Homemade alcohol

[NoltaiR]

First off I am going to have to say that I really have no clue where a topic such as this would go so the mods may move it as they will.

Having that said, I have recently found interest in homemade alcohol; primarily speaking wine. Now here are a few decent sites that I have pulled up:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/Vineyard/1762/recipespage.html" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/Vineyard/1762/recipespage.html</a>
<a href="http://www.recipes.fsnet.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.recipes.fsnet.co.uk/</a>
<a href="http://www.beer-wine.com/w_yeast.htm" target="_blank">http://www.beer-wine.com/w_yeast.htm</a>

Anyways I would like to know if any of you guys have personal experience/knowledge of making homemade wine and if you could give tips that would be most helpful.

Also any comments on issues relating to homemade alcohol would be interesting as well (i.e. rules/legalities, history, etc.).

Thank you.

[DBSP]

check: <a href="http://www.homedistiller.org" target="_blank">www.homedistiller.org</a> a very good site vith lots of pics and calculaters, it's got everything.

I've got a alcohol dest. I can give you some pics of it later today, it spits out 92% ethanol.

[VX]

I know that this is off topic slightly but it doesn't warrant it's own thread, and I think it fits in here better that anywhere else.

I have just returned from a holiday in Italy (Rome), where I realy began to appreciate what various chemicals are far more easily available abroad than in the UK. I was able to buy 2 litre bottles of 96% ethanol, (used to home make spirits). In the UK I only know of one drink that is over 40% Vol, and that's 'absenth', which is only sold in bars( About 90%), and each person is only allowed two shots in any one night, anyway here's the good bit, each 2L bottle was 9 Euro, that £6. I remember asking about the cost of ethanol in my chem suppliers once, it's something like £40 because of the tax. (With a customs and excise licence it was very cheap) So I now have 4L of almost pure alcohol which I am very proud of.

Other things easily available were acetone from hardware shops for about 50p for a litre (I know this is not a big thing to most people but here in the UK we don’t have it in hardware shops). Both 11% HCl and ammonia for about 30p per litre and trichloroethane for about 60p per 500ml bottle.

This post will probably interest people from the UK the most while the rest of you will probably be bored by it, sorry

[J]

You're not looking hard enough <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> All those chemicals (apart from the Trichloroethane) and more are readily available, you just have to look. Acetone is sold at the chemist in 50ml bottles. Just ask the chemist to order you a bigger bottle, I recently bought 500ml for £3.50, no questions asked. HCl is available in some hardware stores in 32% concentration for £2.50/500ml, and H2SO4 (91%) is available as a drain opener for £5/liter.

As for the Ethanol, that is a problem. Because the tax man wants to take his greedy share, it's bloody expensive and only sold by chemical suppliers as far as I know. But you can distill your own, I'll post a picture of my (basic) still tomorrow.

[megalomania]

It is necessary in just about every country to have a license to distill spirits. Emphasis on the distill part, you can ferment all you want legally, although drinking just that will most likely kill you. In the US at least the license is rather cheap and they have to give it to you.

[VX]

Ah, I know that all of the chemicals are available as you said, except for the alcohol. I was just surprised that they were far more readily available there. They were all being sold in supermarkets, you could just walk in a store and buy all the things you need for a years experimenting. Probably for less than a tenner. Just like they do on the films :D

I have access to all of the chemicals I mentioned, from various sources but they are far more expensive than they were there.

Incidentally the guy at my chem supply store knows I am a chemistry student because I once invited him to check, since it was confirmed he no longer questions any of my purchases. Although I am very careful not to buy any suspicious chems from him, or ever buy certain combinations of chemicals in one order.

[Tyler_Durden]

even though i dont drink, i have always wanted to try this...

<a href="http://www.misterridiculous.com/diy/jug_wine_large/" target="_blank">http://www.misterridiculous.com/diy/jug_wine_large/</a>

...it seems so quick, easy, and efficient

[NoltaiR]

As stated by mega, fermenting is legal (at least in the US) so long as you do not sell it to anyone (for anything, it doesn't necessarily have to be cash) without a liscence as well as letting the government get their cut for taxes. However as long as it is given for free or for yourself then you may make all the wine or liquor that you want. Distilling it to extract the pure (or nearly pure) ethanol is illegal; this is also known as moonshining. An easy way to test (and this may not always be a very accurate way to do this) is that if you can hold a match to your wine and it does not catch fire, then it is diluted enough to keep the law away. If, however, it catches and burns like fuel (the ethanol) than your spirits may be over the legal limit. There is one way to get by this if caught--and this may be tricky--and that is by using the loophole in the 'homebrewing' laws that allows you to make distilled spirits as long as it is for testing for 'alternate forms of fuel'. If you can convince authorities that your spirits are for experimental fuel purposes only, than you can have you alcohol as stong as you want and there is nothing they can say.

Anyways my hobby took effect last Saturday when after a little online research about homemade alcohol (and it is so much easier than I had ever imagined) I made 3 batches of wine and 1 batch of rum (each a gallon). The first was grape, the second and third were cherry. The rum is made similarly like the wine, except molasses was substitued for fruit and oak chips were used for aging. It has been about 4 or 5 days since I made the mixes and they are nearing their fermentation period. I will update you guys as the process continues.

[Anthony]

Just because you can make 5 gallons of wine for a few dollars doesn't mean it'll be fit to drink by any stretch of the imagination!

Guiness costs about £9/gallon and even at that price is unfit for human consumption.

I didn't realise there was a loophole for alternative fuel research, interesting.

[YTS]

I used to make wine the strongest i used to make was rice & raisan you use 3lb rice 2lb raisans 6.5lb of sugar 3 tbl spoons citric acid & 2 gallons of water put all ingredients in a bucket stir well add yeast put on lid loosely to let gas escape stir daily for 2 to 3 weeks then pour thru filter into demi johns :) put in air lock let finish fermenting then keep siphoning of the lees for a few months till clear .Or use a wine filtering kit its strengh is usaully 17 to 20% alchol. J i bought 5ltrs of 32% hcl from hard warestore for £7.95 a few days ago i thought that was pretty cheap the store i bought it from is usually dear

[Jumala]

4 weeks ago I have started a fermentation of 3,5 Kg malt syrup and 4 Kg sugar with water. Aprox. 28l at all.
I used a sherry yeast, able to reach 16% alcohol. But it is a slow yeast. It needs 4-6 weeks. A few days ago I got the new swedish pot distillers Yeast which is able to produce 20% in 7-10 days.I will use it for the next batch after I´ll distilled the malt-wine.
I hope it will be a acceptable wiskey.
Does anyone made wiskey with a good result?

[DBSP]

I've got the pics of my dest, I took them the last time I ran it.
Something wierd happened, it normaly stayes around 92% this time it ended up at ~93,5% great! :D

<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/DBSPs_dest.JPG" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/DBSPs_dest.JPG</a>
<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/ethanol.JPG" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/ethanol.JPG</a>
<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/ethanol2.JPG" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/ethanol2.JPG</a>

[Jumala]

to DBSP

I don´t understand why you concentrate the alcohol up to 92%.
If you use only normal sugar for fermentation it should give nearby no foreshot (methanol, acetaldehyde) and less volatiles, only tasteless alcohol.
The usual drinking strengh is 30-50%. I know a Koskenkorva wodka with 60%. But the 92% ethanol must dilute again.
So why all the expense?

[zaibatsu]

Maybe the ethanol is for a use other than drinking?

[firebreether]

You have to distill the mash to get it up to a higher alcohol % then the 10 - 20 % coming strait from fermentation. If his still gets up to 90+ %, all the better, he'll just dilute accordingly. If its for fuel, you need it high, so you'll need to design the still to give out high percentage alcohol, so youd need a reflux still.

DBSP - What height is your reflux column - 1 m, or higher? and what do you use for the media? How exactly did you measure alcohol % - density, or other?

[Jumala]

o.k. for use as fuel it must have 92% or better 96%.
But DBSP comes from sweden, a country with the highest taxes on liquors.
So I think his alcohol is for making drinks.

I have only a simple still which gives me 60-70% alcohol from a 15-20% mash. But it is faster and needs less energy than a reflux still.

[Anthony]

I'd be weary of drinking home distilled alcohol, because take off the wrong fraction and you've got methanol... How do you ensure you avoid this DBSP?

[DBSP]

The usual procedure for removing the methonaol tnat might be formed is to throw the first 50ml away. this is what you can read at evry every place, some even say that you don't need to remove anything.

Have you ever tried tasting mash srtaight out of the fermenting vessel? don't it tastes so bad you simply cant face drinking it. And the hangovers you get from the mash is massive, due to all the shit thats present in it.

my column has 80cm of packing(SS steel scrubbers) and now puts out 94% meassured by volume with a standard alcohol densimeter.

The diluted alcohol from the 94% tastes shit thats why you purify it with avtive carbon, I wouldn't even think of drinking finished alcohol from a 70% crude alcohol even if it was purified 5 times.

Moonshine is very common in sweden since the taxes on ethanol is so fucking high, allmost everyone has tasted it. I allmost never drink anything else, except for some beer but the swedish beer isn't what I would call good so I only drink it when I get some danish beer(much better).

[photonic]

I have all the copper piping for building a pot still in my garage waiting to be assembled, but would like to build a reflux still if possible. HOwever, I am unsure if I am capable of doing so. Despite all my reading, I'm am unsure about the preparation of the mash. All recipes I have seen reccomend using "yeast nutrients" then they give a list of chemicals I have never seen. Are there any common "yeast nutrients" readily available at the grocery store? Any information relating to the building of reflux stills and preparing of the mash would be greatly appreciated.

Secondly, I bought mostly lengths of 1" and 1/2" copper piping. I was planning to use the 1" piping as the jacket and the 1/2" as the condensing core, will the be too much area for it to condense properly?

