Still Spirits T500 Reflux Still Review With Bearded & George: A Good Beginner Still?

how's ago chases I hope you're having a kick-ass week socata I know you guys been asking for this for a while but are we gonna review the T 500 still and I thought I thought I could bring in a little help hey man is that a coffee maker cran cooker crap welcome to still everyone I'm Jessie and this is the channel all about chasing the craft of home distillation and making it a legitimate hobby we've got two guests today guys I don't think either of these guys need any and intro whatsoever but just in case George for barley and hops and B into the board from beer didn't bored yeah just happy to be here up the ass homers - it is a pleasure man it's a pleasure so finally get three of us together oh if by any chance you haven't checked out either of these guys channels I thoroughly recommend you do it right now it will be links in the description down below George is pretty much solely home brewing and distilling a little of both I see they're still in these days mostly distilling these days yet that's sort of like the communities headed in that direction yeah via that of course from be able and Ford he does a little bit of honing thingies with molting and the fermenting and the tasting yeah but next one he does yeah stop describing me what we do want to do today is go through the T 500 and I know this is a really really attractive model for a lot of new distillers so we wanted to to talk through the things we like about this thing together and then there's a few things that you should probably know about it before you buy it but I think you can kind of get past those with a few modifications so gosh you're on them several times I own three of them yeah actually you know what before we get to since the way this is first let's talk about the boiler first okay so a couple of the things that I found about the boiler besides being it's really resilient if that thermistor go I call it a thermistor it's a resistor that's in the bottom of this thing right you only take these screws out and so if if you plug it in turn on it all of a sudden just quit organ that's because I think burned out and it is and it's it's a it's a closed position switch that opens up when it gets to 125 degrees Celsius and once that burn - it's real said it's real it's a small looks like a nickel they're real easy to replace so that's usually your problem so don't get a new boiler just take the bottom off and you'll see it sitting in there so it's a it's a it's a - water safety that's a safety that's easy it's an altar right the thing that the thing that I really dig about this is that it doesn't have an exposed element which helps you out in a lot of situations it really limits them the possibilities of scorching exactly where I was going do that yeah and it's not it's not a perfect solution for it it's not there's not an oil reservoir down there that like you say it's not a big thick or anything so you'll Killian or something yeah but it it goes a long way at least you're not gonna get a chunk of corn or grain or something stuck in between your elements and resonance Gorge so that I mean that was the main thing I wanted to point out with this the other thing is that it's just so freakin easy that it's mobile and easy to move around which is great well come back to this and there's anything else you want to say on you know brilliance a clamp down on the lid or effective they everything believe it or not it does what it it advertises - yeah that's it was this really important yeah be they get a great point carry on soon it's looks like it's really easy to clean especially because it's so light for something like this your better half will probably yell at you but you know just take it to the bathtub or the shower and clean it up there because that's never gonna fit your sink but it's light enough that it's not gonna damage anything I took my head off because I was literally gonna say I could fit my hidden uh yeah yeah which is easy cuz you know quite often we're trying to clean things through a two inch port or something yeah so that's good as well let's put that aside for a second I do want to come back to it but let's get on to the actual still itself as which is probably what you guys are just about man I think the first thing to mention is that it does just sit directly on top of that boiler so no let's not fuss no muss no fuss sir like a gasket in there yeah it is a gas Jim we're gonna get back to that lighten up yeah sorry I didn't mean to jump ahead yeah so this is a reflex still guys let's get that out of the way really quickly we should have said that up front it was a reflex still and really it's wheelhouses going to be creating high ABV spirits right it's going to strip all your flavor yeah bottom line yeah now don't let that entirely put you off if you want to do other things too because you can detune these things yeah we know how to do that yeah probably talk about that later oh yeah it's still not I would prefer something else it was a fight for me I this is not what I would buy because I like whiskey right there's bit of tools for the job right if you're looking for J and vodka bought neutral spirit you know it this is it yeah yeah kinda busy yeah so I review that and this is obviously the copper model as well which is a little bit more expensive but hey we let company a lot of people live won't go you know they live by the idea that you have to have copper it oh by the way uh the stainless steel column has a copper torpedo in it so you still get you spoke about the copper there but so yeah something just like this you're the cop I mean it's beautiful it looks all right like I prefer the look at this than stainless yeah for this model especially so in terms of operation the thing is really easy to use all you needed that you're controlling you don't control the heat you just turn it on essentially what you do control is the reflux condenser essentially through that the attack that's supplying right right the new enough yeah yeah and then your running water through the product again sir as well so in terms of operation there's not a lot to learn there's not a lot of things to go wrong which is really nice for beginners right it's nice to have something like that that's just unintimidating it's easy to pick up easy one thing to keep in mind though because because the way it's designed is designed backwards actually if you think about it from a traditional any kind of attribute still where you're controlling the temperature to adjust the product coming out where in this case you're controlling the water flow and the temperature of the X in order to control the flow on the output it's it's kind of so you're not messing with the heat as you said yeah you don't have any control of the heat yeah because you have control the water flow which is critical I think that probably segues into a few of the issues that I know I have with this model and I think I think you guys are on the same page yeah yeah and the first thing is that control of the water if you're just hooking it up to your your kitchen tap or your garden hose and that'll work how do I see it work like don't get me wrong this isn't a deal breaker right but if you want to do fine-tuning and really get this thing dialed in you're gonna have to have a pressure limiter or a they called the gravity systems we just had a raise it was sitting up top yeah water flow control module and I mean the same company built they saw maybe the body looks yeah and what it does is is it collect you know you fill it you hook it to the tap and you know fills with water about about two quarts but it pumps out of a steady pressure because otherwise you know if you hook this up to the sink and then somebody goes into flushes