Beginner's Guide #5 Moonshine Stills

well are you ready for the next installment the beginner's guide to home distilling probably yep we're here all the rudimentary introductions are out of the way title page and all of that stuff yes we're gonna talk about stills now this is the beginner's guide but it's also helpful to many many people out there and what we want to talk about here's what we're gonna do we're gonna break down stills of different materials different styles different types and there are only two basic types we're gonna describe what they can do what they will not do and also some variations well that's the easy part so please buckle up sit back enjoy cuz we've got a lot of information to cover remember subscribe yeah sheriff's with your friends comment below you know the routine that's all we get and we appreciate it now all in to what we're here for there are two real basic types of stills okay there's no such thing as called as a fractionating column but now you're talking about something a little bit different in the industry where you're drawing off the different substances at different levels and it's more in the petroleum industry they can use a fractionating column where there are certain fractions that you can pull off at different levels now you already know there's a lot of science behind this oh but the science that we need to understand is what is right here we're not concerned with fractionating in a column alright so the two types are pot and reflux and they both serve very very useful purposes now the still designs that are on the market today are all relatively good there's probably not I've seen one recently I saw that was a turbo 500 bottom that was kind of bastardized with a bunch of this other stuff and they were selling it for like almost a thousand bucks and really not a good combination probably not a good product and oh by the way I'd stay away from that but having said that the large majority of the still producers and manufacturers have good products and when it's into your hands now it's your challenge and I know you've accepted it just to run it correctly and you'll be extremely happy with your results so what does a pot still do well a pot still allows you to do one thing and one thing only very simple it allows you to separate ethanol from water in a and of an N of Vire in an environment that you control and that's what it does it's just nothing more than a means for you to get to the end which is to separate your wash mash whatever you have that you fermented you want to separate that alcohol by volume from the water and it does that it will a pot still allows you to do that in a very very efficient manner what it does also is it allows you to retain the majority of the flavors and/or the profiles of whatever was in the kettle hmm okay bottom line pastels are really really good for whiskey's Bourbons oh my goodness rums you know things that you already know you can anticipate has a very good flavor profile now the other type of still is a reflux we've all heard this term and but sometimes we get it confused with other things or reflux still is nothing more than a hot still that's been primarily enhanced a little bit now what that will do and we're gonna draw one and describe it to you then we're going to show you what that does is that it allows you to go one step further in the separation of ethanol from water molecules okay it allows you to do an initial separation then another separation then another separation and then another separation based on your efficiency so what you wind up with is a much purer ethanol content a higher proof and oh by the way absolutely no flavor you're gonna drag out everything and what you're gonna have left is not pure ethanol but you're going to have ethanol in its purest form that you can produce in your own home okay so Oh what kind of wood vodka gin because we can also flavor at the same time to talk about that gins um things like that Oh Everclear BAM so you understand that there's really only two basic types now there's one other still now I'm not even gonna show you but we are we're aware of it as you know they're still with a thumper and I've beat this to death I'm not going to describe or talk about thumpers the it just George's opinion if you are successful with a thumper have at it the mystique around the thumper is so misunderstood and so misused that people feel as though they need one in order to be heirs air-quote yeah traditional here to tell you it's not necessarily the case all right ah let's move right into this so I want to show you a couple and then we're gonna do a like a pictorial here real quick we're going to describe some specific features about stills in general in then you make your own choice so please don't call me and ask me or write me and ask me which one of these I think you should have either one of these will be fine it all has to do with your budget your comfort level and what you're doing let's start with the smallest one I have here's a one gallon this is copper you can see it's already tarnished it's been sitting out I've had this for years it's now a Norman understand there's 1 gallon capacity and we already know that alcohol by volume means ok so we've got 1 gallon and there's oh what 10 percent alcohol by volume what do you got yeah maybe a pint that you're gonna get out of this this is really good for the guy who's you know he's out in the middle you know he's just gonna he's just happens to have a gallon of fermented mash and he just happens to have one of these and you just wants to make enough to get himself and his buddies happy that'll work for you this is a straightforward design it's just the kettle the cap a column of course with the bun on the top and that's where the thermometer goes and here's the condenser this is nothing more than a tube wrapped around the tube cold water in cold water out and here your spirits drip out right here caution it you can yet can you use this on a on a regular stove oh yeah you can use it on a gas stove you can use on electric stove and I've had somebody do this please don't put this on the stove before you fill it remember the bottom it's been soldered so it doesn't take a lot of heat to melt solder so what do you think happens yeah you pick it up and the bottom stays there and now you've got an open okay you follow me really neat but now look at this as well it's tarnished can you imagine what the inside of that's gonna look like and you can barely see inside