For novice distillers think safety: Vaporized alcohol in the boiler, column and condenser should ONLY make contact PTFE, Copper, Stainless, Glass, Wood or Natural cork. It's not what the hot alcohol does to the material, it's what it TAKES FROM IT. After the alcohol is condensed, it should continue to make contact only with: PTFE, Copper, Stainless, Glass, Wood or Natural Cork. Good "gettin learnt" video Jesse!

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Thats a good point BigEd! I kinda missed an opportunity to plug the safety side of things there. Another case of comment section FTW!

So much useful stuff to learn here at the University of KZread! I have an old Mirro pressure cooker with no gasket. I'm turning it into a boiler to make distilled water over my fire pit and for that I am not willing to spend $15 for a new gasket. And whoda thunk... I do a lot lf handyman plumbing jobs and it never occurred to me to flip the roll over so the tape doesn't get out of hand> Thanks so much!

This is an incredibly helpful video! 🤘😎

Just found a place in nz that doesn’t 2” ptfe gaskets still $9.88 per gasket but cheapest I have found so far happy as for my new still built

I made a few of these, also swapped out the cardboard with cork for a thicker gasket. Both worked well. Good idea doing these short vids for stuff like this:-)>

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

That's a good idea switching it out to cork. Double safe! Thanks,dude. Figgered it let me get some more stuff out without too much extra commitment :)

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

I had the same concerns about cardboard. I hadn't thought about it in cork board though. But as I understand it the idea is that the PTFE acts as a barrier. Hence why I am happy to use it with the OG silicone seal for the swing top lids. To be honest, that is an assumption! Thanks for the comment, I am already thinking of ways to test this! Cheers :)

I made one of these 8 months ago and I have been using it every weekend since. I wrap around the gasket twice with PTFE tape when it gets a bit thin.

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Honestly, dude, I hadn't thought about just wrapping it again hahaha. Not that any of my ones have gotten to that stage yet. But I will keep it in mind. Thanks for the tip ;)

this is brilliant

Is it okay to use the tape on still threaded connections, such as the internal thumper tube or any connection for that matter?

Right and that with oat meal mixed in even better

Did you tried to make big gaskets for potstill lid? I want to make one of 51 cm wide for boiler and another for thumper, 38 cm wide. How much teflon tape I need and how many times I have to wrap to make a good tight seal durable gasket?

Thanks man 💪

Here we are in 2022. Wondering what opinion you still have these days on that gasket? Also. I noticed that all the testing has been done with Ethanol. The distilling process has a wider variety of volatile compounds in it. If you are looking for a new subject to address for your show, Consider evaluating how these various materials hold up to the foreshots and heads. I have not seen anyone address that yet. Tanks Buckwheat! :)

I see that Bunnings (Aus hardware store) is selling Teflon mats which you are meant to use on your BBQ hotplate (food doesn't stick, easy to clean). Teflon is ptfe so why not get a sheet of this stuff (less than $10) and cut gaskets from that? Anyone know why it might be a bad idea before I actually buy some?

@jonaszkita8472

2 жыл бұрын

And...? How is it?

sweet I just got a none canning jar for a $1.00 and it leaks this should work just fine... plus to seal boiler nice as always great video informative as well.

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks man, Yeah endless possibilities ;)

@kalleklp7291

7 жыл бұрын

You know Derrick, to seal the top to the boiler, you can also use plain old fashioned flour dough. Make it the consistency of pizza dough.

On the HD website "Samohon" came up with the gasket in October 2011. Or at least he was the first to post pictures that I could find. Cheers Jesse!

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks dude :)

good one

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks man :)

I have a grainfather, been thinking of just buying a steel distilling lid, but it uses silicon as a gasket afaik. would wrapping that with ptfe be enough?

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Hows it Steffen, Grainfather! Nice! Its a sweet piece of brewing kit. And it will do you proud for AG distilling too! Yeah, there is a lot of discussion around this all over the forums. Many people run it as is and are happy with it, some replace the gaskets entirely. Some wrap them. If you are going to wrap it you will need a fair bit pf PTFE tape to do it justice. I would suggest having a read of this thread. Dude mods out a similar unit. Which gets into some of the other shortcomings with the units that clamp on top of a grainfather :) www.nzhomedistiller.org.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=201

Hey mate is this the video you recommended this morning for the kmart jars ?