toilet this thing is so sensitive it'll pick that up that adjustment because the water flow changes and then all of a sudden your temperature starts to go up and then you're back adjusting it and when it all settles out now your temperatures on the other is have you so you're going back and forth so a water control modules really helpful if you're using this I think that would be the first thing I would or the rule in the house is when dad turns it on nobody uses water yeah I think and and I mean of course you can buy a system yeah why you just described your choices there's ways that you can DIY a solution exactly I grab something Granby fatal do the trick for you like an aquarium phone axe I gotta have a video on making a water control module for yourself and I use a cereal plastic cereal box we have a small pump and a valve an in/out valve that shuts off when the water level gets the director so it's the same thing but it cost you about that total 15 bucks in an hour of pissing around yeah it's a real simple thing yeah yeah but you do that and that works really well because all that is is just again a dy I model of their $85 version the next issue that that has been brought to my attention and I agree is that it is a very short column yeah to be creating the ready to experience yeah it's not a that's not ideal I mean it gets the job done and it will get you started if however you want to really chase that high ABV product yeah just be aware of it moving up the the system onto this now I know this is a it's a bit of a hot topic and people go back and forth I do this want to point it out mm-hmm silicon hose and that's not PTFE gasket there's plenty of information out there on there guys either I don't think we need to go into it now but I just want you to know you can make your own choice on that one right coming down the other side of that hose we've got the little product condenser and you want to show us oh great another condenser sorry okay for a second wait it's still coming in the frame yeah that's a condenser I'm tellin ya it's gonna be a little bit overkill especially this still this is probably overkill yeah but it's a this would be a very efficient Liebig condenser on I mean I would put this on anything over 220 gallon still yeah yeah well like I said work little overkill I mean that that wouldn't I'm guessing that with knock down four kilowatts easily I don't know I made it for my garage in the middle of the night and I'm the cover of moonlight so I couldn't find my tape measure oh yeah it's good you did good yeah yeah yeah that's nice that's good work man it looks really good I know he did so he pulled some trickery to make it look nice sound perfect but still good really in my mind the only limiting factor for a tiny little condenser like this oughta still this size is if you want to do stripping runs if you wanna crank this thing hard first and strip you may not be able to knock everything down yeah which leads them to the last point I want to talk about which George has already talked about is the fact that this is not temperature controlled at all that's on its off fortunately for us it is not a digital unit yeah what can stick them into that George yeah you could take out almost anywhere you could stick it into a piano D the answer is gone yeah you could do a PID well my choice would be a voltage regulator on something like this off pulse width modulator yeah yes that'll make a real some something real sip off the shelf 50% 100% power I have no yeah yeah and I really think that that would be a huge addition for the system especially when you want to detune this thing and run it as a pot still when you're running in reflux like we talked about before in some ways it's much more important to beyond the control the reflux ratio and then the power for a reflux still having control of the power would still be nice but if you're running it as a pot still the only control you've got over the unit is how much energy you're putting into the boiler exactly and you got none of that on this thing's all right yeah then you know I did a video on making no brandy on one of these it turned out really good what I had to do was I removed all the packing from inside the column and just used the column and I ran it as I would a pot still at that point and I had a lot of success with it but still it's a little bit it's a little bit pernickety yeah so you know it is what it is uh but I mean this is a good still absolutely especially right out of the box I mean for a chance you wanted to go to Home Depot and Walmart and get everything that you need to you wouldn't go tell you their coma because that would be in America yeah well right if you wanted to get a might at eatin all Bunnings in New Zealand it more order something online yeah they're really parts online and build it yourself you're not gonna build anything that's is reliable I don't think some less unless you know if you've got skills you got some skill transferred if you're just some knucklehead who doesn't you know build stuff for a living this is a really good option because it's just taking it out of the box clean it run it yeah I like tinkering yeah I did too and don't get me wrong guys the I would put my CC vm against us any day of the week to make anything he could possibly make kind of under the Sun I would back my CC BM every time a coconut but that took me literally almost a year to get that thing put together because I had to find parts I didn't have a lot of money to get it together I need it to acquire skills mm-hmm it's a long person yeah the other thing is I've seen guys want to fight this so I've seen guys once they've used this for a little while we talked about this earlier sort of starting with something relatively modest getting into the Hobby and that's what this is you know if you want to make a couple of little adjustments to it like the water modulator no I've never been a word and the power modulator once again form a bit of weird run it for a little while and I've seen guys then stripped this off and put their own column on top of a spoiler just cuz it's easy so at the end of the day it's not it's not a perfect still I don't think I don't think was designed to be you know designed to be accessible right yep yeah using it definitely excels it therefore being a tabletop model that you don't have to have a stove you don't have to have gas you don't have to have a special outlet for it or anything I think it works pretty good but yeah you're just gonna there's a lot to consider when you're buying is still what do you want to make number one okay do you want to make hell yeah and how much do you want to spend on the stuff and how much do you have to spend yeah and how much time do you have right yeah all right guys so I think I think that wraps it up really well thanks a bunch of these guys definitely check the channels if you haven't already if you liked the video make sure you give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed yet hit the subscribe button down below we are out of here we got other things to do change the craft yeah yeah yeah keep on chasing the craft guy and I will see you next time love it yeah love it Thank You Tina go see what I am you

Channel: Still It

Views: 145,557

Keywords: Still Spirits, T500, Still Spirits T500, Still spirits T500 review, T500 still review, still spirits still review, copper T500, is the T500 still any good, T500 Still vs, modification on T500 still, what is wrong with the T500 still, what is wrong with the still spirits still, Jesse, Chase the craft, Still it, George, Barley and hops, Bearded, Bearded and Bored, home distilling, best still, what still to buy, best beginer still, home brew, spirits, distillation

Id: vLK5Z3907mk

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019