there that's it should be shiny but it's not so clean in this becomes a challenge and keeping it clean becomes a challenge because it does develop a lot of toxic coatings alright let's put this aside that brings me to my next this is a three gallon still so in this particular case now you're going to notice there's some similarities between how each one of these are designed in there they're actually all the same I like to say that's exactly the same only different yeah it's only different in where things are but the design and purpose all remain the same this is the kettle this is what you could call the long arm if you wanted to but this is where the ethanol vapors and water vapors come out this we could fashion into a gin basket if we like it's a little bit high and there's a short space in between here but it does work excellent as a like a slopper box and you can drop out if you potentially go a little bit too hot and in puke and this is a condenser cold water in cold water out and all this is is a coil stainless steel and your spirits drop out of here simple as that we're going to do our next video is going to be on heating because there's many many options and we need to fully understand heating before we go into that in this particular still works extremely well oh it's it has a magnetic bottom so it works on an induction cooker you can use it on on the stove it's small enough to actually operate in your own little kitchen so a very good well-built well-designed still but the thermometer is in the kettle now you know that I always advocate that your thermometer goes to goes in the point of what we call the point of no return where your vapors leave your column you don't know I'll show you that on the next one but in this particular case you see our vapor leaves here it's only got this short distance so this is the mama works pretty pretty good it's a little off but your vapors are that it's so close there's no issue now what kind of still was that pot still yeah that's just a standard pot still both of those were standard Pottsville's now we're gonna move into yeah we're moving this is the next three gallon this is known as the mated mini from mile high they make an excellent product so does brew house soda Stephen Stills all those reputable companies all do very well at providing you with a product that you can all you got to do is understand how to work it all right um oh this one is really neat because guess what it's the same thing as that one only yep different only different in that you have one column so when when you have a column that separates your vapors to exit your exit port and your condenser here it's called a Liebig condenser I like call them a shotgun condenser because it's in a big hole oh this is just a tube wrapped with another tube water in water out remember water always goes in the bottom some way will you're gonna ask and I'll say it many times a water always goes in the bottom and comes out the top now this particular still is called a dual purpose still it can be run as a pot still or it can be run as a reflux still and the option is totally up to you and they do that by including this jacket around the column because what happens in a reflux still is your vapors begin to rise now I might even have to draw so I'm just gonna do it now so I got to draw this your vapors once you achieve the proper temperature okay and ethanol boils at what once seventy two point three one seventy three point four it depends on which look you're looking at and what your elevation is and all that stuff okay as a general rule when you have water and ethanol together okay the boiling point of that mixture which is known as an A+ azeotropic blend is always going to be this is ethanol this is more your boiling point is always going to be a little lower than your ethanol your lowest constituent okay so it'll be somewhere in on 170 171 range as that happens and that vapor begins to rise if you've got a water control hooked up here water in remember into the bottom out the top in bottom out top when you trickle water in here as opposed to here this is just full-on it's nothing more than a condenser this is what you could consider a pre condenser it's a chamber a pre condensing chamber but what that allows is that vapor is that vapor begins to rise in your column stacks because it will it takes that time to balance and it will stack with ethanol vapor that is also laden with water molecules when it gets here and you've got that trickle of water flowing in here the most volatile substance continues to rise and some of that other substance starts to drop out now as that happens it drops out and it starts to achieve a higher temperature again and guess what those volatile substances start to Reeve aper eyes and rise now they meet again in the chamber and the same thing happens at separation starts to take place it's a pre condensing and your water droplets start to fall out again and some of your other substances as it hits that heat those the most volatile substances in this case being ethanol because it's going to vaporize at a lower temperature begin to rise again see now what I'm describing is they a reflux process which is a continuous rotation inside your column it's taking place over and over and over get now what it will do that until it achieves the purity that chemically it's going to achieve and that will exit your port that is why a reflux still will produce on average in 180 proof and that is why oh the heads and the four shots on a reflux still are very easy to determine and very easy to identify because of their strength on a pot still we use the rule of thumb in a five gallon still the first two ounces get tossed out then I start collecting in a reflux till it's about the same thing it's only the first two ounces but you can definitely tell the difference because of the height of the alcohol content and some of those other substances that are going to come out first methanol being one of them okay you with me so far okay okay this is okay so this is a combination pot reflux you can do either one and if you want to run it as a pot still just don't run water through the condenser or the pre condenser or what we will call the reflux chamber when we step up to our next one this one's loose close to like four and a half gallons on this five gallon um in this net it's not really fill five about four and a half gallons no but you don't want to fill these all the way up you always have to make sure that you've got