<small>[ August 11, 2002, 02:03 AM: Message edited by: photonic ]</small>

[mr.evil]

íf you are planning to make your own destillation/reflux still, maybe you should read this pdf(link):

<a href="http://www.rhodium.ws/pdf/still.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.rhodium.ws/pdf/still.pdf</a>

Maybe it's usefull for you :)

[photonic]

HEy, dbsp, I've completed my still and am ready to pack the reflux column with stainless steel wool. How tightly did you pack the pads in there? Did you like tear the pads apart and fill it or just shove whole pads in? ANy help would be greatly appreciated.

[DBSP]

I'm not shure wether you've got the right wool. If it is very fine steelwool it's the wrong thing. The wool you are to use is the thicker wool that more lookes like springs. I you wait untill tomorrow I'll uppload a pic of my packing.

[photonic]

That would be greatly appreciated. The steel wool that I have is fairly fine. Is the wool you have loosely packed with no binder? I had been boiling the wool I have for a long time and some sort of brown glue(i think) kept coming off it.

[DBSP]

<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/packing.JPG" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/packing.JPG</a>
<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/packing_fastened_on_Al_rod.JPG" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/packing_fastened_on_Al_rod.JPG</a>

The packing is fastened on a thin Al rod in order to make it easy to insert it into the culumn. Thus it is as easy to remove it which makes the cleaning easy.

You shuldn't pack the cuolumn to much because if you do the still will choke and the pressure can become to high which could be a security problem.

[imported_reodor_felgen]

There is an updated version of the still-construction .pdf located at:
<a href="http://www.moonshine-still.com/page2.htm" target="_blank">http://www.moonshine-still.com/page2.htm </a>
(Click the download PDF at the very bottom of the page)

If you are looking for the right packing, maybe this would help a bit?
<a href="http://www.raschig-rings.com/default.html" target="_blank">http://www.raschig-rings.com/default.html</a>

[Edit: The first link should work now.]

<small>[ August 14, 2002, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: reodor_felgen ]</small>

[Eliteforum]

The first link gives me a page not found, you sure you've got the right link?

[photonic]

I went to the hardware store today(Lowe's) looking for some steel wool like that and didn't find anything that even remotely resembled it. That stuff looks more like chain link fence than steel wool. Does anybody have any idea where I can get that sort of steel wool or some that would be suitable for this purpose?

[0EZ0]

You may be able to find such a thing in a Supermarket. I know that over here, something resembling that can be bought as a heavy-duty kitchen scourer.

[firebreether]

I have a question about the Height Equivalent to a Theoretical Plate of each packing. I know that stainless steel scrubbers have around .1 m HETP. Does that mean that you could just use a plate system that has a 10 cm clearance between plates and have just as effective use of the height of the column. At small diameters of the column it would be more trouble than its worth, but at a diameter of around maybe 10 cm, I think it would be easier to use plates, has anyone tried using plates for a fractioning column? Maybe use sections of the column that screw together to just add on each section if you need to.
edit- the kind of plates i would use would be the perforated plate system where the gas pushes up through holes in each plate and the liquid flows down through a tube to each level.

<small>[ August 14, 2002, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: firebreether ]</small>

[NoltaiR]

Hey boys..

Nutrients are only needed when the liquor mix you have made (in some cases known as the 'must') does not provide enough nutrients of its own for the yeast to survive/reproduce properly. In many cases just letting the pulp of the fruit (in fruit wines only..obviously) ferment with the rest of the mix will give off enough of the needed nitrates and phosphates that fermentation will go on well even after the pulp has been strained. But in any other situation a nutrient (found in any homebrewing shop and on occasion at your local wal-mart) is required otherwise the yeast will reproduce using their own bodies as nutrients; therefore only a few generations of yeast are formed and a VERY low alcohol content is found. But if nutrient is not available, substituting some of the sugar required by brown sugar along with a small chunk of tomatoe paste (this is a little trick of the trade) should do just satisfactorly--but not as well as if you had actual nutrient.

Another problem facing home wine-makers is providing correct outside conditions so that the yeast may reproduce as expected. The temperature--if possible--needs to be held between 65 and 70 degrees F. If you let your wine-to-be mix stand in a too cold enviroment, your yeast will either reproduce much too slow, or go dormant until the temperature rises again. If your outside temp is too high, your yeast will begin to die off prematurely and you risk losing large amounts of alcohol due to it turning into vapors and escaping with the CO2 given off.

The sweetness of wine:
As yeast reproduce and live out their microscopic lives in the mix, they feed on sugar, and as a by-product give off alcohol. It was first estimated that out of 100 parts of sugar that is fermented, about 52% is released as CO2 and 48% remains as ethyl alcohol. Later it was to be found that this equation only accounts for about 90% of the sugar used because of other byproducts that are formed (such as acids and higher alcohols). Although yeast ferments sugar into alcohol, it can only withstand a certain concentration of alcohol before the alcohol kills off the yeast (otherwise you would be able to make rediculously high concentrations of alcohol without use of a still). If the sugar is used up before the maximum concentration is reached (about 18% alcohol if using wine yeast, and about 14% alcohol for those of us using bakers' yeast) then the yeast will starve to death and you will have a very dry wine. If the yeast reaches the maximum alcohol content before all the sugar reserves are used, then the alcohol will kill the yeast and the remaining sugar will remain giving you a medium-sweet to sweet taste.

Well thats all for now, bye.

[NoltaiR]

Alright, I am back again with more 'in-case-you-wanted-to-know' information about homemade wine and distilled alcohol from the various books that I have had my head stuck in for the past week or so.

First off to speak of legalities:
The head of any family (must include AT LEAST two adults) may produce up to 200 gallons of wine per year that is not to be sold legally. Usually the government likes if you still get a permit (its free) from the ATF on which you would document all of the wine you made throughout the year incase any government officials had reason to suspect that you were doing something illegally. But even if you were not to pick up the permit and you obviously made no more than 20 or so gallons during the year (its quite easy for an inquiring ATF agent to determine whether a person is a beginner that only likes to make a little 'just to try out' or if the person is an expert wine maker that likes to make a few gallons every afternoon that he gets off of work and gets bored).

A single adult may produce up to 100 gallons with a similar permit, once again as long as it is not to be sold.

If you plan on making large amounts of wine (200+ gallons a year) or if you are planning on selling it, than a special permit must be purchased depending on exactly how far you are planning to go with it and you must prove that you have satisfactory 'utensils' and tools along with sanitary processes of making the wine. These special permits can run up to about $500 or more if you were the type of enthusiest really planning on making a business out of it in which you would have to pay a ATF agent/worker to personally inspect and certify your operations. Also all homemade wine manufactured under a selling permit must have taxes paid on it BY THE MANUFACTURER. Meaning even if you don't sell it, your stuck paying the tax.

Moving along, a little about wine and beer in history. As you probably all know, wine making goes back into the biblical times. And yet yeast wasn't a required ingredient in wine recipes until about the early 1900's. So why is it that the sugar in the fruit mix break down into alcohol as it does in modern days? The answer is simply that there is wild yeast spores in the air everywhere around you. By the nutrient rich grape/water/sugar mix being left partially exposed to outside contaminants (including wild yeast), the fermentation would commence as usual after a few days. The problem is that they could only use very few types of fruits, because only a few (for example grapes, elderberries, and blackberries) have the right amount of phosphates/nitrates as well as acids in them to make them suseptible to the wild yeast.

In fact many of the older people (people born around the 20's and 30's) that grew up using their parents method of fermenting, the age-old process of leaving the sugar/water/fruit mix to take care of itself, actually were a bit resentful to the idea of adding cultivated yeasts. It was obvious that adding yeast on your own would speed up the process dramatically (the 'old way' usually took about 3-4 days to begin fermenting and it was a very slow start; simply adding a packet of bakers yeast to the same original mix will usually have it fermenting rapidly within 5-6 hours). But they were so used to the taste that the old wines had (even if that taste would probably make modern wine-drinkers puke) that they just couldn't get used to the new wine.

Also a very big problem with the 'old-style' process is that many bacterias also grew alongside the wild yeast in the barrel of sugar/water/fruit mix; the most infamous of these bacterias is that which converted the remaining fruit mix into acetic acid (vinegar). Once that happened, the investment in everything used in the wine was a waste.

So to 'convert' some of the old-timers to liking the new-style wine, they combined the age-old techniques of making beer with making wine. Meaning instead of adding yeast, they would add a cupful of mash (sprouting corn). And this triggered the ferment much quicker than without anything at all and it also allowed for the wine barrel to be closed off the entire time so that there was much less chance of having the wine turn sour (turn to vinegar). So this style of wine was still different than the old style, but it had that hint of beer to it which was actually quite satisfying to many at the time.

And one last thing before I leave about distilling alcohol:
Incase you didn't know (and this is the most basic principal of distilling alcohol), ethyl alcohol boils at 173F and water boils at 212F. Just heat your wine/beer mixture (usually between 12-20% alcohol) to slightly higher than 173F and you will have vapors that are up to 95 percent alcohol. The vapors are cooled in a condenser and the remaining liquid drips out in a separate dish. Obviously don't worry about your original wine/beer being made of any special fruit or mash mixture, because during distillation all flavorings are stripped. To flavor the final liquid (the distilled alcohol), you would need to dilute it down to about 40%-45% alcohol and make a liquor out of it (there are many recipes on the net) by simply mixing it with sugar and the fruit of choice (NO YEAST IS ADDED, AT THIS CONCENTRATION THE YEAST WOULD DIE ON CONTACT WITH THE ALCOHOL ANYWAYS) and allowing it to sit in a tightly corked bottle for a week or so and the pulp is strained. Then age to your desired taste.

Alright, enough for tonight, goodnight.

