NileRed - 2014-11-21
Warning: This is not a video on distillation, but I still I warn you not to distill flammable solvents in a poorly ventilated area! In this video I will be showing you how I went about building my own pot still. The purpose of this video is to give an idea of what goes into making one. Keep in mind that this is my own design and there are bound to be design flaws. There are definitely improvements that can be made. This is the pressure cooker that I bought: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B005LG0QF2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
Tips from community:
- use silver solder
- brass fittings
- silicon instead of paste
- clean by distilling vinegar
@bashpr0mpt Just so you know, Solder was pronounced as the Americans/Canadians do, because it is the older pronunciation. English changed it's rules and America/Canada didn't follow suit. Similar tales of pronunciation happened with other words, another being Aluminium/aluminum with Aluminum being the original spelling and pronunciation, and when it changed, America/Canada didn't follow suit. Heck, even my spell checker told me Aluminium was wrong.
To add: There is special flux that allows you to solder to stainless steel. Prepare just like you would a copper joint. Here in Europe it's sold as Griffon S-39 RVS/INOX.
@Nate Perkins Then you have never heard a true English speaker, you know, like one who comes from England? North Americans don't speak English, they speak a bastardised version of English called Yankish.
@bashpr0mpt Um..having been a native speaker of American English for nearly 42 years now, I assure you he says solder (Sodder) the same way that about 360 million other people that I know of...(I know he's Canadian, people...but I can't claim to have any authority on how a Canadian dialect might pronounce solder. I can pretty definitely say that not once in my life, one surrounded by plumbers in the pool building industry, have I heard the "L" in the word solder unless it was to be funny)
@bashpr0mpt actually you're the idiot because it is pronounced like sodder
When I did this in my old chem lab, I also got about 85%. It was a fun lab as I recall.
Nerd
Sounds like a hating ass teacher honestly
You can also add salt to the water/ethanol mix. It will dissolve in the water and raise its boiling temperature by a few degrees but not the ethanol. Also, wrapping the column with insulation can improve efficiency dramatically. Packing the column with copper BBs could also work. And you don't have to use flower paste on the first joint, you could just use silicone. Cool video Nile!
Magneto! I like your mind.
A packing made of stainlees steel or a real copper pot scrubber would work.
Does salt break the Et-OH/H2O azeotrope?
@TheBackyardScientist I dont even think you can get pure copper BBs anymore.
@Larry Tischler nah
soldering a copper fitting to a stainless steel lid will cause the copper to corrode. This can be avoided by using a brass fitting instead.
or just buy a soldering flux for stainless steel. It's $20 for a bottle that will last you a lifetime.
@Mawo Duffer It's not. Soldering is not welding so it's not as much of an issue. In welding you are literally melding the two surfaces together into one, single thing. It's a continuous piece of metal and can be just as strong as if there weren't separate pieces together (welding is an art and people who do it well are rightfully well paid). In soldering, you are using an intermediate material to bind two other materials together. It's, in essence, glue comprised of metal...so having too much solder can certainly make it a weaker joint, as solder isn't a very strong material, it won't cause a failure of the work typically and in a case like this will remain pressure and air tight.
@Gary Kast That's why you use red brass.
hey ted, I bought the same pot as nile red and its made of virgin aluminum, not stainless steel. Is copper still okay for aluminum?
@Jeremy Chung should be fine
I'm not a pipe fitter either, but your work looks really good to me. You have more talent than you give yourself credit for.
Beware that you can end with an upset wife/mom if you use the regular kitchenware. Better to buy your own pot for this xD
That boot glass looks like the ones they give away at Taste of Texas
Well explained, young man. Let the adventures begin! :) Thank you for video
Awesome man, Glad theres people out there that still are interested in chemistry!
I really like you channel, can wait for the video on distilling!
Going over the process of fractional distillation via distance learning rn, really upsetting I was hoping to do this in person, so here I am looking for reference to do it myself
You must use silver solder for a still because it has a higher melt temp than regular solder and wont fail at running temp. Plus it contains no lead. My uncle who was a rum runner taught me that when I was a tot, before he passed away.
+jsslandro The old people were wise ..I'm in my 60's and my Italian Dad taught me many ways to distill and he learned from his mom & dad from Italy who ran stills in the 1800's ...
Absolutely. The light acids eat up plain lead solder. That is why silver solder must be used for home copper piping, and they are non acid and run colder, even than the hot water lines.
Not correct. The still runs at a very cool <200F temp and melting the lead-free solder is not an issue.
Cool video! looks like a fun project.
Did you ever do a video using this to distil the alcohol you fermented?
if what you have works for you that's all that matters.. helped me out to, I'm making the same liebig condenser u have, I kept saying I need to file out those couplers, thought I was nuts lol
to seal your leak on the pressure pot ,,use teflon tape with a conduit nut
This is very useful. Thank you.
Great video!! i'm also trying to make a distiller with a pressure pot and a long copper spiral (i wont to use it for steam distillation of aromatic plants)
Informative and well described content easily understood.
Informative. Thank you.
Should be able to get away with a silicon seal, as it has a high melting point after it's solidified.
How do you mark the end of collection?
What pipe fitting(s) did you use to attach to the pressure cooker lid?
Back in the late 80's a friend of mine made a similar still. He made it out of an empty stainless steel 15 gallon beer keg. One night on a hot summer night in Huntsville Alabama he was running off batch of moonshine in another friend's garage and it blew up and it made one hell of a mess in that garage. It took them two days to clean it up. It happened around 2:00 in the morning so nobody heard it, but you could smell alcohol for blocks away in every direction for at least three hours because there was no wind. :O)
You should probably have mentioned that non-lead solder must be used if this might be used for foodstuffs.
size doesn't matter of the colon but to cool down the steam to right temperature so you only cooling down the vapor from the alcohol and not water. And you want to have the vapor temperature at 79,15 degrees Celsius before it goes to the cooling colon. Then you got 97,4% alcohol out. Worked for me and you can max get out 0,6 liter alcohol/kg sugar. Pure and clean chemistry 😇
Broken glass would work just as well, without any interactions for column packing.
