Little Creek Stainless Steel Water Distiller, 2 Gallon Capacity, Works on All Stovetops, Double Boiler, Render Lard & Tallow

This arrived a day early, well packaged in a box inside a box. Looks and feels well made, had no dents or missing parts. I'm experimenting with it now. It takes a long time to distill water in this, so be prepared to take half a day just to get a gallon of drinking water. The idea is that you fill the top compartment with cold water and fill the bottom with the water you want to distill. The steam then rises through the cone-shaped bit in the middle compartment, condenses off the bottom of the upper compartment, and drips back down. You can then use the attached hose to drain the water into a glass or metal jug. The water in the top part doesn't stay cold for very long, so you have to constantly replace it. Instructions say not to use ice in it, but I might try adding a little just to see if it makes a difference in how fast the water distills. Otherwise, it's not a bad distiller for the price.I washed the pans as per the instructions, but the first water I distilled looks a bit yellow. I don't know if it's the tap water, itself, that's the issue or maybe I didn't clean the pans well enough and there was some chemical residue left over from manufacturing. Will do another batch and see if the same thing happens.Edit: After several uses, the pans have developed some pitting in the bottom section and two tiny rust spots in the upper one. This doesn't affect the performance, but is something to note if you want to buy a better quality product. The water did become clear after the 2nd try. Also, I turned the heat up higher so it doesn't take as long to fill a gallon jug. The water tastes good, too.

First, I never write reviews. And no one is paying me for this. But this is a good product. It works as advertised. And mine was quality, every part, weld, coating. The box says a 5 year warranty. So you know they are confident. Me too. One nervous commenter worried me. I was sure I'd wasted my money (again!!) on Amazon. But he's totally wrong. He used it wrong and got bad results. The instructions were perfect English. My mom's an English teacher; I know English. Every sentence clear, instructions simple. The company is in Utah. My experience, they're more honest than average. (Really, FBI used to recruit there because of it). DON'T let the water boil dry in the bottom!!! Check it every hour. DON'T get burned!!! 3 stacked metal pots full of boiling water and steam. Be SUPER careful!!! Once, I put the bottom pan on top and top on bottom. Dumb! They didn't fit, water sloshed around and I got burnt! - Make sure! Bottom, bottom, it looks different. That nervous reviewer said he got a pint or quart in 4 hours. And was using a lot of water, changing the top water all the time. I tried that. It didn't work! And it's not in the instructions! Just fill this and watch it so it won't run dry!!! (IT WILL RUN DRY !!!!) And that running dry is from steam made, and all becomes plenty of water. From 8 AM to 8 PM I got 3 1/2 gallons. About 1 gallon per four hours, practically. Using a LOT of gas (natural). And making a hot kitchen. Fire middle, not low, not all, but .. pretty high. Middle high. 1) Set it up and let it work. Don't mess with it like nervous guy. 2) DON'T let it boil dry on bottom!!! It will!!! And ruin it. Check it for sure every 60 minutes or less. R E A L L Y !!! Turn it OFF. 30 seconds. Then check, so you don't get burnt! 3) That plastic tube uses "syphon" action. Once going, it will keep going. It's hot!! Maybe turn (when cool) the metal pipe inside, 1 mm (1/8th inch), no more, to the side. HOT water comes out. It WILL melt plastic, use glass. Glass is super hot, be careful or get burned! 4) Definitely have good oven mits or such. 5) DON'T get burned!!! By steam in lower pot, when removing upper pots to check for water. Or lifting upper pots to pour water in lowest. (If you do get scolding water on you INSTANTLY remove wet clothing, INSTANTLY get much cold water on the burned area. Or something from freezer to put on it. Any burn goes deep, so get the heat out of your skin fast). This is not like some/much Amazon junk. It actually works and is simple. And the directions simple. Someone said add marbles in the bottom to know when it's boiling or Dry. Maybe smart. It WILL boil dry and ruin your $100 expense. So check it often! Be careful More often!!!