[NoltaiR]

And one more thing in case I haven't mentioned it previously, moonshining is still illegal so don't get caught with one using it for any purpose other than to purify water or to make alcohol for experimental fuel purposes! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

[andreas]

I could be wrong but here I go.
Water boils at 100 centigrade
Ethyl alcohol boils at 79 centigrade
A mixture of both boils at 73 centigrade becouse i forms a azeotrope just like nitric a 70%
so with each destillation you gain a few percentages of alcohol in the water.
To get it up to 95,6% you would need severall destillation steps. Or and this is much quicker you make a reflux still wich does all those separate steps in one go( if constructed correctly). <img src="http://www.geocities.com/homedistilling/images/diagram_1.gif" alt=" - " />
As you can see from this diagram you can't go from 10% to 95%

[firebreether]

Here is a picture I drew of two kinds of plate stills.

<a href="http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/grrr6/images/still.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/grrr6/images/still.jpg</a> &lt;- copy/paste into new browser

Each has their advantages. With a perforated Plate Still, PPS from now on in this post, it is simple, very effective with alot of gas mingling with the liquid on each plate due to the fact that small bubbles are formed. However, if designed with too much area drilled out for holes, or a constant pressure is not kept in the boiler, the plates may dump and send all the liquid through the holes instead of being held on the plates and carried down by the downcomers. While more complex, with a Bubble Cap Plate Still design, now BCPS, it solves the problem of dumping, however the bubbles formed are smaller so it is possible, and likely, that this would reduce the effectiveness of each plate.

I personally would go with a PPS and just drill out very small holes and keep the hole area down at first to test the effectiveness. This seems to me to be as cheap or more so as having to buy rachig rings, or other "industrial" or more regular packings than SS scrubbers, which are only really effective for small diameter columns. But since nearly everyone here is going to only need a small diameter column this is best for most.

In the picture you see how I would space the plates. You probably only need one rod to connect each plate, but I drew three for each. One might do the job but I'd say use two if not for supporting the plates but to prevent them from turning relative to each other. If you could find a threaded rod that would go the whole length of the column to support every plate that would be the best choice just run it straight up the middle.

[NoltaiR]

It has been a little over a month since I made my first batch of wines which included 1 gallon of black grape, 1 gallon of white grape, 2 gallons of cherry, 1 gallon of pineapple, 1 gallon of a black grape and cherry mix, and 1 gallon of strawberry. Well due to the poor racking techniques that I used because of lack of experience, I lost a lot of wine along the way. I have only drank a quart of the black grape, but the rest have only had very small amounts taken from them for use as taste tests. Currently the amount left from that batch is, 2.2 gallons of cherry and black grape mixed, .6 gallons of white grape, .6 gallons of strawberry, and .6 gallons of pineapple. Definetly not a good turn out but it was all for the sake of learning anyways. Just last week was the final racking and taste testing; they were all still a bit dry so a added some more sugar, so by now the wines should be ready to drink whenever I get a free night to call over some friends and party. The wines are perfectly clear now that all the sediment has fallen out of them and the alcohol levels are very high (for wine anyways). Previously I had posted that bakers' yeast can only make 14% alcohol.. this was taken from an old wine book. The bakers' yeast that I have is an 'active dry turbo yeast' which has made--according to my hydrometer--and average of 30%-35% alcohol.

Anyways since then I have improved my techniques and my newest batch started last week with 2 gallons of what started out to be a light vanilla rum as well as 1 gallon of a peach/pear mix. The reason I call it 'light vanilla rum' is because real rum is fermented using blackstrap molasses rather than sugar. I just used a mix of household pancake syrup and brown sugar. Anyways I have already racked all 3 gallons once and had very little loss. Also because yeast requires a nutrient of some sort (some wine makers use a formula type nutrient) and my choise was just the age-old technique of using a 'rot'. Which is just the addition of cut peices of fruit to the wine after it has had its first racking and straining. They cannot be just any fruit though, it has to be a type that, as the name of the procedure implies, rots easily. Therefore most types of canned fruit would be unacceptable for this.

In the vanilla rum I used a half pound of coconut shavings for aditional flavoring and pieces of banana for my rot. So far this wine/rum has been the first fermenting mix that I have made that actually had a delightful smell during the ferment. Also once the rot has been in place for a while and a slow to steady ferment is occuring, the addition of more pure table sugar will spead up the ferment drastically. In fact, if done right, up to 80% of the new sugar added will make the transition from sugar to alcohol in a matter of 10 seconds or so.. this can be viewed as the ferment foams incredibly as all the CO2 is suddenly released. The rot will be removed in a day or two and the rum will be racked for the second time. I will add a little more sugar for flavoring and then the mix will be allowed to sit unshaken as it ages for about 3-4 weeks more.

Basically the same for the gallon of pear/peach wine. The original mix of the fruit was pureed in a food processor and used in the wine. This pulp was removed during the first racking and a few large slices of ripe to overripe pear (with the peeling still intact) was used as the rot.

The final reports of these wines (first and second batch) will be posted in a week or so.

And just as a personal question that just relates to alcohols in general, is it possible to synthesize methyl alchol (methanol) EASILY?

<small>[ September 03, 2002, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: NoltaiR ]</small>

[Boob Raider]

Here is an IDEA it might be un-economical in large quantaties but should work for small ones. Lets say I ferment potatoes and cheap rice for a while decant the clear liquid, stick it in the freezer and concentrate the Alcohol % and later on move up to dry ice to freeze the H2O out and assuming the concentration can be taken up to ~75% (someone please tell me how to calculate this) anyways ... after that add maybe a couple of drops of dil H2SO4 and electrolyse out the remaining H2O and it should leave ~100% C2H5OH. So what do you guys make of this ?

[Marvin]

Ok, firstly making 30% alcohol/vol by fermentation alone is flatly impossible. My hydrometer wont even go neer the numbers youd need to end up with 30% alcohol however! I think whatever method you are using is calculating the alcohol concentration in %proof. 30% proof is about 15% vol. Most modern information defines 100% vol as 200% proof simplifying the maths somewhat. 100% proof spirit was defined as the minimum amount of alcohol in water that would fail to extinguish gunpowder and was slighlty more than 49.28% of alcohol by mass, or 57.1% by vol. Its fairly easy to see where the modern interpretation came from, the value 49.28% is quoted frequently in literature without specifying mass or volume, and people assume volume by default. Ordinary brewers or bakers yeast will go up to around 15%vol, what happens at slightly below this, 1 or 2%, the yeast dies in its own excrement (The alcohol) and the enzymes that do the work stick around long enough to push it up slightly higher. There is a special yeast thats apeared recently that will do between 18 and 20%/vol from sugar, but it is very temperature sensitive.

Making alcohol from potatoes or rice. Dont bother, more trouble than its worth unless you are planning an industrial scale method. You have to make a mash with water, apply enzmes to break the starch down, ferment, which produces an alcohol level similar to beer, and get the stuff out all of which is done with a solution the consistancy of wallpaper paste. If you can make neer 20% with sugar its just not worth the hassle. Domestic freezer just isnt cold enough to get anywhere with reasonable amounts of alcohol. Adding dry ice will not freeze out pure water, youd have to do repeated melting/freezing to avoid losing large amounts of ethanol. I had somewhere a good freezing point table for ethanol/water mixtures up to 25% ethanol, but I need to find it If you can avoid oxidation of the ethanol at the anode, for example having a multi part cell, electrolysis will work, very very slowly. Its total current passed that matters and that is likley to be very very small even with fairly high voltages (for electrolysis). Its not worth trying I suspect, but try NaOH rather than acid, with nickle electrodes if you want to give it a go. Just dont ever try drinking the product.

Making a simple pot still is easy, just buy a pressure cooker and about 60cm of 1cm dia copper tubing. Make a simple liebig condensor out of the copper tubing with some wider plastic tubing and attach it to the pressure cooker. If you have to braze use lead free solder, then you can prepare drinkable alcohol if you know how to make sure your drinks contain no methanol, small amounts of which form during normal fermentation. Temperature measurement can be dispensed with, you will be able to tell when you have most of the alcohol out of the solution, discard tops and tails. Repeat the operation a few times to get neer 95% ethanol. Drying that with anhydrous magnesium sulphate will get you about 99.5% ethanol for chemical preps. Methanol free ethanol is useful for a few things and far preferable if all you can get is mineralised methylated spirits, which contain crude pyridine to make it smell and presumably taste utterly foul. I wont work with the stuff, it turns my stomache.

To answer a query much furthur up the thread, 1 theoretical plate is not equivalent to 1 bubble plate becuase the liquid above is only slightly enriched, not containing the same composition as the condensate of the vapour going through it. All values of theoretical plate for reflux stills depend on the amount of liquid you take from the top. The slower you remove distillate, the higher the value and the purer the product. The better you insulate the column the less power you need to apply to keep the reflux going. 1 drop per min is not unknown in organic preperative methods with a value of 200 theoretical plates, presumably for around a 1 meter column.

[Tyler_Durden]

Just a small addition to Marvin's post.... I believe it is not said to be "100% proof", you would just call it "100 proof", if you are doing it customarily. And yes, the proof is equal to twice the percentage in volume. So 200 proof alcohol is, in fact, 100% alcohol. Alcohol with a proof of 80, then, is 40% alcohol. But, as far as I know, it's not referred to as "90% proof" and so on.

...just a tiny little detail.

[NoltaiR]

Ha! I forgot about this post. You guys are right about the percentages, I meant to say 30 proof which is in fact 15% alc. by volume. And the highest percentages that can be achieved by fermentation alone is about 18-20% alcohol and this is only with specialized yeasts that are more standing of slightly higher alcohol concentrations. My wines (depending on the fruit used) have ranged from between 10-14% alcohol and to some of them I just added a *little* Crown Royal whiskey to give it more of a kick.

But anyways yes I am still in the wine business. I tried constructing a very basic still a while back with some glass piping and couplings but it took forever just to get a little condensation because it all just kept coming out as vapor :(
So I just stuck to fermenting and then adding a little whiskey to make it around 20-22% alcohol.

