Gin basket and safety questions

[C2H6O]

I would like to make some gin using botanicals with my Lm/VM combo, but would like to get some opinions on practicality and safety. I have a 150mm piece of 2” copper left over to work with so was thinking about soldering mesh to the end as in the picture (with flanges) and adding this to my column packed with botanicals.

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It will be added after the VM take off and before the LM take off and reflux condenser. My worry is that the botanicals may block the column creating pressure, opinions here would be appreciated?
I was thinking one simple solution may be just to drill a 12.5mm hole in the top of my keg boiler and plug this with a cork (then if I want to get rid of it I can replace with one of Macs thermos). This would be a relatively simple fail safe as the cork should pop out if and pressure was to build up?
This would also work as a fail-safe for stripping runs as I plan on removing the packing and reflux condenser and placing this cap on top and strip through the VM side.

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Here the obvious issue is the valve, originally I was just planning on putting the cork in the top of the cap as the fail safe

Any thoughts? Am I just being paranoid? Is the cork idea silly?



Cheers

[Sam.]

How did you end up going with this? You used the cork in the end?

[C2H6O]

To be honest its still sitting on my desk and i have just been making gin out of store bought essence. Was a little unsure of myself and decided to returned to the drawing board, just a little paranoid about the botanicals blocking the vapor path i guess. I have the botanicals at home however was considering soaking these in a neutral and then running it through the detuned VM.

Cheers

[kiwikeg]

till you get your gin basket sorted Try hanging the botanicals in a muslin cloth bag in the vapour path. It works well and makes a great gin with no chance of a blockage, seriously a homemade gin sh#ts all over a gin essence.

[C2H6O]

Cheers Kiwikeg,
I will definitely give that a go, did some reading up and saw it was suggested to use some stainless steel fuse wire to tether it so keen to try.

Thanks again