Questions, answered

Not yet. Stilligent has been in development for several years and is test-run weekly on our own stills, but it is not yet available to the public. The plan is a turnkey unit: purpose-built control hardware with connectors for your sensors, fans and heating element, with the Stilligent software preloaded.

If you would like to follow our progress or become involved early, get in touch.

Yes. The demo is the real Stilligent interface running in simulation mode, directly in your browser - no hardware required. Time runs at anything from 1× to 50×, so a complete spirit run can take just a few minutes. Change the settings, pause and resume freely; nothing you do there can cause any harm.

Small commercial operations, craft distillers and home distillers. Automated process control of this kind has traditionally been the preserve of large distilleries - building it from scratch would demand specialist hardware, software and years of refinement. Stilligent puts that capability within easy reach.

It is also designed for still manufacturers who wish to offer intelligent control as part of their own products.

No. Setting up a run takes a few plain values - wash volume, starting ABV, run type and still type - and everything else has sensible defaults. The interface is designed to be read at a glance from across the room.

Yes - Stilligent is designed with still manufacturers in mind. If you would like to offer automated control as part of your product, contact us to discuss integration.

Stilligent currently works with the Teracom TCW280 and TCW241 controllers, a column-head temperature sensor, a boiler temperature sensor, and a heating element driven by a heating power regulator. The Smart Watchdog - an independent hardware device that monitors power and can shut down the boiler even if the controller itself is unavailable - provides a second means of switching off.

Larger stills can use up to four heating elements, each with its own Smart Watchdog. Each element is controlled smoothly by a heating power regulator or simply switched on and off by its Smart Watchdog; you set one power in kilowatts, and Stilligent shares it between them.

Stilligent switches cooling fans as needed and switches the condenser's cooling on and off, and an alarm relay can drive a siren or connect to an existing alarm panel. An atmospheric pressure sensor is optional: without one, local pressure can come from an online weather service, a phone's sensors, or manual entry.

In most cases, yes. Your still needs thermowells for the column-head and boiler temperature sensors. Many stills already have them, and they are generally straightforward to retrofit where they do not.

Pot stills and reflux columns, for both stripping runs and spirit runs.

Any device with a modern web browser - an Android phone, an iPhone, a tablet or a PC. The interface runs in the browser, so there is nothing to install.

The core system covers most pot-still and reflux setups. Where yours falls outside that, the software can be customised and extended - additional sensors, other hardware, or integration with equipment you already run. Describe your setup on the forum, and we'll tell you what it would need.

Each recipe has its own cut points. Once Stilligent knows yours, it adjusts them for the day's atmospheric pressure and the strength of your wash, then calls each transition - foreshots, heads, hearts and tails - as it happens.

You remain in charge. One tap makes a cut whenever your nose and palate say so, and if a suggested cut comes too early, Not yet keeps collecting. Every cut you make is recorded, and after each run the recipe moves gently towards your choices - learning can be switched off, and any change undone. For how distillers judge cuts by hand, see making the cuts.

Yes. Stilligent keeps a separate recipe for each spirit you make, each with its own cut points and, if you like, its own heat settings. It comes with starter recipes for whisky, brandy, rum, neutral spirit (pot or reflux) and flavoured spirits. Add your own, copy one as a starting point, or import and export them. When you start a run, you choose the recipe and Stilligent runs the whole distillation to it.

Rate each run, add tasting notes and mark the jars you actually blended, and the recipe learns from that too.

Boiling points fall as air pressure falls, and pressure falls with altitude and shifts with the weather. At sea level ethanol boils at about 78 °C; at around 2,240 m, where air pressure is about 770 hPa, closer to 72 °C. A cut point taken from a book can therefore be several degrees out, so Stilligent corrects for the pressure wherever, and whenever, you distil - measured by its own pressure sensor, or taken from an online weather service, a reading entered by hand or simply your altitude. Distilling at altitude has a calculator for your location.

Stilligent raises the power to bring the tails through quickly, then switches the heater off at the finish point. If you would rather keep collecting tails for a later run, it asks first and leaves the decision to you.

No - a still should never be left unattended. Remote access offers flexibility while you are present: keeping an eye on the run from elsewhere in the room, rather than standing over the boiler for hours.

Stilligent tells routine moments apart from problems, and responds to each appropriately.

Alerts mean you are needed for something routine - a bottle swap, or a finished run. They sound a gentle chime on your phone or PC, and never trigger the siren.

Alarms mean something has gone wrong, and are graded by severity. A non-critical alarm warns you of a problem that needs your attention. A critical alarm cuts power to the boiler - and Stilligent can be configured to call for help, by sounding a siren at the still or triggering an existing burglar or fire alarm panel. More on alerts and alarms.

Yes. An element seldom draws exactly its rated power: the power it draws depends on the mains voltage, which varies from place to place and through the day. A 3 kW element on a low supply may deliver noticeably less.

So rather than assume, Stilligent measures. The Smart Watchdog reports the actual power, mains voltage and energy used per run, the element's true output is measured at the start of each run, and Stilligent bases its heat control on those measurements.

You set the power in kilowatts, with FULL for heating up. When the mains voltage drops or rises, Stilligent adjusts the element so the still receives the same heat, which keeps runs repeatable from one day to the next - and if the element can't reach the power you set, it tells you. More in our guide, your element isn't the power on the label.

Yes. Stilligent keeps temperature charts, power readings and a timestamped event log of the run, its alarms and acknowledgements, and can export the full run as a CSV file.

No. Stilligent is a monitoring and control aid. It adds a layer of protection alongside - never instead of - independent hardware safeguards, sound still design and a competent operator present for the whole run.

It cuts the supply to the element and sounds the alarm, and it will not start or resume heating until the fault is cleared. Safety in detail explains the layers behind this - and their limits.

It pays particular attention to the column-head sensor, the most important reading in a run: if it is unplugged, stops reading or drops suddenly - for example because it has slipped out of the column - Stilligent stops heating and sounds the alarm. On a still with several elements, one that fails or stops heating is switched off, you are told which, and the run carries on with the others.

Brief glitches, such as a momentary loss of Wi-Fi, are handled gracefully: Stilligent allows a short recovery period before raising an alarm, so a passing hiccup doesn't interrupt your run.