more than adequate as a cycle.
The ideas are flowing quicker than the water lol.
Cheers again Buddy.

A lot will depend on the time of year and outside temp mate.
I use a 2000 litre rain water tank. In summer the water is already at 24/26 degrees before I start and heats up from there in the heat of the day. Today water tempos 12 degrees. I suspect 200 litres might not be enough volume if you have no way of cooling it down during the run. It also depends how long your run will actually last. My stripping runs are 4 hours and spirit runs about 12

You can make do with 200l with 2" potstill/reflux. Anything bigger go ibc or tank 1000+l

Many thanks guys I guess essentially it’s gonna be a bit of trial and error until I find a happy place that works for me.

Hi CarlF,

I setup a water Recirculator for a T500 and used 2 blue Barrels with about 380L
that was fine for 3 stripping runs using a 25w magnetic pump. with 0m head

worked fine.
need a bigger pump for 4" bubbler though

Thanks B-man i was thinking that a couple of drums might be adequate, my first run (in a few days) I'm gonna use the hose to fill said drum/s with the coolant after running it through the still which should give me a good idea of the quantity of water needed then the following runs i want to just cycle the water continuously with a pump assuming the 2 drums will be enough to use and any shortfall to be made up with the hose. Must be getting green in my old age. :D
But anyway thanks again good people for the input, I can see a few nights pondering the possibilities maybe over a cold one to assist in visualising it all. :-D :-D

Greetings people,
Well as I'm a bit of a changeable bugger and tend to do sh*t a little oddball, I've decided to run on a slightly different track and using my Airstill to do the stripping run (3 down 2 to go) on my first ferment in a number of years and then my first high % run in my reflux and see how I go.
sorry its taken so long but I've had a few other issues to conquer alongside this one.
Big ups and kudos to all that have taken the time to give me advice along the way - Absolutely inspirational.
Ive decided to put the gas away in favour of electricity to run my boiler for now until I have some more experience and better household insurance lol.
I havent checked the ABV after the stripping run yet but it smells and tastes (jut a sip) the goods.
TPW is my current "go to" wash due to the ease and the economy of it but if anyone has any recipes that you might feel to be beneficial to try hook me up.
Skol to one and all
CarlF

I found the wet bix all bran wash worked really well in the airstill Carl. Did stripping runs then a spirit run of about 3 combined strip runs. The spirit run did take a significantly longer period of time to finish. Just a heads up

Meant to say the wet bix wash was a good vodka neutral base.
BWKO is a great wash for bourbon

Cheers Wellsy,
Ill have to check those washes out, I've heard of the weetbix but not the BWKO. research time

cheers CarlF