My brudder-in-law made one of these (albeit a bit cruder than this fine example) and has been making corn likker/white lightning. He even keeps it in mason jars! Not really aged so a tad harsh IMO. My cousin from Glenrothes who worked in a scottish distillery told me scotch cost ~25p a gallon to make (this would have been ~30-years ago). SO FUCK DUTY FREE!!! (fergie)You didn't ask, but it is possible to substantially improve the quality of what comes out, as well as reduce energy use using slightly more advanced setups. These are well documented and widely used industrially, but especially common in oil refining.
Basically:
- Instead of heating it as a batch, feed the raw liquid in as the coolant and bring it in slowly. See that 45 degree sloped line with the water cooling setup? Just feed in the raw liquid into that instead to capture the condensation heat, and then drip it down into the large tank at the bottom. This thermal recycling can cut the required heat easily by 50% and increases output for the same size still.
- Let the vapors rise inside of a "packed column" instead of just an empty copper tube. (see that vertical section above the tank - it is going to waste the way it is designed.) A common example is to fill a tube with glass or metallic spheres or rings (basically just adding in more surface area and stacked vertically). Each time the vapor condenses and re - vaporizes on these surfaces, is nearly equivalent to another distillation.
- Consider to take the vapor off of the column about 1/2 way up instead of completely off the top. The vapor at the top of the column tends to be slightly enriched in methanol, which gives the majority of the hang over effect. (in quantity, it is toxic).
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