stills Review of Confederate Stills of Alabama

[outlawpete]

I am interested to see if there is anyone who has had experience with Confederate Stills of Alabama. They have a lot of beautiful looking products on there website, and I would like to see if anyone can share there personal experience with the stills, cypress fermentation tanks and as well as other products produced.

If so, could you please touch on efficiency, performance, durability, maintenance, cleaning, price point, and service you experienced; as well as overall thoughts, suggestions, recommendations. 

[navenjohnson]

I purchased 3 cypress fermenters that were used. Since i do a fair amount of woodworking i decided to tear them down and rebuild them. To my disappointment they were put together with nails and silicone. Not what i expected. Truth is (and i know from experience) these vessels if shouldn't need this. They should be able to hold liquid by swelling and pressure alone. Maybe the best part of this experience is that it pushed us to build our own. And now we've developed a really good way to make these ourselves made of wood and held together with nothing more than pressure. 

[Silk City Distillers]

Share your construction methods, I'm sure there are plenty of folks with the skill and willingness to build their own.

[Hudson bay distillers]

very cool that you built your own personally i would love to see how you did it if your willing to share your experience .  i would also be interested has anyone tried a side by side comparison of flavor profile between wooden wash backs and plastic or stainless , with all grain mashes . 

tim 

[navenjohnson]

We've built a few different styles now.  Our newest versions made of local Douglas fir. We get the wood from a local mill rough cut into 2x4s. Then we use a shaper to make cup and round-over edges on each of the staves. The bases, also doug fir, are cut to a double tongue and groove, fitted together then cut round. We use a similar v cut like the cruz on a traditional barrel for the joint between the staves and base. The hoops are made from 1/2" soft rolled steel rod rolled in a conduit roller and threaded at both ends. The whole thing is assembled squeezed and filled for swelling. Pic is of a couple unassembled vats. As a disclaimer, i need to note that we do use hardware to afix crossmembers on the bottom, but we use stainless and does not ever come into contact with liquid. 

[Still_Holler]

I got a still and a masher from them and wish I had never done business with them.  

[outlawpete]

@Still_Holler can you give more information on what you did or did not like?

[Julius]

Our 500 gallon stripping pot still hasn’t given us problems. The only minor issue is the hobbled together agitator has been difficult to service. Parts from three different companies and no one knows what size packing matierial I need. 

Our fermenters are held together with nails and silicone. Not ideal. They are very temperamental and require constant maintenance. Out of the three, one is almost always out of commission. 

[Still_Holler]

On 11/12/2017 at 2:47 PM, Still_Holler said:

 When I told the still/masher manufacturer that the Reflectix engineer confirmed it was only rated to 180 F and should be removed immediatly his response was "never been a problem" and "its yours, it you want to remove it that is your choice"   I'm still in the process of rectifying quite a few problems with the manufacturer, so don't want to name names as it is a pending matter. 

Picture shows what I found under the wood.