How to Choose The Right Still For You

what's going on everybody it's Pooh from Mile High distilling thank you for tuning in once again you might be in a position right now where you're looking to buy a tower or a full still and obviously that's a big purchase you might have questions you might be thinking about whether you want to start small and upgrade in the future or just be one and done and get a big unit out the gate you might be thinking about your volume sizes you probably have a few things in your mind and this video is designed to sort of help you with that decision and sort of streamline that process now here at Mile High distilling we have over 15 I think a little over 20 different types of stes to choose from that's a lot of models and we offer that to our customers because we want them to have that choice we want them to be able to choose the material um it's all handbuilt here so you can choose a stainless Tower or a copper Tower we just decided to do both um so you have that choice and we have different Stills that are better for oils essential oils some that are better for whiskies some that are better for vodkas and some that can do just all the above so we try to keep things modular and we also try to keep things just fairly versatile as you choose your still there's going to be a few very important things to look at obviously boiler size is very very important figuring out exactly how much you can make and what the minimum you can make what that certain size is you have to think about your diameter size of your Tower and you also have to think about you know what you're looking to make a few different things there so we're going to go over all that on this video I do have to help me a few flow charts for you guys to look at the first chart is going to be our boiler size chart it's going to be nice and simple to read and it's going to be based off a few things here um what's pretty typical in this craft I'd say on average people are using yeast uh and getting about 10 to 12% alcohol by volume that means whatever they put in their boiler 10 to 12% of that will be alcohol that you can collect so we're going to have figures on that and then I'm also going to be doing a Max figure a lot of our turbo yeast I mean we do have stuff that goes that 10 to 12 15 but some of our turbo yeast goes up to 20 so I'm going to give you guys a Max yield as well so you can see just how much you can make if you're trying to go crazy with it and then I'm also going to include a recommended diameter size of your Tower so you can kind of see that and there will be another chart after that kind of giving more info on those diameter sizes and their speed but we need to pick boiler size first that's our first step and I want you guys to take a look at this chart but before we get to it go ahead and take a look at just how big these boilers get for a size here at Mile High distilling we have anywhere from a two gallon boiler all the way up to a 300 gallon boiler so you have a lot of choices to make obviously inperson scale is is what some people need but hopefully this is a good enough reference image to where um your your brain will sort of do some calculating this is a dual purpose unit in front of these boilers that's going to reach a little over three feet tall now the only thing not pictured here is the 135 and 300 gallon and that's simply just because I ran out of room but we're looking at about I'd say a little over a foot in terms of height differential between the 53 and 135 and then we're going to get another foot or so in that 300 gallon if anyone out there is looking for some actual precise PR specifications on those units let us know via email phone call we'll get those for you and without further Ado let's get started on some of our charts we're going to start with the boiler size chart and we're going to see a few things here we're going to see a minimum and maximum capacity that the certain boiler size can handle we're going to see obviously our expected yield and then our recommended Tower size for each type of unit there's a few things I'd like to mention here number one is the minimum capacity volume you're seeing is based on if you're using an internal heating element if you're using external heating like a propane stver Hot Plate you really don't have a minimum in a still obviously you don't want that boiler to run dry so I'd figure out what yield you can expect per volume just basically make sure that that yield that volume is always in your boiler and i' obviously I'd personally go a little bit above that just to be 100% sure you're not going to go dry ABV figures that I'm giving you are without cuts so you'll still have to make your Cuts methanol everything like that however keep in mind that when it's coming out of the Ste it's usually such a high proof you're going to dilute with water um so more or less it sort of rounds itself back out let's say you start with you know two gallons worth of distillate you make your cuts and you end up with about a maybe a gallon and a quarter and then you know that's at 100 60 proof get back with you dilute that with water and you end up with about two gallons maybe a little more after so let's start with the two gallon which is an interesting unit because unlike any other unit on this list this is kind of a set unit I only included it because it's the smallest unit we sell that is the Mr distiller you might know it know it as the still spirits air still it's got a Max Capacity of about 1.5 gallons you always leave room for headp space in any still and a minimum capacity I would say half a gallon it doesn't you can't really dry fire or anything but same rules apply you can have that boiler running dry and that's just to make sure you absolutely don't at 12% ABV you're expected to be just under a qut or so and then if you go up to that 20% avv we're talking just over a qut a little bit more for recommended Tower size I put not applicable because well it's just what you see is what you get with that unit it's you can't really modify it do anything crazy um you'll just be going at the speed you're going which for the amount