Research & plan.
Before going to the store or starting a fermentation, sit down and do your research. This may put a damper on the newfound excitement you have imaging yourself sipping moonshine from the copper tube of a backwoods still, but it will save time, frustration, and money. Distilling is a simple process, but building your own distiller has its complexities. Firstly, the legality of distillation and owning distilling equipment varies by state. The legality of selling home-distilled liquor does not—it is illegal. Find out what kind of trouble you may be getting yourself into before you begin. My state of Massachusetts, although notoriously conservative on alcohol related laws, does not explicitly prohibit the manufacture of hard spirits at home. It is still very illegal for me to sell anything that comes dripping out of my still.
Distilling also has its dangers, and it is important to consider the explosiveness of ethanol vapours in your design. Because of the factor of flammability, consider where the still will be set up. Make sure you have access to a fire extinguisher. Another danger of any distillation is the concentration of poisonous elements created during your fermentation, namely methanol. When ingested, methanol will dissolve your optic nerve, blinding you before it kills you. Make sure you do your research about the science behind distillation and how you can make sure you have separated the bad stuff, which will boil first, from the good stuff.
Another consideration, albeit less scary, is that there are many kinds of stills. Figure out what kind of still you think you can build with your god-given abilities and resources. If you can weld, you can make pretty much anything. If you can solder, you can piece together a still as well. If you can’t do either of these things, call a friend who can. Consider, as well, what kind of alcohol you want to produce. Vodka? Make a reflux still. Gin? Maybe stick to a pot still. Once you have your still and begin to experiment with different techniques and fermentations, you will appreciate the research you put into your still.
Design. Design your still and your distillation process. Think about the space you have. Where is your water source for condensation? Does this space need to be discrete? Is this space ventilated? Do I have enough space? Do not go to the hardware store without a solid blueprint of your dream still. It’s fine and necessary to adapt your design along the way, but a solid design will be a great guide to success. Your design should account for your financial resources, the space in which you will distill, and your own abilities to construct a still. Map out lengths, diameters, connections, and all of the parts you will need. This will save you time and money, and money matters. Building a still is expensive as I will outline in the next part of this series.
Buy and Source Materials
Once you know what you’re getting yourself into, and you have a detailed image of a still that will work for you, it’s time to go to the store, whether online or in person, and acquire the necessary parts. Open up a new line of credit, check the balance of your bank account, or cash that birthday check, because this can get pricey. Start by buying what you absolutely know you will need to get started. There will be more incidental expenses down the road. This is an upfront investment that will continue producing alcohol for a long time, but the materials are not cheap and some are difficult to find.
A still, whether it’s a pot still or a reflux column, will have the same basic parts. The pot itself may be one of the trickier items to source. Any large stainless steel or copper vessel will do, but the connection to the rest of your still will need to be strong and air-tight. Luckily, I know a couple of welders, so I bought a basic beer brewing kettle and some stainless steel latches. My friend welded the latches to the pot so that the lid could be clamped down tightly. He also cut perfect holes in the lid for the still column and a thermometer. He mentioned he had done some similar alterations to a normal beer keg, which I have also read are fairly easy to turn into a pot for your distiller. Best of all, he did it for free. I had my pot for around $90.
Once you build your pot and figure out what kind of connection you will have to your column (I used bulkhead clamps), you can start on the column and condenser. I used copper pipe for everything and some of the pieces were very difficult to source. I waited outside of my local plumbing wholesaler for an hour, only to find that even they did not have the 2”-1” copper reducing couplings I needed to build my condensing jacket. Start with big hardware stores for the easy parts: lengths of pipe, joints, solder, tubing, and heating element. Try brewing and wine shops for thermometers and column packing material. For the pieces you just can’t find anywhere else, plumbing wholesalers may fit the bill, or you could try online. I used a combination of all of these to find what I needed.
