"You should do more research and get a better handle on things I recon.
Putting together a test distiller with Gorilla glue is a very rough plan.

Aluminum is perfectly safe to boil water.
It will pit during an alcohol distillation run.

Copper is also safe and can in fact remove off flavors.

I would consider glass unsafe due to breakage or the like.

Stainless steel also very safe."

"


Testing for leaks? Testing for,,,,,the ability to boil water.....??

Stainless presure cooker will work well. How big is it?"

"Oh, sorry..

About 6 1/2 quarts. I saw one that was 8 quarts in stainless steel, but I couldn't manage to remove the lid no matter how hard I tried. I finally gave up since it seems Sears help is very thin. I got a Magefesa.

http://www.magefesausa.com/fichas.asp?m=48&s=69

Riposa"

"

Absolutely ditto. Save and use it for an essence extractor only. Buy or make a still that will make you something you will be proud of. You start this hobby, and you will be stuck. Do it right to begin with."

"Wow Guys,

To tell the truth, already it seems this might be adequate to make distilled water to drink. I don't drink that much water a day, although I should. I used to drink much more during long periods of exercise, but I think this might work. You can fill it to 2/3 capacity in the pot. That's quite a bit of water. A gallon of distilled water will last for several days since I don't use it for cooking, only drinking. I saw an 8 quart stainless steel pot at Sears, but I couldn't remove the friggin lid, so I gave up. Sears help is really bad, no one to help. Also a good point is this smaller 6 quart pot keeps the range from getting too hot. Bigger pots make the range get really hot which I don't like. I don't like running the range fan all the time either, cause its very noisy. Even with this small setup, the five gallon plastic bucket I use gets that water pretty warm in the cooling process, so a bigger unit would require a larger cooling bin I guess. I am using about 12 feet of copper 5/8 wrapped around into a nice circle inserted inside the five gallon bucket. I drilled a hole in the side of the bucket at the bottom, which I fed the copper through there to drain into a collector. I sealed the hole with silicone. All seems to work very well so far. All of this costs less then 100 bucks, so its a good start, not that serious. If I do upgrade this hobby distiller in the future, I would like to use stainless steel tubing instead of copper or solid stainless steel pipe. I did not solder, but used copper pressure fittings and its very water tight, no leaks, but its not under pressure either. The 5/8 is plenty large for the capacity of the steam output, so its seems very safe, as long as I monitor it and not let it boil dry. Its a Magefesa Costco 6.3 quart pressure cooker at $48 dollars retail. Since all the ports are part of the handle, I did not fool with those, but instead drilled a 5/8 hole into the center of the lid, and threaded the double male fitting into that. Once tighten up with the nuts and sleeves, it seems to be very good tight fit, no problems. I do not lose anything through the ports in the handle because its not under pressure. I could take a snapshot with my camera if you want to see it, but its just a first run water distiller that was cheap in cost to make, and it was fun to do it. Next time I could go larger, but I have to remember my range will get hot, even with the fan blower on. For something much bigger, you really need a dedicated propane burner in an outside area like a patio where it can vent in the open air. Something maybe of commercial grade like restaurants use. I think this project is about as big as it gets for the kitchen, although 8 quarts might of worked out ok. Anything bigger should in my opinion, be outdoors or a large shed away from any possible accidents and fire dangers. However, this little project is runly very well on the range, its not too hot, although the range is a little hot, not bad. The burner I use in propane is the perfect size for this size pot. My range has 4 different size burners on it, and this burner is the smaller one. That means it boils the water well enough, but on full it doesn't overpower the pot.

riposa"

"Oh, I guess you guys were thinking of family, lots of kids drinking the water. No, no kids, just me, so the water I make lasts much longer. Yeah with kids, I reckon you would need a commerical size pot, and an outdoor shed to do it in. Especially kids who love sports. Your water would last no time. Spirits, sorry guys, I don't drink too much, besides an occasional beer or shot of something stronger on ocassion.

riposa"

"""Pic of my first ""Lil unit"".

I saw that. I also saw a 12 quart stainless steel Magefesa on Amazon for around $200 on sale. 12 quarts would be perfect. I certainly wouldn't need any bigger then that. What I see from your photo is that you are using big pipes on that. This makes me wonder that if I do build a bigger 12 quart pot, that I should go to the big pipes or at least use one inch instead of 5/8. Maybe one inch would not be enough capacity for the steam output from that? What is the acceptable size for a 12 quart? I also noticed that this would require twice the cooling bin, at least 10 gallons of water to cool.

riposa"

"Yeah, that's what I did, use 5/8 copper rolled into a coil in a five gallon bucket. Works quite well, but not sure about the taste or effects of copper. As of now I have a major problem. I think its the brass fittings. My first batch of water tasting nasty like metal of some sort. I thinking its the brass fitting that reacted with the steam. I know brass and copper are compatible, but brass and or copper are not really compatible with steel sometimes from what I have read, although I am seeing a lot of homemade stills where copper was brazed onto steel pots. I used a threaded compression fitting, brass, to connect the copper to the lid of the pressure cooker. Inside the pot it was secured with a brass nut, and that nut has turned dark some and the brass threads on both has become discolored. I believe this discoloration is from the steam reacting with the brass. I don't think its galvanic corrosion because I don't see any effects from the stainless around the edges. It was secured pretty tight, so I don't think there was a reaction between the two metals, but perhaps a reaction between the steam and the brass. I wasn't aware of this problem, although I was also told that all the lead was removed from this years brass fitttings so these fittings should be safe from lead, but it seems to still be a bad idea to use any brass in the model. The next thing is to braze the copper to the lid and just use all copper tubing, no brass fittings. I am hoping this will fix the problem with that nasty taste. The last resort, but probably the best solution is to go all stainless steel. You can get stainless steel fittings and pipe on the internet, but its pricey sometimes. Even stores like Lowes and Home Depot do not carry stainless steel parts or pipes for this sort of thing. I did find a special hardware store that had stainless steel fittings, but they had very little in the way of stainless steel pipes and tubing.

Anyone out there, let me know your thoughts on Brass? I'm suspecting what they call Brass is not even pure Brass anyway."

Well, what puzzles me is that I see a lot of home made stillers for water where they connect copper tubing to stainless steel or aluminum pots. From what I know, when you do that, there is the risk of galvonic corrosion when the two disimilar metals meet. I choose copper tubing on my first project cause it seemed safe enough for this beginniners project. As of this year, Brass is no longer made with lead. I haven't run vinager, but I could. I don't mind the taste, as long as I am not tasting metal but my only concern now is copper reacting with steel with hot steam. Going to stainless steel tubing is not just expensive, but hard to find. I heard dairys used that, but at least I have a local source for stainless steel fitting. I noticed a bluish green tent in some small areas in the bottom of my pot today. Very odd, its a reaction of some kind. Must of been a reaction with the brass. My water is filtered roughly through a frig filter before I put it in the pot. At that point, it still contains calcium and iron sulfide or sulfates. This is typical of mountain water here, but there are no pesticides or VOC's in this water, so once i get the stiller right, the water should produce clean water reasonably well.