you're getting I mean full run takes three or four hours it's not that bad we do have our three gallon next you can see a Max Capacity of about two and a half gallons and again pretending you have an internal heating element your minimum capacity would be set at about one and a half gallons um if you're at 12% ABV and you do a batch to the steel you can expect just over a qut and at 20% probably closer to two quarts we always recommend a 2-in tower with this unit I wouldn't go any bigger it just gets too topheavy the 8 gallon which is our bestselling size has a max of 6.5 gallons and then a minimum of four gallons you might start to notice the theme Here your minimum capacity is always half of the full capacity of the boiler that's to make sure that element is always submersed you never have to worry about it so you'll see that theme now in terms of percentage we're looking at just over three quarts at 12% ABV and we're talking about a gallon and a quarter if we're at 20% we usually pair that with a 2-in tower it flows well runs take about six to eight hours however this is an interesting unit size because you can put a 3-in tower on there comfortably not have anything be topheavy and you're going to be having your runtime so we're talking run times taking three to four hours on that unit when you pair it with a 3-in column could be a good upgrade the 16 gallon has a max of 14 and a minimum of eight we're talking about a little over a gallon and a half at 12% and just shy of three gallons at 20% ABV that's most commonly paired with a 3 in which again will get us in that 6 to eight hour run time but this is another unit that can easily go up to that 4 in diameter flute Tower something to that effect and just really boost your run time significantly we're talking three or four hours Real Simple Run and for a pretty decent yield so now keep in mind here too before we continue you don't really have to fill these boilers all the way that's where I'm giving you that min max you can fill that 16 gallon boiler 10 gallons full you know you can do what you want there and obviously that'll change your runtime depending on how much it's in there now our 26 is when things go a little pseudo commercial you know they're not really at Distillery level some people Pico distilleries Nano distilleries might use them as such but I still consider this kind of a a hobbyist this is about as big as they go on a hobby level as far as I'm concerned and it's a it's just a really nice setup it's not that much more than a 16 gallon unit would be if you get the right unit and you know it's it's got a really good capacity we're talking about 23 gallons a minimum of 13 and we're talking about a little under three gallons at 12% ABV four and a half gallons at a 20% it's just a a lot of spirit and those are usually paired with a 4inch tower you could go three things get a little slow little too slow for me probably run time of around 12 or so maybe a little longer with a 3 in that 4 in is going to take it down to you know close closer to six a little maybe eight then 53 we've got our maximum of 50 and our minimum of 26 um we have a six six gallon yield when we're at 12% ABV and 10 gallon yield at 20% now this Tower we do sell it with a 4inch tower on top um again can be done it's just a little on the slow side we are talking again about you know 12h hour run sometimes longer with heat up time so I really recommend this boiler with a 6in tower it'll half that run time closer to that six six or so hour range um just it just makes so much of a difference especially because in these bigger bigger sizes these are usually going in distilleries and that eight hour window to where you're working is pretty important in The Distillery um you don't really want to do the overtime all the time so you know having a speedy run is is important now the 135 gallon has a max of 132 gallons and a minimum of 68 gallons we're talking about almost 16 gallons worth of distillate at 12% ABV and 26 and a half gallons at at 20% ABV I do recommend the 8 in Tower for this that 8 in Tower we also sell it on our 53 if you want like a crazy Speed Run 8 in tower on a 135 is going to be a pretty comfortable run time 6 to eight hours I'm sure starting to sound like a broken record here that's kind of the theme all these are paired to sort of get in that range and then finally we finish up with our 300 gallon that has a max of 295 and a minimum of 150 and we have 35 half gallons of distillate coming out if we're at 12% ABV per run and 59 gallons at 20% ABV in eight hours can you imagine having 59 gallons of alcohol with the 2in tower you can expect around one quart per hour so these are broad figures um depending if you're doing pot still mode or reflux mode depending if you're doing stripping runs or Spirit runs these numbers can change this is an average runtime you're looking about one quart per hour on average with a 2in tower I do recommend pairing this with a three Gall to a 10 gallon unit anything past 10 gallons it just feels a little long to me and remember I'm following that theme of about about eight hours max sometimes a little over a 3-in tower you'll see it doubles to two quarts per hour and because of that we can just about double our capacity of our our boiler I recommend this for 10 to 20 gallon Stills our 4in Tower doubles once again to one gallon per hour and I do recommend this for 20 to 50 gallon Stills 6 inch towers are at 2 gallon per hour that's going to put you at about a 50 gallon to 80 gallon pot size 8 in Towers we see yet another jump from two to three gallons per hour and I recommend 80 to 150 gallon boilers UTI ize a column like this now with that 12in Tower we're talking about 5 gallons per hour and when we're thinking about that we're running our numbers this is good for about 150 to 300 gallons if we ever decide to stock in anything bigger than a 300 gallon we're going to have to look at getting to a you know 14 probably 15 inch tower all right guys and here is the big chart I hope you take a second to pause if you need figure things out but we're going to run through it as well so we figured out our