The home moonshine distillery... well well . But for rather similar physical experiment micro-owens I have ate the many dogs with all the waggling tail, thus may tell our strategy. First is thermometer part. There are many for sure good PID Thermocouple measurers with +/- 0.5 C accuracy including (not last is also the REX), however some 5x more accurate (+/-0.1 C) and at the same time 3x cheaper is Spanish Omron, and in last year the Rindger, RS, Minco and many more. Anyway, 20 USD is expensive and 10 USD is suspiciously cheap. So, when it is at the hands, there are two possible ways, linear V output or SSR output. Anyway even the bang-bang SSR will be PID-ified by the TIME in this machine by it`s flie-sized artifical intelligency in self-learning regime. And the main question is what to do, the voltage output seems sweeter but the giant igbt what will realize the powe adjustment - and who will pay the mega-cooler wasting the kilowatts of thermal flux? Or construct the mighty SMPS what do that job in smarter way. We did it by SSR, but as the demand was go as near as possible to those +/- 0.1 C accuracy, we used 1) constant current hand adjustable power source a la thyristor regulator. With SSR we used to ADD-ON some smaller voltage up to the full mains voltage. Thus the (1) was adjusted to the temperature what is slight-slight insufficient and then allow to SSR work on the DIFFERENCE of lacking power. If straight switch-in of the regulator made a swing of several C because our owen was extremely tiny, then second algorythm permitted to get the 1200 C +/- 0.1 C without of any hardness. Am sure, this is the way useful for any home-moonshiner most altered demands.

 

RE: ""I want to have a higher spirit resolution (alcohol %)"" As moonshiner to moonshiner - there are damn more simple way to get the straight extraction maximum 76% in the output. Just let the main pot end with a high column, roughly 0.5 to 1 m high, made of AISI-306 to 316 waterpipe 42-48 mm outside diam. Lover end have welded cup with 6 to 10 mm pipe nitting where vap will go in. All the column is filled by granite crush stone, fraction 5 mm to 10 mm. Output have screwable cup with next pipe nitting. Pipes are hardly reccomendable 316 or 306 but non-copper if no willing the acetaldehydes in the bottleneck. So, the column principle is multiple go up and sink down of the pure product until it is so pure that is able to get the output. Thus, if You are sure that heat loss are too large, may sew a little shirt to the pipe, but normally it isnt needed. 4 kW is good enough for some 80 cm long pipe. If have no granite on the roads as SE and FI have custom to apply before winter, may use a basalt as well. Or buy a Rashid Rings of porcellain. By the way, as the moonshining is the national sport status in my neghborous country just few hundred kilometers afar, I may give a link to their infamous site spreading the most modern methods in this business https://galery-m.ru/wp-content/uploads/kartinka-chertezh-samogonnogo-apparata-b12-1.jpg In my pot I used a vacuum standard pipes of AISI-316 with Vitton at the clamp places. Very clean and perfectionistic.