I have about 8 gallons left.. the last couple batches that I made was about a month ago which were two gallons of vanilla and coconut wine and a gallon of peach and pear wine. I never used campden tablets as suggested (I could never find any place that would sell them except for liquor stores and they required me to be 21) but my wines have never gone sour. I am getting quite good at this hobby; best of all my parents don't take it away from me. When the wine is ready to be served I find the best thing to do for flavor is to add a bit of fruit extract (I have been using vanilla, coconut, lemon, orange, and jamaican rum extracts which can really a quite elegant flavor even if the wine hasn't aged very long).

Also my wines have all cleared. The first wines that I made are still setting and they have aged for a little more than 2 months now and next time I get a chance to invite some friends over we will open a few bottles.

In the end, I think I might just want to find a career in bartending.. :D

[Mendeleev]

I have fermented mead before and took a small sip of that, nothing hapenned. I plan on distilling it soon. Also, because I can buy pure methanol, Denatured Ethanol at 95% for $10/gallon, and 91% isopropyl, I was more interested in butyl alcohol. I read it can be fermented from starch, so I was thinkng about dissolving those packaging noodles in water and fermenting them, I believe they are pure starch. Does anybody think this is feasible?

[Tuatara]

I'd doubt fermenting directly to butyl alcohol is possible. Most starch ferments include malted grain, which provides amylase IIRC to convert the starch into glucose, which the yeast can use.

Noltair, I've been doing homemade wine for a number of years now - some success, some dismal failures, and one broken demijohn that put 4.5 litres of plum wine into the carpet :(

Some things I've found:
1: Sterilise everything , including yourself (I go up to my elbows with the bisulphite.)
2: If to don't have grapes, then a good mix of fruits is needed to get the flavour balance.
3: Banana gravy is a fabulous addition - it adds body, and assists clearing (boil a ripe banana in a cup or so of water, strain, and add liquid to the must).
4: Methode champagnoir is huge fun, and works really well with wine made from pears and apples. Maturation of at least a year in the bottle is essential.
5: Don't go short on the fruit, or the result will be thin and tasteless.

Currently in production: 4.5l of boysenberry port - 1year old now and showing huge potential, just needs a little sweetening with honey.

[vulture]

1: Sterilise everything , including yourself (I go up to my elbows with the bisulphite.)

Keep in mind that high SO2 content in wine is responsible for the "Chateaux Migraine" syndrome of bad quality wines.

[tmp]

I've made applejack without distillation by fermenting with distiller's yeast that
can go up to 22% alcohol by volume without imparting any flavors or aromas
so typical of wine and champagne yeasts. After the yeast settles out, I siphon
off the clear liquid and freeze it. Pour off the still liquid part while leaving the
ice behind. This takes 2 or 3 times to get a significant portion of water out of
the mix. When it will freeze no more I'm done. My hydrometer at 59 F tells
me that I have about 85 proof. Commerical producers actually used this
method for many years but now they just distill it to produce an apple brandy.

The yeast nutrient mentioned in previous posts is diammonium phosphate.
You only need 1/4 teaspoon at most for every gallon of fermentable mix.
It helps to bubble air through the mix before adding the yeast. Some yeasts
like oxygen in the mix for the initial growth stage before full fermentation
begins. The best dry yeast I've ever used is Alltech Superstart. The Lalvin
EC-1118, K1-V1116, and UvaFerm dry yeasts made by Lallemand of Canada
are also good choices. For liquid(and more expensive) yeast the champion
in this category is Eau de Vie(Water Of Life), made by Wyeast(#3347), which
can produce over 20% alcohol by volume. Don't use baker's yeast unless you
like a bread taste in your finished product.

If you don't mind the cost, a good still is made by Destilabs of Sweden.
It's made of stainless steel, uses broken up pieces of glass tubing in the reflux
column and produces 96% alcohol by volume if the temperature is kept at
78 C(Thermometer comes with the still). This one doesn't depend upon an
internal heating element so it can be run on a stove top. Look for them on
eBay.

As a side note, in the U.S. one of the early tax revolts occurred in 1794 -
The Whiskey Rebellion. George Washington called out the militia to backup
the tax collectors who were coming under fire by distillers in Western
Pennsylvania.

[Tuatara]

Keep in mind that the freeze process for increasing alcohol content does not remove the methanol! There's a bit of Irish folklore which says the first glassful off the still must be offered to the fairies - thats the one with the bulk of the methanol in it (poor fairies, no wonder there's so few of them about).

Vulture: when I said sterilise everything, I was referring more to any equipment used. You are quite right in that over-zealous use of SO2 in the wine itself can lead to nasty product. I usually rinse equipment with bisulphite, followed by boiled water, and I've had very few problems with bacterial spoilage.

The other yeast nutrient I always use is a little vitamin B1, about 5mg to 5l of must.

[Wahur]

Heh. Making homemade wine is easy. Just mix a lot of juice with sugar, about one kg sugar for 10l of juice, let it stand for a while until it starts bubbling and ends it(don't let any oxygene get nearm you'l end up with a unpleasant surprise), then filtrate, add more sugar and let it stand again until all the sugar is fermentated. My dad makes it every year from apples, god it tastes good. He had about 80l of wine. And my granpa has the destillation machine for getting the ethanole out, he gets nearly 94% pure alcohol.

[Efraim_barkbit]

I'd be weary of drinking home distilled alcohol, because take off the wrong fraction and you've got methanol... How do you ensure you avoid this DBSP?

I talked to my chemistry teacher about that a couple of years ago, and she said that it wasn´t possible to get methanol when fermenting regular sugar.
it is produced when fermenting cellulose if I am not mistaken

When people die from methanol poisoning after drinking moonshine, it is because people has "cut" the booze with methanol before selling.
Thats a reason not to buy moonshine from total strangers.

BUT I guess that it is only swedes that have this kind of problem, with our 200SEK (25US$) tax/liter of 40% alcohol :(

EDIT: I thougt the thing about thowing away the first dl is due to it containing a lot of fusel oil (you know, the stuff that makes the booze taste like shit if not filtrated) because they have slightly lover boiling point or something



BTW, what the fuck´s happened to DBSP? :confused:

[Tuatara]

In my experience there is more than just ethanol produced. Certainly there was alcohol coming off my still before the BP of ethanol. I dump that bit just to be safe - it was only 50ml or so out of 4.5l. It is also possible to get traces of the higher alcohols too. Doubtless these are produced because one is not normally fermenting pure sugar, but a mix of cane sugar and fruit sugar and all kinds of odd compounds from the fruit. This may also be one of the reasons why wine tastes disgusting for at least the first 6 months - these alcohols slowly form esters with the acid in the wine (acetic, citric, malic, ascorbic and tartaric acids will be present in varying amounts).

At any rate, for distilled alcohol I dump the first fraction, keep the rest up to about 98C, and filter the distillate twice with activated carbon.

[nbk2000]

DBSP has gone the way of the dodo, through voluntary extinction, so don't be expecting any replies from him anytime soon. ;)

[Marvin]

Efraim,

Some methanol is inevitable when fermenting sugar. I suspect your chemistry teacher is probably not aware you can make glycerol in large amounts by simple fementation of sugar either. This rather cunning trick was used to suppliment nitroglycerine production in the past.

Aside from deliberatly adding methanol, the biggest problem is that in most countries people (including moonshiners) dont generally ferment sugar to make alcohol for distilling, because sugar is expensive. They use foods with high starch, like grain, potatoes or rice, and rely on enzymes to break the starch down to simple sugars for the yeast to ferment. If the breakdown isnt complete fermentation of the starch produces methanol.

[tmp]

Just got a call from my sister yesterday. She wants some of my applejack
for my nephew's college graduation party. I told her I'll have to make a new
batch. I'm going to use the same technique I posted previously with some
modifications in hope that I can increase the proof(last batch was 85 proof).
I'm not sure this can be done without distillation. I'll post on this again when
I'm finished. Wish me luck ! :D :D :D

[The_Rsert]

Take 1kg sugar, 10g normal(!!!) barm/yeast and 4-5l Water and let it in an warm place (20-25°C) for about 2-3 weeks.
Destill it.
You will get about 94% ethanol.
When you like to get anhydrous ethanol (98%+) mix it with a lot of calcium chloride and destill it again.

[Efraim_barkbit]

What do you all think about the "plastic still"?

www.amazingstill.com

sounds like a plan, dirt cheap too...
pays itself after about 3liters if you live in sweden hehe...

[Marvin]

Not a bad idea if all you want is drinkable spirits. Its the survivalist still turned inside out essentially. 1 litre in 24 hours though, thats not exactly quick, but then it doesnt need supervision so maybe these things even out.

If people want to distill a lot of ethanol, or want high proof alcohol in one step I still think the best way is to mutilate a pressure cooker adding a water condensor, very short length of copper pipe, say 30-40cm and add a cooling jacket would do.

[The_Rsert]

A few monts ago i had made alcohol from 1kg Sugar, 10g Yeast an 5l Water.
After about 2 Weeks in a aitight and oxygenfree container I destilled it.
Yield: About 500ml of pure Ethanol, 90%+.

[croc]

Sorry to bring up last years topic but have been looking left right and centre for information on how to test ethanol for methanol.
I have read somewhere on http://www.homedistiller.org/ that the methanol content is found by observing the vapour temperature but there is no method on how or where to get started.
I’m sure there are also other ways to test but I just don’t know how. Can anybody help me out?

[tmp]

Methanol, acetone, and other nasties come off a reflux column at less than
70C. The smell of the acetone is quite noticeable. The temperature in the
reflux column will rise up to about 78C. That's when the ethanol starts to
boil off. When the temperature exceeds 80C your getting the fusils(YECH!).
It takes some patience and practice to get just the ethanol fraction.

[lucas]

Using baker's yeast produces an inferior product to using brewer's yeast and yeast nutrients. I home brew quite a lot and also home distill. Try to make a wash of 15-17%. Dont use more sugar than that as unfermented sugar will cause problems when distilling. Also, is using yeast other than brewing yeast, the final alcohol strngth achievable may be less than 17% which brewer's yeast can produce. Try to make 12-15% in that case. Citric acid is usefull as a nutriuent if you dont have anything specificaly for the porpose. Allow the wash to settle for at leat a week after fermentation stops to allow the yeast and residues to settle to the bottom. The wash should be almost as clear as water, or ideally as clear when distilled.