Broiler size we figured out what we wanted we talked a little bit about diameter size of our Tower which is going to help narrow down what sort of tower we're looking for now we need to figure out exactly what still will fit within those specifications so anytime I get an email call from a customer asking you know I need I need help get in the right direction I don't know what still to pick so many choices this is my first question I ask and I have to ask you guys two what types of spirits are you looking to make and each choice is going to take you down a different branch of this chart we have jy's vodka we have all or multiple if you want to distill all the spirits you're seeing here or try your handed a few we have brandies fruit wines things like that then we have whis whiskies rums Tequilas now it's a little hard to see because of the size of this chart but each of those green bubbles has either a purple line an orange line or both connecting to the next tier in this flowchart and there's two choices to make on that tier it's dual purpose or it's pot stew some of these Spirits are um pretty typical in a potto format While others are pretty typical in a reflex still vodka is almost always done in a reflex still and you know whiskies are almost always done in a pot still now what's great here about our equipment is keep in mind we have dual purpose equipment this is equipment that is designed to be modified to run either type you can run it in reflux mode you can run it in pot steel mode now I'm not a Salesman I'm I I love what I do and I want to help people and take it from me as just a word of advice I almost always try to steer people towards a dual purpose column and the reason for that is like I just said you're still able to produce those high quality flavorful whiskies and brandies I've seen it done so many times and you're also going to have the capability to try Gins vodkas if you ever want it just makes more sense to me it's one and done you don't have to buy two different Stills for two different types of spirits uh it's just great so but this isn't a s pitch video this is to help you determine what you want so follow along our next tier is just going to get a little more specific on what you're looking for you're going to see lots of lines just kind of flowing through that it's kind of like a beautiful Bridge piece of architecture or something uh but follow along as best as you can and and anyone who asks for a copy of this I can send your way and you're able to zoom in on a copy in tier three of this flowchart as you can see in the orange we're going to get get a little more specific on the things we want to see in our still and help dial things even more a question that I ask all of our customers once we figure out sort of what they're looking to make is do you have interest in infusions do you want a do you want to put honeycomb in your still and be able to get a Honey whiskey honey bourbon do you want some berries in there some Botanical in there for a gin if you want something like that you can get it through just about any model called It's called The soaking method but the model I most recommend which you'll see in the pink and yellow Down Below in tier four is the pro model and the reason for that is simple it literally has an infusion basket included in the unit in the price of the unit in line so why this is so great is yeah you can do the soaking method and it is an effective method to infuse with the pro model you have the ability to three state AG flavor basically not just are you going to be able to soak that you're also going to have some of that flavoring material in that basket so when you ferment with that flavor as well let's say you're doing blueberries you ferment on blueberries you put fresh BL blueberries in that infusion basket and then after you come out distill out you can put fresh blueberries in your jar of distillate it's a three-stage flavoring process very effective one and the pear model allows for that because of that inline chamber to the left of the pro model series you're going to see the models we offer Mighty mini dual purpose and torpedo Pro all available on our site the mighty mini and Dual Purpose don't change much it's uh basically the mighty mini is the little brother of the Dual Purpose and it's really just a size thing I recommend the mighty mini for three gallon boiler sizes and the Dual Purpose for eight gallon boiler sizes with the torpedo you're beefing up that Tower from 2 inch to three inch capacity so you're doubling that run that can go on an eight gallon or a 16 gallon if you're looking for anything bigger than that and still want to infuse my next recommendation is the flute so the flute comes in four or six section depending how pure you're looking to get things and it has it's so modular because of the design that you know you're able to put Chambers in there with so much ease know one little add-on can help have you infuse so I recommend the flute for people looking to infuse and are looking for a bigger boiler size than 16 another thing you guys might be asking yourself is do I want to achieve 190 proof that's about as high as you can possibly get in the still now if your answer was yes the model I would most look at is the flute and for those that don't know the flute is a multi-tiered chamber system it has four to six to eight to really whatever the amount you want you can keep adding these Chambers and each time you do you're increasing that Purity level and so you're able to achieve 190 proof with relative ease it has to be run pretty slowly which is the case in pretty much any still that's not six figures so if you're looking to spend you know $3,000 instead of 100,000 achieving $0 proof you can do it in the flute and to that point I mean technically you can get 190 improve through any reflux still it just always has to be run really slow you can achieve it in that pro model we also have one piece columns which are more cost effective than the pros with that those same model types of Mighty mini dual purpose and torpedo and those can be just as effective but you you get it with a lot easier