Works great, has a large capacity. Have been using for just over a year, for most hours of the day-time for most days of this past year.- After some months, I started seeing discoloration on the metal in the "catching" section (mainly on near the top of the center "cone" piece, and some streaks down the sides of the catching section), but it seemed to not affect the water quality.- Later on, I noticed small cracks forming vertically along the rib of the TOP section, so that meant that if I filled the top "cooler" section past those cracks the water from the top would start leaking down into the "catching" section, harming the water quality. Solution: don't fill it so high as to reach the cracks.- Then I started to see cracks form at the top of the "catcher" section, essentially creating vertical tabs of metal along the top rim, which causes some steam to leak between the middle and top sections, reducing efficiency. Still does contain most of the steam, and these tabs can be bent inward to make a slightly better seal as was originally there.- Now, it's been about 14 months since purchase, and I see a small vertical crack has formed on the "catcher" section bottom rib, so now the distilled water will drop down outside and onto the burner. Not a huge crack or fast drip, but a constant drip. I was wondering why I was seeing water on the burner and then noticed the crack and watched as water would form there and drip out (just like the cracks on the top section).TIP: I usually start it with about half filled in the bottom so it can start to boil quickly. I recently started using a second stock pot to sit in the top section to hold some fresh water, so it gets heated by the process, and then when I need to fill up the bottom portion again, I'll pour water from this second pot. Having it in a second pot keeps it somewhat clean (compared to the included top cooler section, which will get nasty over time from evaporation and the residues left in the water). This water in this secondary stock pot is pre-heated from the process so when it's poured in the bottom section it can get back up to a boil more quickly than if I were to have added cold water from the tap, so this helps to make it more efficient. Re-using the excess heat to add back into the system, and also the stock pot has a lid on it to contain the water/steam it would've been letting off, which reduces overall water consumption.SUMMARY: Overall, this has served me well, and I'll probably continue to use it while it still mostly holds together. The price was pretty good for the value, and it really can produce a lot of steam once it gets going. But I am looking at other distillers, perhaps an electric option, to switch to for when this one breaks down even further.NOTE: This is pretty darn big in diameter (and height), and didn't quite fit on my stove properly, so it was off-center from the burner. But it still has done well at producing enough distilled water for my needs despite it being off-center and probably losing/wasting some heat. I use high heat on my large burner, and sometimes I turn it down in case I see lots of steam leaking out of the seams between the sections, but usually run at full heat.NOTE: Make sure you empty the bottom container each day and it's good to clean with citric acid or something, and start with fresh water each morning. I found that when I did not dump the remaining water but instead continued to add more water to it, the water quality decreased over time from gunk build-up. I also wanted to reuse the heated water from the top section so I poured that into the bottom for a while, but this water has already been reduced from evaporation and all the gunk is still in there, so basically I was adding bad quality water to the bottom and this is not a good idea. That's why I ended up using a second stock pot so its water could be kept separate from the top-section water, while still reusing the excess heat from the top section and reducing evaporation and water usage.UPDATE:Now it's been since October 2023, so about 18 months. It started breaking down maybe 9-12 months in, forming cracks, but I adapted. Now I am ordering a new one. The cracks are getting longer and I can now only fill the top section with maybe 1-2" of water before it starts dripping down into the distilled water.It lasted quite a while with intense usage (6-7 days a week for 12+ hours a day!) and I was looking at other options, but since this one is stacked it still seems like the most compact option for my situation while also holding a large capacity. I can basically fill it and let it go for for 4-5 hours (depending on stove temp), which is nice not to need to watch over it constantly. I also like that it works on an induction cooktop; my stove is gas but I bought an induction burner as a back-up but find that I am liking the induction one just for this purpose since the heat is focused and the handles don't even heat up (with gas it ends up heating the handles so a lot of heat seems to not go into the water, although my gas stove is also somewhat limited on its temp control).I think if it had some higher quality materials it would probably last longer, but it's not a bad price to last over a year, and it's compact and also with large capacity. I still plan on using my stock pot in the top to heat separate water, so I can refill the base with that pre-heated fresh water, increasing efficiency by recycling some of that lost heat.