The first 1-2% of distillate collected is discarded. IE if distilling 4 litres of 17%, discard the first 10ml or so of the 750ml you collect. The temperature of the collected vapour should be 78-80 when you start keeping the distillate. It depends on how much reflux your still generates. Stop distilling at or before 90dec C. If you have a normal, non reflux still you will get 40-50% from a 17% wash. A reflux still 70%, if you have a really good still, 80 %. Double distillation is neccesary for highter than that. Pack your still with as much stainless steel wool as possible to increase the reflux.

The product should be diluted to 50% or so and then cleaned by use of granular activated carbon. preferably by passing through a column of the material, slowly. Otherwise the alcohol can be cleaned by letting the activated carbon sit in the alcohol for 1 week or more. The carbon cant be reused. The carbon should be washed with lots of water before use to remove mineral salts and the finest carbon dust.

95% can also be turned into anhydrous alcohol by codistilling with a small amount of benzene. The first fraction is benzene/water/ethanol, the second is benzene/ethanol and the third is ethanol. The product is undrinkable due to traces of benzene.

[croc]

I don’t think that I would go to the trouble of building a still and wasting money especially on cadmium free silver solder, I’m taking into interest the different ways of purifying the alcohol instead of distilling.
http://www.homedistiller.org
Up the top go to, equipment/making a still/Stills that Aren't Stills.
As I have already made an alcoholic mix with normal yeast I think I will discard it and buy some winemakers yeast to mix with store brought sugar.

This mix will first be separated from containing solids by distilling all liquids from solids. I have already joined 2 glass jars with a copper pipe and silicon glue which will be heated on a hotplate.
Next I will purify it to 30-40% so it can be treated carbon, probably by freezing or slow evaporation.
When treating is finished I will leave it sit at a temperature slightly above methanol’s boiling point (probably about 65c) until 2-5% has evaporated this will remove any excess methanol.
Lastly I will concentrate it as strong as I can get it.

Before I start my procedure is there anything I should know or mistakes I have made in my write up?

And would silicon or some plastics corrode into my mix or would they contain harmful substances which would make my product non drinkable quality?

I will let u know how it goes.

[xyz]

If you leave it to sit at 65°C until 2-5% has evaporated, you'll be losing a reasonable amount of ethanol along with what little methanol there may be in there.

If you use pure white sugar for your wash then theoretically you shouldn't get methanol. Methanol comes from the breakdown of pectin by the yeast, and is the result of washes made from fruit, vegetables, or grains.

In practice, you'll still get traces of methanol even in a sugar based wash, but the amounts will be seriously tiny. Commercially produced vodka will contain much more methanol than alcohol made from a sugar based wash even if no steps are taken to remove any of the methanol from the wash.

I once made 2.5L of approx 35% alcohol from 9L of 13% wash (which had been made using only water, white sugar, brewer's yeast, and yeast nutrient, and fermented slowly at 20°C). I concentrated it using the freezing method in a deepfreeze set at the coldest possible setting. It had hardly any taste at all, leading me to beleive that it contained hardly any methanol or fusels (ethanol itself is tasteless).

[croc]

I have the equipment I have information all I need now is the nutrients.
with fruit pulp or grapes not much yeast has to be added or nutrients because of the content in them already but when using a sugar base alcohol nutrients have to be added.

What are the essential yeast nutrients which the yeast needs to survive under and what did you use to get your alcohol?

Have found the following nutrients that can be used.
Magnesium sulfate, marmite, fermaid k, folic acid, diammonium phosphate, citric acid (for pH.), niacin, calcium pantothenate, thiamine hydrochloride and lallvin.

But have only found the following chemicals in brewing stores and other places. diammonium phosphate, citric acid, magnesium sulfate(at supermarket) and some potassium salt which name I forgot.

[FrankRizzo]

Anyone have a copy of the brewing program, ProMash?

EDIT: Nevermind :) Cracks are available for the free eval version.

[FrankRizzo]

Well, I guess I still DO need a copy of ProMash, or a link to a working crack for version 1.8a. The cracks that I found do not work (file size mismatch or something).

Sorry about the double-post, I guess you can't edit your posts after a certain period of time.

[Child-of-Bodom]

Did anyone try immobilisation of yeast cells to produce alcohol?

It is very simple, and effective: make a suspention of yeast cells in a 2-3% sodium alginate solution, drip them into 0.2M CaCl2, (a Ca-alginate complex forms, and you will get beads of 3-5mm diameter).
Filter the beads out, load them into a column and let water+sugar go through the column. (from under or above, depending on you equipment).
With a simple pump and some simple glassware this would be a very nice system, you produce every hour of the day, and your cells are not intoxicated by the alcohol as there is not a very high concentration.
You can get up to 8% alcohol with this method, and if you really like engineering you can probably build a continious (sp?) destillation unit next to it....

Cells should remain active for a very long time, as they get alle the nutrition they want.

To keep the system sterile is also not too hard, just boil you water + sugar for an hour (to be sure), and there will be no contamination as almost everything gets washed away. Na-alginate can be hold at 100°C for 30 to get sterile. (autoclaving will destroy it... I found out after 2 weeks trying... :( )

The only drawback will be probably the availebility of Na-alginate, but it is completely harmless, so it must be available via a pharmacy or something.

Here is some more info: http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7241e/w7241e0a.htm

[FUTI]

Didn't try this but seen it work once when I visited a friend. Good fermentation rate!

[Elucifer]

canada rocks

rubbing alcohol compound at SDM = 97.5% ethanol, dry it with OTC dehydrated epsom salts
hydroponic store has conc. nitric acid at $40/3 litre
battery wholesaler has conc. sulfuric acid at $20 /3 liter
hydroponic store has ammonium nitrate in huge bags!!!! +/- 25 kilo
plastic wholesaler DCM in 4 litre can
hydroponic store has 40 % hydrogen peroxide
diesel truck store has 4 liter 98+% methanol
diesel truck store has 12 volt controlled ether injector which neatly empties can of ether into bottle (cooled) ($78) ( all big diesel engines use ether injectors. propellant gases off, others separate easily using simple crockpot, 4 liter bottle, simple column.

you folks try way to hard to get that which is easily had
all universities with chemistry departments have a place where glassware gets made or fixed, see the loney guy in the glass lab for your needs

[Jacks Complete]

Alginate can be found at some model shops, as it is used for casting and moulding.

I made a batch of Schnaps with one of the super yeast kits once. Bloody horrid until you were drunk, then it was great. Trick became obvious - either drink with mixers or drink something shop-bought first, then move on to the homebrew!

Really harsh homebrews can often be saved by a dash of lemonade. Works incredibly well with dodgy scrumpy (apple cider) and has lead to more than one night of druken debauchery. :)

[Jacks Complete]

Alginate can be found at some model shops, as it is used for casting and moulding.

I made a batch of Schnaps with one of the super yeast kits once. Bloody horrid until you were drunk, then it was great. Trick became obvious - either drink with mixers or drink something shop-bought first, then move on to the homebrew!

Really harsh homebrews can often be saved by a dash of lemonade. Works incredibly well with dodgy scrumpy (apple cider) and has lead to more than one night of druken debauchery. :)

[Jacks Complete]

Alginate can be found at some model shops, as it is used for casting and moulding.

I made a batch of Schnaps with one of the super yeast kits once. Bloody horrid until you were drunk, then it was great. Trick became obvious - either drink with mixers or drink something shop-bought first, then move on to the homebrew!

Really harsh homebrews can often be saved by a dash of lemonade. Works incredibly well with dodgy scrumpy (apple cider) and has lead to more than one night of druken debauchery. :)

[Stormhelm]

What do you all think about the "plastic still"?

www.amazingstill.com

sounds like a plan, dirt cheap too...
pays itself after about 3liters if you live in sweden hehe...

I have made one of those, and I'm rather pleased with it.
Doesn't need supervision, doesn't look like your average still, especially when dismantled (which means no attention from the cops...), and it makes decent alcohol.
Also, it lacks the dangers of a "normal" still (electricity, flammable liquids, heat, pressure...)

I usually run the alcohol through it twice. I get 35-40% in the first run, and about 60% in the second, which is more than enough when it comes to recreational purposes :D . I haven't tried a third run, but if it works as a simple pot still, it should get stronger. In fact, it's running right now... ;) Needless to say, I pour it through a column of activated carbon (40 x 1200 mm) to polish it.

The production rate may be a bit slow if one seeks to mass-produce, but it's superb when one only needs a little booze for the weekend.

Apart from spirits, I've also made my share of beer and various wines.

[Stormhelm]

What do you all think about the "plastic still"?

www.amazingstill.com

sounds like a plan, dirt cheap too...
pays itself after about 3liters if you live in sweden hehe...

I have made one of those, and I'm rather pleased with it.
Doesn't need supervision, doesn't look like your average still, especially when dismantled (which means no attention from the cops...), and it makes decent alcohol.
Also, it lacks the dangers of a "normal" still (electricity, flammable liquids, heat, pressure...)

I usually run the alcohol through it twice. I get 35-40% in the first run, and about 60% in the second, which is more than enough when it comes to recreational purposes :D . I haven't tried a third run, but if it works as a simple pot still, it should get stronger. In fact, it's running right now... ;) Needless to say, I pour it through a column of activated carbon (40 x 1200 mm) to polish it.

The production rate may be a bit slow if one seeks to mass-produce, but it's superb when one only needs a little booze for the weekend.

Apart from spirits, I've also made my share of beer and various wines.

[Stormhelm]

What do you all think about the "plastic still"?

www.amazingstill.com

sounds like a plan, dirt cheap too...
pays itself after about 3liters if you live in sweden hehe...

