INHOPE DIY 3 Gal, 12 Liters Home Distiller Moonshine Alcohol Whiskey Water Still Stainless Boiler Thumper Keg (Silver)

The still is easy to assemble and use and works as advertised. I bought the still to distill water and make medicinal alcohol. After washing it with soap and water I ran a vinegar wash through it to clean it. I put 1 gallon of water and 1 gallon of white vinegar in the pot. After bringing it to boil I kept it at a boil for about 30 minutes. All the seals worked. The temperature gage indicated 200 degrees, but it was boiling and the still was producing distilled vinegar wash as it should. The still works great. The only complaint I have is that the final output tube did not attach tightly. I used a piece of the tubing instead and that worked better anyway because it hung down into the collection pot.

I bought this distiller recently and started testing it by distilling water. It works, but I am not totally satisfied.I have several suggestions.This distiller is designed to use cooling water from the city water faucet. Connecting a water tube to the faucet of the kitchen sink is by no means an easy job. But it is a very difficult and daunting job at least. Besides, an electric heater must be placed near the sink. Then, a large space in the kitchen is occupied by the distiller and heater. Also, the kitchen faucet is occupied for a long time.Another problem of the distiller is that the tip of the distilled liquid exit pipe is too short, so an extension tube is required. The exit pipe should be longer so the distilled liquid can be collected directly into a bottle or vessel. Or an extension pipe, which is food-safe, should be included.These problems can be almost totally eliminated if the cooling is done by air but not by water. Indeed, air-cooled distillers are available in Amazon listed near this one. I have used one of them, which works very well. The only drawback of this air-cooled distiller is that no thermometer can be inserted into the boiler. This is the primary reason why I bought this distiller. I need to distill in vacuum or sometimes other substance than water.I started using this distiller, without cooling water, by putting a small fan on the top of the cooling coil. In this way, however, the heating rate needs to be significantly reduced because the cooling pipe is not designed for air-cooling.I strongly suggest this manufacture to develop an air-cooled version of the distiller. Use a finned cooling pipe and increase the total length of the cooling pipe. The improved design should be useful for both air cooled and water cooled.Because the distilling efficiency of the distiller is low if operated in the air-cooled mode, I developed another plan, which also allows using the distiller away from the kitchen faucet. This is by placing a large and shallow water reservoir near the distiller (1.5’ x 4’ x 6” plastic container) next to the distiller. Water is pumped by a small aquarium pump to the heat exchanger of the distiller; the drain is returned to the reservoir. The water container works also as a heat exchanger to remove heat brought by the returning water from the distiller heat exchanger. Cool air can be blown by a small electric fan over the surface of the reservoir if more cooling is desired.

This still is a basic pot still with no thumper as described by the seller, who can barely speak English. It is made of thin material that showed red rust after boiling water in it. Mine had a crimp on the sealing surface of the top, and the only thing that happened was multiple requests for photos so the seller could decide what was wrong. I repaired it myself rather than deal with the seller. I'm an old experienced moonshiner so I can run this still, but I don't recommend it for a beginner.

.Had to use grinder / file to remove to clean up metal tubing. A few minutes with a Dremel tool with grinding stone to remove flashing's and burrs from tubing. NO written directions and on the websites they suggested were in Chinese or no voice or written notes. I did find looking at .

I purchased this for distilling water.The 3 Gal 12 Liter unit is perfect for an electric stove top use.I am currently distilling at a rate around 3 liters/hour with 18C (65F) cooling water.Pro: Support is excellent and answered my numerous detailed questions including confirming this unit has Stainless Tubing.Con: I wish the 'silent' online videos would have English instructions/subtitles.Note: support provided a great deal of information, instructions and additional video links not included in the packageShipping note: regardless of Amazon's prediction of ~45 days shipping, I received mine in 12 days.