@Matthew-kv2xh

6 жыл бұрын

sorry i typed the comment 3 seconds before you pulled out a jar on the video

@StillIt

6 жыл бұрын

That's the one. Do the same thing but just wrap around the silicone gasket ( don't need to switch to cardboard).

@Matthew-kv2xh

6 жыл бұрын

cool man thank you so much now to stock up on cheap jars originally i was looking at getting like 5+ demijohns which would cost me about 15$ each i think, why does the tape not react to the alcohol vapour?

Mate, sorry for bringing up old topics, but have you considered silicon baking sheets? I've got all my jargaskets and stilling stuf(that comes into contact with high abv distillate) made from simple silicon bakingtray sheets.. Some food for thought😁

@StillIt

6 жыл бұрын

+Mart Mennen cheers my man. There are a fair few people that would doubt that silicone can stand up to high abv. So figured I would be extra safe for now hahaha

@gezicht22

6 жыл бұрын

Oh I didn't know that! About everyone on the forum here in the Netherlands use the baking tray gaskets because it's safe 😂 but hey, dont change a winning formula, right? 😁🤘

@StillIt

6 жыл бұрын

+Mart Mennen 😉

@fazaani88

6 жыл бұрын

Have you actually tested those in the long run? Most chemical compability sheets I found with a quick search seem to disagree that they would hold up perfectly against polar solvents (like ethanol). Just for example this chart for some O-rings has silicone listed as 2 (fair) versus ethanol: mykin.com/rubber-chemical-resistance-chart-3 I would imagine there will be some effect on the gasket if its in contact with hot, concentrated ethanol vapor. Now the positive thing is that food grade silicone products should be inert to human body and you won't get poisoned or anything like that from it. So yeah they SHOULD be safe to use in that sense but that doesn't mean they won't degrade or leech into your product...

@gezicht22

6 жыл бұрын

Phantatron I've had some spirits age in jars that've been standing on the attic for a year with the bakingtray silicon gaskets and they haven't shown any deterioration whatsoever.. I haven't have them tested by a lab but I can quite safely say they haven't been leeching in any nasties by taste

Today I ask google how to make an odd sized still gasket for a new project? It responded with, here stupid. You watched Jessy do this 3 years ago! Oh yeeaa... New question; Why not use the yellow Teflon tape? It is double the thickness and solvent/gas rated. It is also rated for 500 deg fht where white is rated for 450 deg fht.

You can eliminate me from the list of people or person that came up with that idea😜 hehe

Handy! Just realized this was 3 years ago... Evidently I missed it... Where the hell I was.. I dunno..

@StillIt

3 жыл бұрын

😂😂😂😂

I am usually all in favour of DIY solutions, and this one might be good for "emergencies" I suppose, but when a roll of Fix-A-Tap 12mm x 8m Threadseal Tape is $1.99 (and the "original" article says you need to use a full roll), and a EDPM 2" seal is $1.50 from a major supplier I have concerns about the economic viability. Sure, there are probably cheaper rolls of PTFE tape, but I am sure there are cheaper EDPM seals as well...

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Good point. And I agree. Especially for the ferrule gaskets. In fact, you can get PTFE gaskets too for a similar price. But I guess it depends on where you live etc. For me, the roll of tape was $0.99 But a 50mm EPDM gasket is around $3.20 (locally). It's the versatility that I like. As you say being able to put something together in a pinch. Or for something like the jar that has a custom gasket.

@rudyardkipling7181

7 жыл бұрын

Yep, for me a roll of tape is a 100k round trip, however it's one to keep in case, I generally have a roll of tape around, but rarely are they unused :-( - Next time I'm in Bunnings I'll pick up a few - they won't go to waste that's for sure. (although it seems the silicon baking mats could also be a useful standby).

Now make one that is 5mm small 🤔

Nice Jesse..! Well, The idea may come from a guy called Samohon over on HD. He may not be the first to have done that, though. It's called an "everlasting gasket". Link: homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=24199&p=6929534&hilit=everlasting+gasket#p6929534 I used something similar on my test setup for the stills I've made. Just some temporarily quick knock up, to test if the setup is viable. If it passes my test, I buy the proper fittings, ferrules and the PTFE gaskets for the project. Btw...PTFE gaskets are dirt cheap on E-bay...from China. Btw...when will we see a video of your spirit run on your CCVM..? Happy stilling.

@StillIt

7 жыл бұрын

Nice. I do believe I have read a few things from that very thread when looking into this stuff! For anyone else looking into this I would recomend that link! Thanks Kalle :)