with the fluke of course some people just want something basic if you just want a basic Tower something that's not going to break the bank too much no bells and whistles you're looking to go that route one piece models are going to be your best bet these one piece models like I said come in the mighty mini usually paired with a three gallon the Dual Purpose is an eight gallon model Torpedoes are usually paired with a 16 gallon model and then there's also if if you're really just trying to be cost effective there's Chinese made Towers econ line towers that we sell and um they're going to be just as good if you're still wanting to keep with that basic format but you just want a pot still look a little further down and you're going to see some options for that you're going to have our stainless steel pot still we're going to have a traditional pot still which is pretty much as simple as it gets you're going to have an Olympic copper pot still very traditional unit a copper potto we build as well and then we also make that Chinese made econ line potto for those who have distilled or have a little knowledge of distilling a lot of the time when you you run through a pot still you're going to notice you're going to have flavor there but it's a little bit harsh it's a little bit rough around the edges there's still some impurities in there so maybe you're the type that is looking for something really flavorful but it's coming out a little smoother than you know you don't want that harshness that can be done by rerunning through the pot still once more cleaning everything up but we also offer a thumper model which is basically simulating a double distilled product in one pass it uses two boilers and that allows it to basically double condense so you're coming out very smooth and still all that flavor intact with the thumper we sell this in a variety of different sizes an 8 to three gallon up to a 26 to8 gallon and I've even done custom work on these so and then like I've been mentioning to you it can be achieved through a regular poil or an Olympic so you're welcome to try those it's a secondary choice of mine I'd like to to get it done in one run but you can run more than once and get it done in a pot still or Olympic or and just run as slow as possible as well and we talked once before about not breaking the bank in our basic section but let's say you're just trying to see exactly what your minimum cost would be to start a still now I think the best bang for your buck if you're trying to keep your buck down is the turbo 500 this unit isn't made through us it's made through still spirits it's a very effective unit for the price point they're going to run you a little over $500 for a complete kit they're able to achieve 185 proof fully electric plug into your countertop and you know you can get an olymic pot instead of the copper or stainless reflux tops and that's going to be better for flavor so as you see with the t500 it's a great unit for the price but they do offer two tops so if you want pot still mode for more flavor you have to go with a certain top and if you want to get sort of a Jin or a vodka or something through it you need a different top for it if you're trying to keep things coste effective spend a little more money and have a unit that can do both in one take a look at the econ Chinese made models there's the econ pot or the econ reflex tower that reflex Tower can run in potto mode or reflex mode so you get both and you can look at that air still the Mr distiller we sell it's a little two gallon unit the only reason it's so far down on my list is yeah it's the cheapest unit we have but the volume is just so low um and and the the spirit itself is not as high quality as I would personally like it comes out about a 100 Proof maybe a little above I'm just pretty rough around the edges and it's just um I don't really think it's it's worth but again you know this video is for you not me I do have a few honorable mentions and things to point out here the very bottom as you'll see one thing to look at is the 26 gallon jacketed copper POA we sell that's a unit that's going to be a really nice size and it's just going to have that Pasto format so again no vodkas or Gins but it's it's very very nice beautiful looking great for brandies great for whiskies and it's jacketed so you can you know run without risk of scorching or anything like that and the one thing that I couldn't really fit on on this list so much is our hybrid unit why our hybrid unit is so unique is this is the most verstile still we have not only is it good with all those spirits that are pointed up there in the green bubbles it can also do essential oils really effectively so if you're looking at essential oils in general or you know you want a unit that really is just as far as versatility goes as far as it gets take a look at our hybrid now it is important to keep in mind that we we offer complete kits for some of these Stills any of the Pro Models any of the one piece models we make here we offer complete start to finish kits Plug and Play that have everything you need to get started if you're just beginning don't know exactly what you can get we offer the Ste itself U some way to heat the Ste and then fermenter bucket and a few essential items like yeast all in one for a com a bundle deal also keep in mind that some of our models we offering larger diameters such as that copper pot still that I mentioned or say a traditional style Tower those can be offered instead of just 2 in and 3 in as well if you want to increase that run time for those of you who have made it this far in the video I really appreciate you guys watching if you guys have any follow-up questions on any of our units finding the right unit for you please make sure to contact us I've included all the info in this video for you to do that if you really enjoyed the video please be sure to like And subscribe we're going to have a lot more coming for you and thank you guys for watching

Channel: Mile Hi Distilling

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Id: LSCjCk0XLLU

Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2023