Equip 2


	The Classic PDA-1 Professional Distillation Apparatus


	100% copper, sleek, compact, and incredibly efficient. Rated at 750 Watts for production of pure vodka, the PDA-1 can easily handle powers up to 1,500 Watts when stripping or making flavored spirits, and can operate in simple or compound modes to produce distillates at any desired level of purification.


	It took two years of research and development by the Amphora Society to create the revolutionary PDA-1. Many have tried to copy it, but none have achieved the same efficiency, nor the same purity of product.

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	How is it unique? In several ways: It has a short (but very carefully engineered) column! Much of the research mentioned above was into the specific behavior of columns at a wide variety of power levels. We learned that by carefully matching column to power, and by carefully controlling the reflux, the long columns of the past are not needed to achieve high purity. Ultra-high purity distillates (no carbon treatment needed) are now available with just a few hours of processing. It uses pure copper structured packing material.This is much more efficient than random packing (raschig rings or scrubbers), because it imposes structure on the flow of liquid downward and presents much less resistance to the flow of vapor upward. ONLY the Amphora Society offers structured packing to the personal distiller. Fully tunable over a wide range of production. For those interested in beverages (and residing where it is legal to produce them), this tunability allows the production of any desired product from ultra-pure 96% alcohol to very high quality whiskey, brandy or rums (see below) Operating as a water distiller, this also allows the rapid removal of salts, or the slower production of extremely pure water stripped of volatile organic materials as well. The Amphora Society has taken great pains to build flexibility into this design, which is why we sell the apparatus by itself, without a boiler. Every country has different power and legal requirements that can control the choice of boiler. Each distiller has his or her own personal goals for materials to process, batch size, etc. Knowing that we could never meet all of these widely diverse requirements, we have made the unit very flexible in its attachment capabilities, so that it can easily be attached to almost any commercially available or custom-built water heater/boiler. We designed the PDA-1 to couple perfectly to a 1-gallon water heater, because we believe that that is the perfect size for the majority of hobby projects, but it is just as comfortable attached to a 15-gallon unit, and it has performed admirably with both during our extensive testing. The standard PDA-1 comes with a ¾ inch NPT female connector at the bottom and can be attached immediately to most commercial water heaters. However, we can provide appropriate adaptors or engineer a custom-built solution if you have special requirements (for a small additional fee ... please contact us for details about options to satisfy your needs) The new, improved PDA-1 now features flare fittings instead of compression fittings for ease of assembly. The thermometer has also been replaced by a swivel-headed design relocated nearer to the product take-off point. This enables the PDA-1 to be set up for left-hand, right-hand or central operation to cater for personal preferences. The product cooler has been improved, and is now a standard feature. As befits the quality of this professional equipment, it comes with a small, strong protective case (measuring just 13" x 9" x 3") that protects it both in transit and when not in use.

So, if you've been wanting to take up the fascinating hobby of botanicals extraction or (where legal) home distilling, but don't have the time or desire to manufacture your own equipment; If you want the best possible equipment, and if you want to get started in this fascinating hobby as rapidly as possible ... the PDA-1 is for you.

The price

The New Improved PDA-1

US$375.00

Shipping
All shipments are dispatched, fully insured, from our US distribution center.
USA shipments are sent Priority Mail,
and those elsewhere are sent Priority Mail International (PMI) with tracking.
Quoted delivery time for PMI is 7-10 days, but EXPRESS mail shipment,
with faster delivery, tracking and expedited Customs clearance,
is available on request for an additional US$20.
Standard charges are listed below
USA - US$15.00
Canada - US$30.00
Rest of World - US$45.00
(local duties or taxes may be due on receipt)


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	Note: all units come with structured copper packing, gaskets and an instruction manual. The ONLY thing that is not provided is a boiler, for the reasons given above.




	This is what one of our first customers wrote:

WOW!!!
I just got my Amphora Society PDA-1 column today. I had a wash waiting for it and Holey Moley, you will never guess what it is all about.
Crisp design and beautiful execution of a top quality product. The results are awesome. I am impressed and very happy with my investment. I know I will not have to agonize anymore about the design and efficiencies of the 'stuff' I have been building. I now have the best.
I've been designing and building stills for about 2 years now. I just love the challenge when someone tells me "It can't be done." Ahhhh, You guys DID it...

