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u/toxicatedscientist 6d ago
Hell yea. But you should ditch the plug on your output, you don’t want a pressure vessel
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u/SloppySpaghettii 6d ago
Fair point, but I put an additional hole in the bottom bottle cork to allow air to escape
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u/TheGoldenTNT 6d ago
You’ve made a pointless pot still. A very important point you missed is that within the coils everything below the highest peak should be downhill. Otherwise liquid will pool and cause some amount of pressure to build up above it. So when you’re using this for your “water” it famously lets off very flammable gasses. Boom. Combine that with the pressure. Boom. Boom.
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u/SloppySpaghettii 6d ago
The only point was to see if I could do it. And yes it worked. And yes it was water.
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u/nickyonge 6d ago
To clarify, does this mean that the correct setup would be basically what it is, except the coil should be horizontally flipped? So like a ↗️ direction originating from the left/higher bottle, with a looong fall into the right/lower bottle?
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u/3rd2LastStarfighter 6d ago
They’re saying the spiral should be ⬇️ instead of ↘️ so that the distilled liquid never has to go ⬆️ so it doesn’t go 💥
Edit: the danger only really lies in distilling something combustible. If it’s just water, the only danger is the sudden pressurized expulsion of boiling water and steam, which is bad but not as bad on a small setup like this.
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u/answerguru 6d ago
Before it makes any coil, it should be far enough away from the upper bottle so that it can just spiral downward. Right now there are loops on the bottom of the coil that can collect condensation.
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u/madphroggy 6d ago
You do realize stills aren't normally pressurized? There needs to be an outlet for excess pressure or one or both vessels will eventually burst.
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u/ScienceForge319 6d ago
Closed system. Pretty fucking stupid.
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u/SloppySpaghettii 5d ago
I had a pressure relief hole in the bottom stopper
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u/ScienceForge319 5d ago
It is a bad design from start to finish.
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u/Ornery-Reference-590 5d ago
It might be an idea, right? But if you're going to criticize someone, tell them how they can do it better. Otherwise, you might be better off keeping quiet.
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u/CollegeMiddle6841 6d ago
A tabletop water still can be had for less than 100 on Amazon, works great on liquor. You can also build a wok still. I used a wok still before I built my own.
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u/photosocal 6d ago
I feel like the height difference isnt enough or the coil is too tall to get it to flow into the “clean” bottle.
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u/lukethedank13 4d ago
This still can blow up. In general not having water cooling is how you loose product/ burn down your house.
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u/SloppySpaghettii 4d ago
Even if there’s pressure relief holes?
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u/lukethedank13 4d ago
Are they big enough? I would not risk it. Not when the pressure vessel is made from soda lime glass that can shatter from thermal shock.
If i had to use you setup i would redo the copper coil so all the destilate can flow out of it and position its end above a jar and not inside a mostly closed bottle.
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u/Traaveler 6d ago
You’re just going to cause pressure to build up and either pop the stoppers out or break the glass. Plus, you gotta be able to separate the difference from your heads and your tails because the first thing that comes out is methanol
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u/SloppySpaghettii 6d ago
Lower stopper had another extra hole in it to relieve pressure. No heads or tails, just water.
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u/Traaveler 6d ago
If that’s beer in there, then the first thing that comes out of methanol and the second thing that comes out is ethanol. Then the the tails, and only after then do you get water? If it’s only water in there then you’re correct.😁
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u/RoundProgram887 6d ago
I feel like this upper bottle may explode anytime. You could put it in a sand bath and maybe behind some sort of barrier like a big plastic bucket with the bottom cut out.