I see you made a sort of fractional distillation setup.
Step (drill) bit @the depot are very handy.
could you make a video on how to get acetone out of rubbing alcohol? then taste test it (probably getting one of those miracle berry tablets would be a good idea)
I think that Rosie O'Kelly did a video on how to make Moonshine which is ethanol.
could you just use a flask and condenser and distill it that way? Like you would any other solvent?
Just a tip, heat it up until the flux starts to bubble and wipe off the excess flux with a rag before you actually solder it. Otherwise you'll get a bunch of green/blue corrosion around your joints over time. Also, don't take your flame away while you solder. Keep it on there as you apply the solder to the joint. You should just be able to touch the solder on the top of the pipe and sort of move it back and forth a little for a second and the solder will run down both sides. That way you don't have to keep heating it up and applying more or go around each section of the pipe. Then just take a rag and wipe the drip of solder off the bottom while its still hot. A bigger torch head would also make things easier and faster. Obviously what you did will work and I'm not trying to criticize but doing those things will make this whole process more efficient if you ever need to solder copper pipe again.
Worrying about aluminum is trivial compared to the rubber gasket on your pressure cooker you're using. Alcohol eats those rubber gaskets up and puts all kinds of nasties in your product.
just curious what the "convenient bolt" holding, before you removed it... was that the safety valve?
pietrosammarco yeah
Would a rubber washer/print added to the fitting before you hammered it into the lid have made a difference in the leaks???
Hey Nile, thanks for this video. How do you measure the % of the final product?
hydrometer
will copper or aluminum react with anything organic or other solvents? interested in making a steam still for organic oils
aluminum toxicity cause Alzheimer beware of Sysco and Dixie crystal salts containing sodium aluminsilicate like sand and aluminum. see colloidal silver geneator upabove ,maranatha
How come you didn't use your glassware to distill? Should I be cautious to use glass for some reason? Not that I can think of any but always good to double check in case I missed something.
I think the reason he used theese materials is to show how distillation can be done cheaply, with materials available at ordinary hardware stores.
You can coil copper tubing in 6" pvc pipe
And use that as the water condenser
It would also work to remove moisture after a air compressor befor the storage tank as a dryer.
Can you use a normal distillation with a large round bottom flask for this?
+Constantino Fine Art You definitely could. It's just that this has a capacity of 4L. You could get a different cooker that has a capacity of many many liters. It is just an efficiency thing.
Thanks, NileRed. I know it’s a start and as you suggested I will look for other distillation apparatus construction on line. Any recommendations? You showed that this construction can be actually be done in this video, which is a excellent motivator !
In a previous video you showed how to distill solvent ethanol from a sugar wash. If this ethanol was instead used for human consumption, do you know if the copper distillation tube contaminates the ethanol? Also, is it possible to get copper flux and solder that is certified lead-free? I recall that at some point that the US EPA passed rules limiting lead and copper in public drinking water. I’m pretty sure the source of the lead hits they were getting was from lead in the copper plumbing solder. I think public water sources like municipal water supplies were able to control the level of copper contaminants by controlling the pH of their water. Although in these days of COVID 19 I’m looking only for solvent ethanol, it would be nice to know that future batches do not have too-high levels of metal contamination. Thanks again for a great video!
Did you used lead free solder? If not, how you made sure there is no traces of lead in the final product? Also i would love to know if you have considered to use the freeze concentrate Method so seperate alc Form Water and why not. Also why not use denaturated alc (spiritus) to Start with, since its supposed to be like 90+% to Start with. Love to hear what you think of all this. Thanks
Go to Rona Or home depot and by a reostate ( dimmer switch ) wire it into the hot plate ..
alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water so you want the heat to be carefully set where you get a very slow
drip coming out of the condensing apparatus otherwise you will be picking up to much water...
the first stuff coming out will have the higher alcohol's and fusel oils ..keep that for degreasing an engine of toss it ..it'll give you a migraine ..Ideally if you want the purest drinking Eth. then run it threw 4 times ..
Source ; The good booze cook book ..well worth buying a copy ..
What's your thoughts on using an aluminum cooker? ?
3:20
The leak could easily be remedied by using a double threaded piece instead. Also to do a safer still use a 2 ft piece of sewer pipe, about 6 inch diameter, then install about 25 feet of coiled 1/4 inch copper tubing. Insert the tubing inside of the pipe and have each end come through a cap, this will be what your pressure cooker line goes into. Then put a fitting on each end on the side of the sewer pipe and make it so you can pump cold or ice water through the pipe to cool the alcohol so it can be reused (if you use the still for extraction.). This was the best way I ever used to separate alcohol and whatever I was extracting at the time.
A temp gauge can also be installed to keep mix at the proper temp.
Thanks for the vids
Do you think an aluminium pot would be as good or that too much aluminium ion would spread in the stem? For distilled water for example?
Aluminum evaporates at 4478 Fahrenheit. Aluminum oxide evaporates at 5391. While the meme that everyone repeats is "stainless steel and copper only", there is nothing in aluminum that can get into the vapor.
Can't you just use a simple lab distillation setup for this? If you don't really want to go into plumbing, soldering and overall building a still?
While it is satisfying producing your own solvents; can everclear be used to the same effect?
cookies - 2016-07-06
As a former welding/brazing instructor, you did fine with your soldering method. 8/10
Fates Paladin - 2018-07-02
PiE I agree he did not bad at all, 👍