All I can say is WOW.. AND - Thank You Mike M & Mike N....


	And now, just this month (May 2007) yet another happy customer. Seems we should have called it the "WOW" still!

After many months of waiting, I was finally able to piece together a decent boiler and run a neutral spirit run with the PDA.
I must admit, at first I was rather skeptical, but once I started collecting, WOW, what a difference!
The spirit I obtained was so much cleaner and so much purer than anything I ever obtained with the last still I bought (which was stainless and professionally made).
I hadn't thought it was possible, but you guys know EXACTLY what you are doing, and provide an excellent still that produces an excellent product.
This thing is worth every penny I paid for it.

Andy


	MORE ABOUT THE PDA-1

We said earlier that the PDA-1 was designed to be fully tunable over a wide range of production. However, as many will know from personal experience, performance can often fall short of design expectations,

We had tested the PDA-1 to check its performance as a water distiller and found it easily capable of exceeding the output rate of all domestic water distillers that we have seen ... and with the optional product cooler, the pure water was cool and ready to drink immediately.

We had tested its ability to purify water contaminated with volatile organic materials, and it produced clean, pure water.

We had tested it as a vodka distiller, and found that despite its compactness, it produced vodka that was so pure that it required no further treatment

What we had not done was to see how it performed as a flavored spirits still, for whiskey, rum, etc

We decided to give that task to an acknowledged world expert in flavored spirits, Ian Smiley, as he was far better qualified than us in judging the capabilities of the PDA-1 in producing such spirits.

This is what he reported:

Today I ran a whiskey run in the Amphora PDA-1 at 1500W. It was the combined low wines from two batches of bourbon mash (i.e. 5 parts corn, 2 parts rye, and 1 part malt). There was 20.5L of 37.5% alcohol low wines.

The separation and efficiency were incredible. I had to keep turning the flow rate up to keep it from stripping the alcohol out of my whiskey.

I settled at 35-ml per minute and the whiskey was very clean (too clean by many people's standards). As I was experimenting with it I tried many different flowrates, and for a long time I had the flowrate at 60-ml per minute. I backed it down to 35 because I thought 60 just had to be too high. I'm now convinced that 35 was too slow and that 60 may have worked fine.

Upon reflection, to be able to turn around whiskey at 60-ml per minute is pretty high performance. After dilution to 40%, and only running at 35-ml per minute for the majority of the run, I made 13.25L of whiskey yesterday in just 3 ¾ hours.

The whiskey that it produced was remarkably good. This model is definitely suited to making whiskey if the user wants to. The Amphora PDA-1 passes the whiskey test with flying colours!

Frankly, we were astonished – we had expected that some significant modifications might be necessary to perfect the PDA-1 for use in making whiskey, brandy, rum, and other flavored spirits, but our research work had paid even better dividends than we thought!

Ian Smiley's tests proved that the PDA-1 can produce excellent whiskey distillate (or any other flavored spirit) at 60-ml per minute. Now that equates to production of no less than 8 standard bottles of high quality whiskey (750-ml at 80 proof) in just one hour!

We have seen claims by other manufacturers that they have better and faster stills, but such claims appear to come more from wishful thinking than hard facts. One is declared to be "The best still on the world market", but with a stated production rate of 42-ml per minute and no expert assessment of quality, we leave you to judge which still you would prefer to have.

The facts are that the PDA-1 was developed after many years of research and stringent testing and, without exception, all those who now use it tell us that they are delighted with both its versatility and the quality of the spirits they get with it.

This is reflected in sales of its larger cousin, the PDA-2, whose design was based on research and experience gained in development of the PDA-1. Several specialist distilleries now use the PDA-2 in preference to older equipment as it enables them to ensure they obtain the highest quality, with assurance of reliability and ease of maintenance.

So if you want to be able to make extremely pure vodka, or distil flavored spirits quickly – yet with full control of quality – then the PDA-1 is the ideal apparatus for you.


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