I have made one of those, and I'm rather pleased with it.
Doesn't need supervision, doesn't look like your average still, especially when dismantled (which means no attention from the cops...), and it makes decent alcohol.
Also, it lacks the dangers of a "normal" still (electricity, flammable liquids, heat, pressure...)

I usually run the alcohol through it twice. I get 35-40% in the first run, and about 60% in the second, which is more than enough when it comes to recreational purposes :D . I haven't tried a third run, but if it works as a simple pot still, it should get stronger. In fact, it's running right now... ;) Needless to say, I pour it through a column of activated carbon (40 x 1200 mm) to polish it.

The production rate may be a bit slow if one seeks to mass-produce, but it's superb when one only needs a little booze for the weekend.

Apart from spirits, I've also made my share of beer and various wines.

[xyz]

Sorry to dig up an old thread and all, but I have a new piece of kit to show off :D

A few australian members who I chat with on MSN have seen this, and persuaded me to post it here.

Basically it's a 50L gas heated reflux still that produces around 6L of 90% alcohol in 2 hours.

The reflux column (covered in purple insulation in the photos) is 75mm diameter and about 1.2m high, filled with 40-50 copper scouring pads as packing. The sheer size of the column and height of the packing is an attempt to make up for the fact that the still has a reflux ratio of "sweet fuck all", relying entirely upon heat loss from the still head and the lyne arm (the tube between the column and the condenser) to generate reflux liquid. This means that our purity is limited to around 90% (compared to the 95.7% that could be obtained with more reflux) but that our still doesn't take very long to run at all. The gauge at the top is a thermometer to monitor the temperature in the still. As you can see from the photos, the roof of the shed was not high enough to accomodate the column, and had to be extended slightly.

The boiler is a 50L stainless beer keg that screws onto the column, my friend and I have 7 of these, and do our fermenting in them before attaching them to the column to extract the alcohol, then attaching another, and so on... The gas burner is extremely powerful, allowing us to heat the keg up to the right temperature within about 15 minutes, before turning down the gas right down to do the actual distilling.

Condenser is a huge air cooled monstrosity taken from a water cooler, and placed in front of the biggest fan we could find. It's mounted out on the roof of the shed. A small copper tube goes from the bottom of the condenser, back through another hole drilled in the roof, and into a bottle, allowing the distillate to be collected.

The distillate is still flammable even when mixed 50/50 with water :cool: , hence why I felt the need to photoshop a nice label for it :) .

[xyz]

Sorry to dig up an old thread and all, but I have a new piece of kit to show off :D

A few australian members who I chat with on MSN have seen this, and persuaded me to post it here.

Basically it's a 50L gas heated reflux still that produces around 6L of 90% alcohol in 2 hours.

The reflux column (covered in purple insulation in the photos) is 75mm diameter and about 1.2m high, filled with 40-50 copper scouring pads as packing. The sheer size of the column and height of the packing is an attempt to make up for the fact that the still has a reflux ratio of "sweet fuck all", relying entirely upon heat loss from the still head and the lyne arm (the tube between the column and the condenser) to generate reflux liquid. This means that our purity is limited to around 90% (compared to the 95.7% that could be obtained with more reflux) but that our still doesn't take very long to run at all. The gauge at the top is a thermometer to monitor the temperature in the still. As you can see from the photos, the roof of the shed was not high enough to accomodate the column, and had to be extended slightly.

The boiler is a 50L stainless beer keg that screws onto the column, my friend and I have 7 of these, and do our fermenting in them before attaching them to the column to extract the alcohol, then attaching another, and so on... The gas burner is extremely powerful, allowing us to heat the keg up to the right temperature within about 15 minutes, before turning down the gas right down to do the actual distilling.

Condenser is a huge air cooled monstrosity taken from a water cooler, and placed in front of the biggest fan we could find. It's mounted out on the roof of the shed. A small copper tube goes from the bottom of the condenser, back through another hole drilled in the roof, and into a bottle, allowing the distillate to be collected.

The distillate is still flammable even when mixed 50/50 with water :cool: , hence why I felt the need to photoshop a nice label for it :) .

[CommonScientist]

What do you guys use to ferment your wort? I was thinking about making 200 liters of mash, it would take a 55 gallon plastic drum, and the airlock, ever important, would consist of a 5 gallon bucket filled with water, and peice of hose running from the top of the barrel to inside the barrel. Gasses can escape, but nothing can go in. Distillation of that amount of mash would yeild 22L of 95% alcohol on a reflux still. According to homedistiller.org, I would need 100kg of sugar. Add 138L of water, that makes 200L of mash at 29.4% alcohol.

Now, I dont know about you foreign guys, but im pretty sure that 100kg of suger is a lot of money, in US$$ that is. Since I have an apple tree on my property, I think I will use apples, or use some corn meal from a local farm.

Now all I have to do is get the materials for the still.... I can get a 55 gallon SS drum, more $$ though.

Keep in mind, Im using this for fuel purposes

[CommonScientist]

What do you guys use to ferment your wort? I was thinking about making 200 liters of mash, it would take a 55 gallon plastic drum, and the airlock, ever important, would consist of a 5 gallon bucket filled with water, and peice of hose running from the top of the barrel to inside the barrel. Gasses can escape, but nothing can go in. Distillation of that amount of mash would yeild 22L of 95% alcohol on a reflux still. According to homedistiller.org, I would need 100kg of sugar. Add 138L of water, that makes 200L of mash at 29.4% alcohol.

Now, I dont know about you foreign guys, but im pretty sure that 100kg of suger is a lot of money, in US$$ that is. Since I have an apple tree on my property, I think I will use apples, or use some corn meal from a local farm.

Now all I have to do is get the materials for the still.... I can get a 55 gallon SS drum, more $$ though.

Keep in mind, Im using this for fuel purposes

[xyz]

No way in hell you'll get 29.4% alcohol just by fermenting a wash. Even the strongest commercial turbo yeasts can't take that kind of punishment.

You want to keep your sugar concentration below 0.25g/mL for baker's yeast or below 0.35g/mL for turbo yeasts.

This is for two reasons, the first being that if there's too much sugar in the wash then the difference in osmotic potential will kill most of the yeast as soon as you add it (the sugar draws too much water out of the yeast cells).

The second is that alcohol becomes toxic to yeast at high concentrations (after all, yeast being in alcohol is equivalent to a human being in sewage). Turbo yeasts will tolerate higher concentrations of alcohol without being killed off, but still not as high as 29.4%.

The highest alcohol % I've ever heard of being produced by fermentation by yeast is around 22% using a highly specialised turbo yeast, accurate temperature control, and adding the sugar in "steps" to reduce osmotic shock to the yeast.

Personally, I just stick to sugar concentrations of 0.25g/mL or below, where baker's yeast works fine. This is because I can get 15Kg (yes, Kg...) of baker's yeast for $45AUD, compared to turbos which cost $9AUD for 20 grams... :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to your question...

DON'T waste apples on fuel alcohol (if it's really for fuel that is... ;) ). It will be far cheaper to use sugar than have to worry about juicing the apples and boiling down the juice to 1/2 volume to reach a good concentration of sugar in it.

Far better is to have a pot still and make some decent apple brandy / calvados from those apples.

Corn meal sounds like a good way to go, but then you need to add malted grains to the wash in order to get some enzymes in there to break the corn starches down into fermentable sugars.

Back to sugar, for 200L of wash, you'd want a maximum of about 50Kg of sugar in there if you're using baker's yeast (the only way to really go for a wash that size, turbos will generate so much heat that they kill themselves unless you can cool the wash somehow).

Now I don't know about you, but here it costs $40AUD for 50Kg of sugar from a bulk food supplier, which isn't bad at all when you consider that 50Kg of sugar means over 30L of 90% alcohol.

[xyz]

No way in hell you'll get 29.4% alcohol just by fermenting a wash. Even the strongest commercial turbo yeasts can't take that kind of punishment.

You want to keep your sugar concentration below 0.25g/mL for baker's yeast or below 0.35g/mL for turbo yeasts.

This is for two reasons, the first being that if there's too much sugar in the wash then the difference in osmotic potential will kill most of the yeast as soon as you add it (the sugar draws too much water out of the yeast cells).

The second is that alcohol becomes toxic to yeast at high concentrations (after all, yeast being in alcohol is equivalent to a human being in sewage). Turbo yeasts will tolerate higher concentrations of alcohol without being killed off, but still not as high as 29.4%.

The highest alcohol % I've ever heard of being produced by fermentation by yeast is around 22% using a highly specialised turbo yeast, accurate temperature control, and adding the sugar in "steps" to reduce osmotic shock to the yeast.

Personally, I just stick to sugar concentrations of 0.25g/mL or below, where baker's yeast works fine. This is because I can get 15Kg (yes, Kg...) of baker's yeast for $45AUD, compared to turbos which cost $9AUD for 20 grams... :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to your question...

DON'T waste apples on fuel alcohol (if it's really for fuel that is... ;) ). It will be far cheaper to use sugar than have to worry about juicing the apples and boiling down the juice to 1/2 volume to reach a good concentration of sugar in it.

Far better is to have a pot still and make some decent apple brandy / calvados from those apples.

Corn meal sounds like a good way to go, but then you need to add malted grains to the wash in order to get some enzymes in there to break the corn starches down into fermentable sugars.

Back to sugar, for 200L of wash, you'd want a maximum of about 50Kg of sugar in there if you're using baker's yeast (the only way to really go for a wash that size, turbos will generate so much heat that they kill themselves unless you can cool the wash somehow).

Now I don't know about you, but here it costs $40AUD for 50Kg of sugar from a bulk food supplier, which isn't bad at all when you consider that 50Kg of sugar means over 30L of 90% alcohol.

[Jacks Complete]

CommonScientist, just get yourself down the wholesalers, and you will find sugar is actually silly cheap in bulk. I once bought something daft like 12 Kilos because it was as cheap as one and a half bags from the supermarket!