some Headroom in you're still pleased I forgot to mention that if you if you don't have any Headroom in your still there's no place for any separation to take place nor is there an opportunity for you to get any kind of a I'm going out on a limb here cyclonic activity which takes place during that thermal transfer which causes some of your vapors to start to develop a cyclonic cyclone and then they travel up your column so you make sure that you don't fill this up all the way right always leave about or at least a couple of inches so you got some Headroom in there and the same thing with your 3 gallon mighty mini or any of these other stills now this one in particular I'm gonna set this one on the floor because it's a little bit taller now what do you notice is the difference between this one in the mighty mini the only difference is the location of the condenser this will also have reflux chamber so this is a dual purpose as well and you can run this as a pot which means you just don't even hook these up and remember if you're using a reflux chamber you need a method to control the water flow too much water flow and you have absolutely no output because all you're doing is rising condensing and dropping everything to include ethanol it's just dropping back if you got too much water flow if you don't have enough water flow and it's really really low you're skipping any the reflux activity but just running is so slow that it just starts running out it starts running like a pot still how do you know the difference very very easy okay if you're at the beginning of your run and you're running a reflux and it's only pumping out like 140 proof your reflux chamber is not operating efficiently got it let me turn the water up a little bit get that balance you'll feel it now on the other hand if you've got it running and you've got it up to temperature you know words supposed to be you've got nothing coming out you've got too much water going through here slow the water down give those vapors an opportunity to transfer over okay now in the mighty mini we've got a bung in the very top and that's where our thermometer or sensor for our PID goes it just is that's the point of no-return just as we do here there's a small port right here on the back of this elbow for my thermometer or my PID probe because this is called the point of no return you see the ethanol starts to move up this column and it makes that turn for forevermore not to be seen back here and it drops through your condenser and then out of your spout now what do we say about water flow this is your condenser it goes in the bottom it comes out at the top okay we are making headway now this is a two-inch column the mighty mini is a two-inch column this one's in about 3/4 of an inch and that makes a difference it truly makes a difference even the still that you make at home with a pressure cooker in a 5/8 or 3/4 or 1/2 inch copper tube that comes out the top that size of that tube makes a difference because it has everything to do with the efficiency and her noise the efficiency and your capability to do that separation yeah you follow me but hopefully I could make this a whole lot clearer because now this is an 8 gallon model from brew house um the only real difference between brew house and my high is the shape of the kettle itself you know my height does a little bit better job polishing but that's really the only difference because otherwise everything else just three or four stainless steel and this one is a 3 inch column and I bring that up ha one other thing to grab as an example this is a 3 inch piece of column yes and you are aware that this is 2 inch so you can see the difference in that now in a 2 inch column pie r-square Jethro Bodine said nope I are around k-car square I had to throw that in there I know corny PI R square pi times the radius squared now I always get flabbergasted and mixed up on what that actually is I know what it is but something I have a hard time describing what it is it is the distance around here okay so PI R square PI times the radius square pi is 3.14 so a 2-inch column is 3.14 inches around the inside a three-inch column is twice that it's only one inch bigger but it's twice that because it's pi times the radius squared so you have twice as much area in here for vapors to travel what that does is it allows you to run you're still not any better and even a smaller one is not any worse of it's just has everything to do with time at that point all things being equal if you're running your stills at equal efficiency and you're running a two inch column you've got one next to it you're running a 3-inch column you'll run your 3-inch column twice as fast as you'll run the 2h column that's the that's the only difference okay now what is the difference between this and I've got to Oliver going with one piece of this stack on here because in a three inch column and a larger still your column tends to start getting a little bit longer up to about 54 inches or so so if you're designing your own still the anywhere from third for a 3-inch column anywhere from about 36 to 54 inches is a good size there is a point of no return you can get so high that you start to lose so much efficiency that there's no real benefit unless you can control some outside environmental influences and we'll talk about that later okay now so I'll set this down here oh this is known is the Brewhouse version of a reflux column and you'll see here these cross tubes and those cross tube if you can see those they go all the way through like from one side to the other in there sealed so what you have is you have a series of tubes with tubing that connects them all and what water in the bottom and water comes out the top right and this is the condenser the Liebig condenser or better known and by georgia is a shotgun condenser water in the bottom water out the top in the condenser one hundred percent full power flow water okay in the reflux chamber make sure you meter the water same description as the mighty mini with the jacketed reflux column now that's another primary difference between the two different companies there's two different styles one likes to use the jacket and they will tell you that that's better than cross tubes if you talk to the company that makes the cross tube they'll tell you their cross streams are better than the jacket I'll leave that up to you it doesn't make any difference to me they both work the same way they both do exactly the same thing makes no