Quote from: Vesp on June 03, 2010, 10:53:52 PM

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I prefer to make strong alcohol from sucrose and yeast in water. It takes two days to finish ferment of sugar water and then it only takes a few hours to end up with 80%+ EtOH in H2O in multi-litre capacity.

How is it you distill it?

I use fractional distillation with forced steam through a chamber I made of food safe plastic that contains activated charcoal. When it is done, I have nearly pure drink. I have made it from mostly stainless steel with some coppper to eliminate sulphur compounds. I change the copper coil once per year.


This was hard for me to type because of language (I had to ask for help)  but I would like to tell more, if you want.

Quote from: drone1240 on June 04, 2010, 06:21:10 PM

My vodka when finished is clear and only tastes of alcohol and not yeast. It is strong and good!

At what percentage do you stop fermenting? Last night I took a sample at 24*C with a specific gravity of 1.033 which I believe is 4.3% alcohol. The reaction seemed slow so I added more malt and it got to making more bubbles. If this was beer I wouldn't of done that and messed it up but I wanting to see it get to at least 8 or nine percent. I am gonna make a charcoal filter as well. I wasn't planning on drinking this but you got me wired up my Russian friend!

Quote from: marakov on June 04, 2010, 11:56:12 PM

Quote from: drone1240 on June 04, 2010, 06:21:10 PM

Will do thanks. I have never done one so I want to see it working in there, but I want it to work as well.  if you don't wrap the column it wont get hot enough to work, right?

It is just to make it hold heat better so column stabilises. It can be done without insulation but will require higher heating of the pot that holds diluted alcohol. Higher heating will cause more of the yeast to break open making a bad taste in the distilled alcohol. This is why I use the charcoal filter because I do not bother to separate yeast from it before distillation.

My vodka when finished is clear and only tastes of alcohol and not yeast. It is strong and good!

I fractionally distilled about a quarter liter of sour mash and got a few drops of EtOH. It wasn't efficient for what I was doing so I took the column off and did a simple distillation of another couple liters and I see why you use the column and the steam. My alcohol reeked of yeast or something unpleasant so I dropped in some charcoal and put it in the freezer. After filtering alot of the smell is gone and it just smells like dragster fuel.

After all the work i put in it really gives me perspective into how much work goes into the cheapest rot gut bottle of scotch, bourbon, or gin. It also gives me a respect of the master distillers and how much craft they put into their bottles. I believe for the most part it all comes out like rubbing alcohol and they make smooth and flavorful.  I remember when I was a kid some one would hand me a bottle and say try this vodka its smooth. I would take a drink and it would to me burn all the way down and I would think that's not smooth. Compared to the EtOH I just made it was. I guess that is where the benchmark has started, not at my juvenile pallet.

Basically it can be produced biologically in 2 ways; through the oxidation of methane by methane monooxygenase, or by the reduction of formaldehyde, by methanol dehydrogenase (and this reaction normally works in the reverse direction).

It's true that some methanol can be produced during fermentation, but this is not derived from the ethanol or by carbohydrate oxidation. It is produced in small amounts, either by non-enzymatic reactions or through the reduction of formaldehyde."

Methane isn't present in our washes, so the culprit is formaldehyde. I believe the pectins in fruit are methylated and can break down in the wash into formaldehyde. But so long as your wash has only pure fermentable carbohydrates, you can expect essentially zero methanol.

Ethyl acetate, OTOH, is produced spontaneously whenever acetate is present with ethanol. There are several possible sources of acetate during fermentation. In general, acetate is formed by oxidation of ethanol. (In fact, acetate is the 'end-product' of our own metabolism of ethanol). In fermentation, oxidation of ethanol into acetate can happen as a result of desperate yeast metabolizing its own ethanol, or by contamination with other yeasts or bacteria.

Methanol is formed when fermenting beverages high in pectins - eg grapes and berries. Starting with a grain or sugar based wort, in a clean fermentor with a yeast culture from a well aereated source will result in small/none formed.

The methanol comes from the pectin, which mainly composed of methyl esters of galactose. When pectin breaks down, by enzymes introduced by microorganisms, or deliberately introduced, the methyl esters combine with water to produce methanol, so the aim should be to leave the pectin well alone if you can.  

Fermenting at a high temperature, or adding pectin enzyme, or trying for an abv higher than 12% all increase the risk of methanol being produced, so low temperature fermentation, adding no exra enzymes, and a target lower than 12%abv is all good stuff.

It isn't the yeast that controls methanol, it's what you're fermenting. I believe yeast has very limited metabolic pathways around methanol.

 

Methanol is an especially nasty type of alcohol because the body tries to break it down the same way it metabolizes, or breaks down, ethanol, the type of alcohol in beer, wine and other drinks. Metabolizing ethanol produces chemicals less toxic to the body than alcohol. Unfortunately, if the same chemical action is performed on methanol the result is formic acid, lactic acid and formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde attacks nerve cells, especially the optic nerve and can damage the liver and kidneys. Formic acid and lactic acid also attack the kidneys and liver. Most people who have drunk methanol die of severe and sudden kidney and liver failure.

A simple (but effective) rule of thumb for this is to throw away the first 50 mL you collect (per 20 L mash used) for a reflux still. If using a potstill, make it more like 100-200 mL. Do this, and you have removed all the hazardous foreshots, including the methanol. To get a really clean distinction between the foreshots and the rest of the alcohol, increase the reflux ratio to the point where you're taking off this first 50 mL at a very slow rate (eg 1 drop per second). This will give a very stable equilibrium within the column to allow all the methanol to collect at the top of the column and be in this first portion.

If you are doing a double or triple distillation with a pot still, don't worry about removing the heads & tails on the first pass. Wait for the second run, when they are more distinct & easier to seperate. Once you have removed them, they are gone, so much less will need to be discarded from the subsequent runs, other than that dictated by taste, and any improved seperation that may result from running a more pure distillate through the still.

In order to prevent a high methanol content (I'm sure distilling the pectin turns it into methanol), distillers must fully clarify any fruit wine before cooking it. Rather than use clarifiers, put the wine into 2 or 4 liter plastic jugs (only filled half full) and freeze them solid, then thaw them out, this will result in perfectly clear (and chill- stabilized) wine ready for distilling. After the thawing is complete or maybe as much as a week after, the wine will be crystal clear.