I agree with not wasting the apples - make cider! And you will have a lot more trouble with the apple skins clogging things up. Having said that, apple skins tend to have yeasts on them, which is how cider used to be made. Just crush and go! But that would tend to ruin a turbo yeast system.

XYZ, could you not simply breed the yeasts and make yourself more money? Just stop the reaction at 10% alcohol by dilution with a weak sugar solution, until it gets back up to 10%, and you will soon have lots of turbo yeast. Then stop the reaction (not sure how - freeze? freeze dry? dry?) and you would have a load to sell on.

[Jacks Complete]

CommonScientist, just get yourself down the wholesalers, and you will find sugar is actually silly cheap in bulk. I once bought something daft like 12 Kilos because it was as cheap as one and a half bags from the supermarket!

I agree with not wasting the apples - make cider! And you will have a lot more trouble with the apple skins clogging things up. Having said that, apple skins tend to have yeasts on them, which is how cider used to be made. Just crush and go! But that would tend to ruin a turbo yeast system.

XYZ, could you not simply breed the yeasts and make yourself more money? Just stop the reaction at 10% alcohol by dilution with a weak sugar solution, until it gets back up to 10%, and you will soon have lots of turbo yeast. Then stop the reaction (not sure how - freeze? freeze dry? dry?) and you would have a load to sell on.

[CommonScientist]

XYZ, 50kg of sugar in a 200L wash would yeild roughly 15% alcohol. Thats great for me.

I have abandoned the reflux still design, and have opted for the pot still. I will have a thumper between it and the condenser, which I figure will be a coil of 1" copper tubing in a 6" coil 86" long. My input water temp is 15* C and exit is 30*C, and I am thinking of using an old car radiator and fan for cooling the water down to 15*C = 59*F, if I am lucky, I can get it colder. I was also thinking of a triple jacketed coil, would have the main water jacketed coil inside, and another jacket about an 2" larger in diameter than the other jack, so I have an inch space on either side. Inside, I will have fins on the main coil jacket that will conduct heat out into the windstream of a fan mounted on top, input for cooling water and vapor line come through.

Check out the attachment I have added here, its a crappy paint sketch, but it gives you an idea.

[CommonScientist]

XYZ, 50kg of sugar in a 200L wash would yeild roughly 15% alcohol. Thats great for me.

I have abandoned the reflux still design, and have opted for the pot still. I will have a thumper between it and the condenser, which I figure will be a coil of 1" copper tubing in a 6" coil 86" long. My input water temp is 15* C and exit is 30*C, and I am thinking of using an old car radiator and fan for cooling the water down to 15*C = 59*F, if I am lucky, I can get it colder. I was also thinking of a triple jacketed coil, would have the main water jacketed coil inside, and another jacket about an 2" larger in diameter than the other jack, so I have an inch space on either side. Inside, I will have fins on the main coil jacket that will conduct heat out into the windstream of a fan mounted on top, input for cooling water and vapor line come through.

Check out the attachment I have added here, its a crappy paint sketch, but it gives you an idea.

[xyz]

Jack, first off, any yeast on apple skins should have no effect on turbo yeasts. The turbos work so quickly that the naturally occuring yeasts will die of alcohol poisoning before they can affect anything by much.

As for breeding a turbo yeast, I've considered that, 2 problems though...

1. Turbos are not known for their genetic stability, and 10 generations down the line your yeast may be nothing like what it was before, and may do nasty things to the wash (produce excessive amounts of unpleasant byproducts, e.t.c.)

2. "Turbo Yeast" doesn't just contain yeast. It also has a ridiculously complicated nutrient mixture in there as well (in order to make sure that people need to use all of it I assume, because the companies just wouldn't stand for letting people use less than the whole sachet...).

My nutrient mix for a 50L sugar wash is 1 iron tablet, 1 multivitamin tablet, and 200g of CHEMICAL lawn fertiliser (NOT anything organic). Yeah, it may sound crazy putting fertiliser in there if the alcohol is for drinking, but remember that it's distilled first and all the fertiliser is removed, just as the salt is removed from distilled seawater.

Anyway, this nutrient mixture, along with 500g of baker's yeast, seems to perform quite well up to the 15% mark, taking around 5 days to ferment at 25°C.

I can't view your attachments yet, but whatever you do with a car radiator, DO NOT let the car radiator come into contact with the distillate in ANY way. Never use a car radiator as a condenser. This is because they're lead soldered. There were many cases of serious lead poisoning back during the prohibition in America due to people using car radiators as the condensers in their moonshine stills.

As for 50Kg of sugar in 50L of wash, I only hope that was a typo and you meant to say 200L of wash...

[xyz]

Jack, first off, any yeast on apple skins should have no effect on turbo yeasts. The turbos work so quickly that the naturally occuring yeasts will die of alcohol poisoning before they can affect anything by much.

As for breeding a turbo yeast, I've considered that, 2 problems though...

1. Turbos are not known for their genetic stability, and 10 generations down the line your yeast may be nothing like what it was before, and may do nasty things to the wash (produce excessive amounts of unpleasant byproducts, e.t.c.)

2. "Turbo Yeast" doesn't just contain yeast. It also has a ridiculously complicated nutrient mixture in there as well (in order to make sure that people need to use all of it I assume, because the companies just wouldn't stand for letting people use less than the whole sachet...).

My nutrient mix for a 50L sugar wash is 1 iron tablet, 1 multivitamin tablet, and 200g of CHEMICAL lawn fertiliser (NOT anything organic). Yeah, it may sound crazy putting fertiliser in there if the alcohol is for drinking, but remember that it's distilled first and all the fertiliser is removed, just as the salt is removed from distilled seawater.

Anyway, this nutrient mixture, along with 500g of baker's yeast, seems to perform quite well up to the 15% mark, taking around 5 days to ferment at 25°C.

I can't view your attachments yet, but whatever you do with a car radiator, DO NOT let the car radiator come into contact with the distillate in ANY way. Never use a car radiator as a condenser. This is because they're lead soldered. There were many cases of serious lead poisoning back during the prohibition in America due to people using car radiators as the condensers in their moonshine stills.

As for 50Kg of sugar in 50L of wash, I only hope that was a typo and you meant to say 200L of wash...

[Jacks Complete]

Just as a thought, I heard yesterday that sugar is three times more expensive in the EU than outside, due to trade restrictions and quotas!

Something I just thought of, which could be quite a fun trial. Take your water/sugar mix, and put it in a sectional tank with a very fine (molecular sieve) filter in it, that will let the alcohol molecule pass through by osmosis. Add yeast to one side of the tank.

Remove alcohol/water/sugar only side every time it gets up to a high enough concentration, and replace with sugar/water. This will keep the alcohol concetration down low, so that the yeast doesn't die. Distill off the alcohol, then return the sugar water left behind to the mix.

I don't know if this would work - the water/alcohol/sugar mix might caramelise, or something, and the whole thing might not work.

However, if it does, then the whole thing could be turned into a continuous production line! Using vacuum distillation would probably be better than heat, though.

Please realise I'm no expert in this stuff - I did a home brew kit once in my life - but those who know better might be able to comment on or use this for something.

[Jacks Complete]

Just as a thought, I heard yesterday that sugar is three times more expensive in the EU than outside, due to trade restrictions and quotas!

Something I just thought of, which could be quite a fun trial. Take your water/sugar mix, and put it in a sectional tank with a very fine (molecular sieve) filter in it, that will let the alcohol molecule pass through by osmosis. Add yeast to one side of the tank.

Remove alcohol/water/sugar only side every time it gets up to a high enough concentration, and replace with sugar/water. This will keep the alcohol concetration down low, so that the yeast doesn't die. Distill off the alcohol, then return the sugar water left behind to the mix.

I don't know if this would work - the water/alcohol/sugar mix might caramelise, or something, and the whole thing might not work.

However, if it does, then the whole thing could be turned into a continuous production line! Using vacuum distillation would probably be better than heat, though.

Please realise I'm no expert in this stuff - I did a home brew kit once in my life - but those who know better might be able to comment on or use this for something.

[CommonScientist]

Where would I get a molecular sieve? It sounds as it would work...just dont know how or where to get one..


Anyone here ever use a water heater to make a still, Im thinking 50-80 gallons, but I need to find some elements/coils to put in it. It takes 12kW to heat the 200L of wash to boil from room temp in 77 minutes, and roughly 70 minutes for 20kW to heat the 302L(80 gallons) of wash to boiling. Where Im going to get that kind of power, im not sure, I might just use a wood fire, put some heavy steel plate on the bottom of where the burner would hit it normally on the bottom, so it doesnt burn out or rust out as much. Post any comments or advice, any knowledge is power.

[CommonScientist]

Where would I get a molecular sieve? It sounds as it would work...just dont know how or where to get one..


Anyone here ever use a water heater to make a still, Im thinking 50-80 gallons, but I need to find some elements/coils to put in it. It takes 12kW to heat the 200L of wash to boil from room temp in 77 minutes, and roughly 70 minutes for 20kW to heat the 302L(80 gallons) of wash to boiling. Where Im going to get that kind of power, im not sure, I might just use a wood fire, put some heavy steel plate on the bottom of where the burner would hit it normally on the bottom, so it doesnt burn out or rust out as much. Post any comments or advice, any knowledge is power.

[Jacks Complete]

I was thinking some kind of permeable barrier, something like an ultrafine filter paper. I can't remember much about osmotic forces, I'll have to search.

Right, it would be reverse osmosis. You could perhaps use a Gortex filter, or one of the filters used for water purification. Apparently, sucrose is stopped by them, but water is not. I don't know whether ethanol would be or not.

I think this idea is a bit of a bust, since it would cost a lot more than just doing it normally.

[Jacks Complete]

I was thinking some kind of permeable barrier, something like an ultrafine filter paper. I can't remember much about osmotic forces, I'll have to search.