difference to me and in this one of course yeah I've got that rubber bung in the table for ya for my temperature probe or my PID probe and now of course this was set right on top yeah what are my options with this still this is also a dual purpose still I could run this as a straight pot still by not hooking up the reflux chamber and I've got plenty of length another option is to take out the bottom column drop this all the way down and just run this column and just run it right out run it as a pot still I can let it as a modified reflux if I want to without this without that piece of column but I'm kind of short changing myself because it's there for a reason and that isn't a reflux still you need the distance in order for your reflux once it takes place it has to have a place to go so in order for that to all happen oh this isn't getting so easy now in this particular setup I can actually just take the condenser off and place it on top of this and run it that way so those are your options now when you start when you when you look into purchasing one of these you're you're in the Oh anywhere from two hundred three hundred dollars to you know five hundred dollar range there are stills that are available that are just straight pot stills and they do not come with any reflux chamber whatsoever my advice is to look in deeply it be cautious because if you get a combination dual purpose you have the benefits of both worlds you can do pot or reflux but if you buy just the pot still and then later on you say dang it I'm gonna start reflux and now cuz I want to make some good stuff so I'm high proof now you're forced to go buy another column because you've only got a pot still column and to buy the column in most cases not every but in most cases is a little bit more expensive than it would have been you know for the sake of you know anywhere from fifty to seventy bucks at the front end if you got the dual purpose you're probably saving yourself 150 bucks on the back end if you have to buy a new column yeah and then you got one that you're using and one that changes oh you follow me okay now there are other options this one in particular I have a three-inch it's called a gin basket and you see it's called gym basket because it's a place because I'm gonna make gin so it's got the screen in the bottom so I can drop a whole bunch of juniper berries and distill through them and therefore impart all that flavor from that very very high concentrated flavor profile in a juniper berry a coffee being a star nice things like that that really do impart a lot of there's not enough room in here for apples and strawberries and all that other stuff so remember that most flavored spirits are flavored conditioned and matured after the run which means they come out totally clear colorless and they have that character with them and then that is enhanced by additions by either infusion or by just straight addition and then there's an aging process and we'll get into that at some point as well now I hope I've answered all of your questions now one last thing that I want to cover I want to cover copper give me a second I'll be right back I'm back and let's talk about copper the only still I had that has copper it is this one this is made out of copper okay for those of you who are firm believers that you absolutely have to have copper in there to remove the sulfates have at it I always use the copper just because it makes everybody happy and nobody asks a question okay I've run stills with it and I've run stills without it George can't tell the difference most of the people I know can't tell the difference but there are some out there who will swear by it so for all intensive purposes just use it okay now there are a couple other things you can use and a reflux chamber the more surface area you have in a cooling pre condensing chamber the more surface area you have a little bit more reflux activity can take place now unless you're using a reflux chamber copper ceramic saddles marbles and all that all this stuff is not going to do you much good okay I get this on a regular basis I get an email somebody say man I put in three three copper rolls in there and I should get a bunch of reflux and it was like well you know there's a okay a four-inch piece of copper rolled up and placed inside your column is equivalent to about a plate okay a plate is a measurement and it's a thing okay you got theoretical plates in a column and then you got physical plates in a column so you develop theoretical plates but unless you're using a reflux chamber you're not getting the full benefit of all those plates especially after the column balances see once it balances that means that the column the contents in the vapor are all about the same temperature now you do have more surface area in order to clean and/or purify remove sulfates if you're using copper scrubbers and the same thing with marbles marbles have a have a wonderful surface area and it increases the surface area you can use pennies you can just cut up pieces of copper tube there's a bunch of stuff you can use but just remember one thing please whatever you use once you place that in the column place your mouth over the end of it and breathe if you can breathe through it well then it's not packed too tightly if you can't breathe through it you've got too much in that column and now you're starting to create a dangerous environment because now you have back pressure see there we've covered everything you need to know about stills pot reflux we even said we want to talk about thumpers fractionating columns and every one of these systems are an open system an open system meaning that they're perfectly safe unless you do something to make them unsafe such as overpack the column then you start to build up pressure inside your system okay as always I can't wait till the next one because we have got some great information coming happy distilling

Channel: Barley and Hops Brewing

Views: 262,064

Rating: 4.8853555 out of 5

Keywords: neutral spirit, sugar wash, barlerandhops, hops, home, Sugar (Ingredient), sugar mash, distilling, barley, corn sugar vs cane sugar, corn sugar mash recipe, making a wash for distilling, running a still for the first time, first distillation, using yeast, mooshine, whiskey, making rum, making vodka, bourbon, baby step bourbon, making bourbon at home, beginner still, stills, moonshine still

Id: _AoGqk_Sa1E

Length: 32min 57sec (1977 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 25 2019