"Hi there.

I'm in ""rural"" Nova Scotia. I moved here about 8 months ago after relocating from Newfoundland where I'd been since emigrating from Australia in early 2008.

I got interested in home distilling after trying the stuff my neighbour is producing.

The neighbour is using a pair of off the shelf ""Air Stills"". I don't know if they are modified (neither does he), all he knows is that he bought a ready-to-run package that included the stills and instructions. He's not all that technical, and follows the instructions he was given to the letter. He has a process that works and produces a neutral spirit at what he says is an ABV of about 55% using white sugar as a base and lots of carbon filtering of the final product.

I figured there must be a better way, but he has a method that works and is not interested in trying anything different ... so ...

I have 28 years experience in real world electronics with my years pretty evenly divided between design/construction/installation and teaching. I'm still setting up my home workshop here, but I figured that years of working with soldering irons for assembling electronics, copper power distribution bus-bars and cables, and copper water cooling systems for high powered transmitters, combined with 40+ years of repairing and installing copper household plumbing, should mean that I can assemble a traditional copper distillation system with out too much trouble.

I'm also into cars, and have been keeping a very non-standard turbocharged car on the road since the late 70s (sold it to a collector 3 weeks ago), so I know my way around mechanical systems and fabricating custom parts. I'm currently in the process of getting a non-running Jaguar XJ-S V12 back onto the road.

I'll be honest, I know nothing about distilling other than the theory I've read and my only practical experience involved using glass Liebig Condensers in high school chemistry.

I'm still researching a design for my first still. I don't know if it'll be a pot still or a reflux, but initially I'm leaning towards a building a pot still with a simple Liebig Condenser as a starting point and take it from there. I'll probably graduate to a reflux still in the future.

I'm also interested in designing a good temperature controller for an electric heating element based around a high temperature, food grade, waterproof, digital temperature sensor (I assume it's the vapour temperature that's critical in the distillation process) and an Arduino microcontroller.

Anyhow, enough of my rambling. I'm open to advice on where I should start."