Right, it would be reverse osmosis. You could perhaps use a Gortex filter, or one of the filters used for water purification. Apparently, sucrose is stopped by them, but water is not. I don't know whether ethanol would be or not.

I think this idea is a bit of a bust, since it would cost a lot more than just doing it normally.

[FUTI]

to Jack's Complete: Yes sugar will decompose partially during destillation...that's why they check for furfural level inside the strong alcoholic beverage...to stop you doing that recycling sugar step. Nice idea though only if it wouldn't make more trash to emerge in the batch (some ketones and higher alcoholes for example) and in time due to accumulation of the same kill the yeast that makes the stuff.

Did you mean pervaporation in the last post Jack, or something like reverse osmosis?

[FUTI]

to Jack's Complete: Yes sugar will decompose partially during destillation...that's why they check for furfural level inside the strong alcoholic beverage...to stop you doing that recycling sugar step. Nice idea though only if it wouldn't make more trash to emerge in the batch (some ketones and higher alcoholes for example) and in time due to accumulation of the same kill the yeast that makes the stuff.

Did you mean pervaporation in the last post Jack, or something like reverse osmosis?

[Jacks Complete]

FUTI,

it would be reverse osmosis. I don't think the "trash" would emerge, since you would only be removing the alcohol, glucose and water, plus anything else that went through the barrier. The anything else is what you would need to check up on!

Mash particles, ketones, etc. should never get out of the one side, and should also be kept to a low level because the alcohol concentration should never get very high, and the sugar concentration should never drop too low. You could also drop a little more yeast in every so often, too, to keep the yeasts as a genetically stable population.

This would allow a stream production, rather than a batch production, in theory.

[Jacks Complete]

FUTI,

it would be reverse osmosis. I don't think the "trash" would emerge, since you would only be removing the alcohol, glucose and water, plus anything else that went through the barrier. The anything else is what you would need to check up on!

Mash particles, ketones, etc. should never get out of the one side, and should also be kept to a low level because the alcohol concentration should never get very high, and the sugar concentration should never drop too low. You could also drop a little more yeast in every so often, too, to keep the yeasts as a genetically stable population.

This would allow a stream production, rather than a batch production, in theory.

[CommonScientist]

I just calculated that if I can get 20% in my wash by using turbo yeasts, and distill 80 gallons(302L), I can get roughly 60L of 95% alcohol (15.8 gallons) out of it. Thats enough alcohol to make 150 gallons of 10% gasohol, or 100 gallons of 15% gasohol. 15 gallons on the otherhand, can be dilluted with NM to make a superfuel, which would be great on a Jr. Dragster, or a drag bike, or maybe a super go-kart. :) :D ;)

[CommonScientist]

I just calculated that if I can get 20% in my wash by using turbo yeasts, and distill 80 gallons(302L), I can get roughly 60L of 95% alcohol (15.8 gallons) out of it. Thats enough alcohol to make 150 gallons of 10% gasohol, or 100 gallons of 15% gasohol. 15 gallons on the otherhand, can be dilluted with NM to make a superfuel, which would be great on a Jr. Dragster, or a drag bike, or maybe a super go-kart. :) :D ;)

[FrankRizzo]

Common,

If you're thinking about trying alternative fuels, don't. The energy necessary to distill alcohol and refine it to a grade suitable for burning in an engine will far exceed the energy that you will get out of the resulting material; just spend the money on gasoline.

OTOH, if you're making drinkable spirits, more power to ya :-)

[FrankRizzo]

Common,

If you're thinking about trying alternative fuels, don't. The energy necessary to distill alcohol and refine it to a grade suitable for burning in an engine will far exceed the energy that you will get out of the resulting material; just spend the money on gasoline.

OTOH, if you're making drinkable spirits, more power to ya :-)

[NoltaiR]

This is my newest work. Have been experimenting with various kits online (both liquid and solid mixes). I am thinking of just starting to grow my own stuff. Anybody tried this?

[xyz]

Yeah, I've tried absinthe from some commercial liquid kits and am currently stalled partially through the process of doing it the real deal way with wormwood (I have A. absinthium and A. pontica plants).

The alcohol used was home distilled and diluted back to 70% from 90%, search the forum for "xyz reflux column alcohol" or something along those lines if you want to see my setup. EDIT: It's on page 3 of this thread, I'm silly...

The liquid kits made a rather nice drink with definite wormwood and anise tastes, but I can't say I noticed anything in the way of activity from that stuff.

The home made stuff on the other hand (wormwood, fennel seed, aniseed, angelica root, and a few other minor ingredients I can't remember offhand, the first three beign the main ones) produced a drink that was ridiculously dark green and horrendously bitter after maceration (no, I don't drink it like this, I just tasted it :) , bad...).

Due to the small volume (1 litre) that I macerated I don't want to put it through the still as I know that it will probably boil dry before I get any appreciable amount out of the condenser. My still is meant to handle 50 litres, not 1, so I'm scared to mess around with small volumes. Yes, I know I could just go really slow, but it would still be far from exact or certain.

So, basically I won't have the results of my homemade stuff until I either get around to macerating some more, or build a small potstill for projects such as this (something I'm planning on doing eventually, because although a gigantic fuckoff reflux still wins for purity and output, it just doesn't involve the same degree of art as a potstill).

Back when a friend and I first started distilling I was of the opinion that it's all science and that stories of the art involved or of individual stills having their own "personalities" were a load of rubbish. Now I simply beleive that the science involved is far too complicated for a scientific approach to be taken, so thinking of it as an art makes things easier. Yes, stills definitely do behave like they have individual personalities, and you have to know how yours behaves before you can get really good results. Changing even a small, seemingly insignificant detail (such as whether a part is copper or stainless steel (in areas where heat transfer doesn't matter), seems like it would have no effect and this one puzzled scotch distillers for quite some time, but they now know copper helps to catalyse the decomposition of some impurities) will noticeably change your results.

One last word, avoid plastics at all costs. I once used some food grade plastic tube as a collection tube from the condenser. The alcohol in contact with it wasn't hot or anything, just barely above room temperature, but to cut a long story short the distillate had a horrible plastic taste and an inspection of the tube showed it had been noticeably reacted with on the inside.

[NoltaiR]

My first batch that I have ever made was a 'dry kit' that I ordered online. It came with little baggies of wormwood, star anise, licorice root, etc. The only requirement was that I have a litre of high proof alcohol. It didn't specify which and I just happened to have new bottle of Bacardi 151 available.

I prepared the stuff as instructed.. used dark-colored glass containers for storage during the process of making it.

When I was done, I had this absolutely astringent (bitter seems like an understatement) liquid. And due to the naturally golden color of Bacardi 151, I ended up with a litre of brown alcohol that smelled terrible.

I tried taking it in shots but I would gag and just couldn't hold it down. Then I made jello shots with it. This definitely covered the taste.. I just several jello packets so that the resulting gelatine was hard enough that it could be swallowed without the wormwood taste making me puke.

I had a bit of a drunken feeling but it wasn't anything like how I normally feel when intoxicated.. but then again I am not sure if that was because of the thujone or just the vile mix being in my stomach.

Anyways I have long since progressed since then. I now use liquid kits available online... they are a bit harder to come by and produce far less thujone (20-30mg as opposed to the 60-100mg from solid kits) but they make a very consumable drink.

--You still need to use the sugar to cover the taste though... plus thats the ritual anyways.--

I also have gotten smarter and use Everclear now.

Well like I said I want to make this stuff from scrath.. i.e. grow my own plants.. but then I will be back to square-one using a solid mix. I have heard that the commercial plants that make absinthe distill the final product even after the thujone has been induced. This will be my next endeavor.

[THe_rEaL_dEaL]

Ive read lots of differing opinions about the use of alcohol as a pure car fuel and as a gasoline mix (gasohol).

For gasohols the EtOH must be very pure (water impurities in the ethanol mix makes mixing with non polar parts of gasoline hard and they tend to separate out. This high purity level uses large amounts of heat to achieve.

Water/Alcohol injection for cooling and as part fuel/octane increasing source only requires alcohol of only approx 50% (100 proof) which would decrease the amount of energy required in the distillation dramatically.

Pure alcohol as a fuel can be 90% to 95% and work fine while also having a much higher octane (approx. 110-115 octane)

In Brazil molasses and sugar from sugarcane is fermented into alcohol. The leaf and stalk waste (baggasse) is burnt to produce steam for dist of the alcohol for fuel and to power the factory. Some factories have enough energy left over that they sell it to the power grid.

Here are some good links:

Use of ethanol as a fuel in Brazil and its production from sugarcane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Detailed info and theory on distillation apparatus.
http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/distil/distilop.htm#

"The Manual for the Home and Farm Production of Alcohol Fuel"
Info and specs on feed stocks, fermentation, dist. and use as a fuel.
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_manual/manual_ToC.html

[croc]

Last night I herd from my friends that distilling alcohol (possibly grapper) lets off a huge stench. They were told from somebody who has tried. It stunk out their whole block for days. I don’t know how much overexaggerating was done there but it made me think. Even if it only stunk out your next door neighbours houses for a few hours people could get suspicious and call the police.
Has anybody else has trouble with the stench which I herd of or does this only happen when distilling spirits like grapper?

[xyz]

First off, it's grappa, not grapper...

Yeah, grappa stinks when distilled, which is why the local italians always pay attention to which way the wind is blowing when they fire up their stills.

As for distilling a neutral spirit wash (sugar and nutrients), there is hardly any smell whatsoever, although some mighty wierd smells can get produced (pineapple, to name one...) due to the formation of trace amounts of esters by the yeast. You'll only notice it if you smell the still outlet or afterwards when cleaning it though, the smells from a sugar wash are not strong at all.

[Dog House]

It is necessary in just about every country to have a license to distill spirits. Emphasis on the distill part, you can ferment all you want legally, although drinking just that will most likely kill you. In the US at least the license is rather cheap and they have to give it to you.


Interesting idea. I have a few questions:


All of which can be answered by searching the internet your own damn self. :)