All KegLand stills are compatible with the KegLand Robobrew/BrewZilla Generation 3 and Generation 4 breweries and the DIgiboil range and will also fit standard 50L kegs. This means, along with our 2200 watt heating element, you can pretty much make a boiler out of anything!
The Alcoengine range which includes both Pot Stills and Reflux Stills can be attahced to a Distillation Lid sized for a standard 35L boiler or 65L boiler via a thread, nut and seal. They also come with a 2" Tri-Clover flange for easy fitting to a any 2" Tri-Clover such as those on a 300mm Tri-Clover Extension Tube, or a heavy Duty Pro SIght Glass lid. They will also fit directly onto any commercial 50L keg with a 2" Tri-Clover flange.
So, a lot of people don't necessarily understand the fundamental difference between the two types of still. There is also a third type (the bubble plate still) which we will also cover.
Reflux Stills
Reflux Stills (aka fractional distillation columns) are used to make pure neutral spirit which are designed to extract only pure, flavourless ethanol from the wash. Basically, irrespective of the makeup of your wash, a reflux column will producre high quality, flavourless pure ethanol (up to around 96% pure).
These still are quite easy to use and allow for a lot of flexibilty with a minium of effort. As it is so eay to produce pure ethanol, this can then be diluted and flavoured with a huge range of super high quality essences, allowing you to make great tasting gin, whisky, rum etc extremely easily and quickly!
In a nutshell, Reflux distillation is an easy way to produce drinking alcohol which can be flavoured with various off-the-shelf essences for all your favourite spirits.
The KegLand Alcoengine Reflux Still is designed to be powerful enough for experienced distilelrs, but easy enough for complete novices to use - simply hook it up to a suitable coolant* source and let her rip!
*Mains pressure water or a water tank with constant pressure pump receommended.
Pot Stills
Pots Stills are made for those looking to produce real whiskey, gin, tequila, rum or bourbon.
A Pot Still produces ethanol, but unlike a reflux column, the flavours present in the wash are not stripped out. As a result, these require a bit more hands on work, and you will need to learn how to take 'cuts' when doing a run, but using a pot still it is possible to make authentic whisky, rum, gin etc -you do not flavour the distillate of a pot still with essences as you do with a reflux still.
This is the classic method of distillation used to produce many of the finest spirits on the top shelf - capturing the unique flavours that cannot readily be synthetically produced. It's a more complex and time-consuming craft but is very rewarding and allows you to produce a spirit which is unmatched in flavour, complexity and profile.
The Kegland Alcoengine Pot Still is simple and reliable, designed for ease of use and the abilty to easily produce great quality product. The Alcoengine Design on the other hand requires a minimum water flow rate and that's it. As long as you have enough coolant it doesn't matter how fast your coolant flows through the still. This makes the still far easier to operate than many other brands.
Bubble Plate Stills
Unlike Pot Stills and Reflux Stills, Bubble palte stills are customisable. Bubble palte stills have a number of caps that allow the vapour of the wash to rise up the column, but also lets liquid fall back dwn. AS the number of bubble plates in the system can be changed, this allows the distiller to customise the 'reflux ratio' by adding or removing plates from the column.
This means that the distiller is able to have control over the rate at which good distillate is colelcted and thus have a high degree of repeatable control over the final product. Unlike our Alcoengine Pot and Reflux stills these are probably aimed more towards experienced distillers who want a high degree of control over the process by controlling the reflux ratio.
Traditionally, bubble plate stills are glass, stainless and/or copper. This means that a bubble plate setup can be very expensive compared to tradional copper stills. KegLand is super excited to unleash the all new PolyPhoenix Bubble Plate still range. Using our estensive experience, we have designed a bubble plate still modular setup using high quality PPSU.
PPSU is an excellent choice for components that are exposed to high temperatures (up to 200°C) and corrosive media due to its exceptional chemical resistance. As well as being extremely impact resistant it is also free of any plasticisers and BPA materials. The other main advange is it is extremely light weight compared to a traditional bubble plate setup, and also far less expensive!
