Home distillation of liquids...

[The village idiot]

... or how to build a still.

I was a little bored tonight, and one thing lead to another, and I ended up researching how to build a still (instead of looking for porn, I'll do that later). Well I found a nice reference while looking, and thought I might share. (for distillery making, not a reference for porn)

http://www.moonshine-still.com/

Now remember that using the material may indeed be illegal in some places. But reading about it, like many things, is just fine.

Before you say that fermenting your own stuff is way to much work, think about this:

You can buy really cheap wine contained in gallon or larger carboard boxes

[thor300]

Around here we have a long tradition of drinking moonshine liquor, i stopped years ago, gives too big hangovers, really big. That can be avoided by doule-distilling, like they do in pro distilleries. Buy a coal filter or 2, will save you from suffering sundays. First you distill the fermented stuff, then downmix with water to around 30%, filter it with coal, then distill it again.

[fmctm1sw]

My buddy on the ship cooked up some beer one time. I had the shitz for three days....

[Tommyknocker]

... or how to build a still.

I was a little bored tonight, and one thing lead to another, and I ended up researching how to build a still (instead of looking for porn, I'll do that later). Well I found a nice reference while looking, and thought I might share. (for distillery making, not a reference for porn)

http://www.moonshine-still.com/

Now remember that using the material may indeed be illegal in some places. But reading about it, like many things, is just fine.

Before you say that fermenting your own stuff is way to much work, think about this:

You can buy really cheap wine contained in gallon or larger carboard boxes

As a recall, certain counties here in the U.S. you can make small quantities of your own beer and wine for your own consumption. If you try to mass produce it and sell it with reporting the sales to the Internal Revenue Service. Then they will shut you down. So stll workers had to be on the lookout for "Revenuers".

[thecoalman]

First you distill the fermented stuff, then downmix with water to around 30%, filter it with coal, then distill it again.

I know where you can get some high quality coal. Actually a lot of the fine coal produced from the plant where I purchase mine is ultimatley used for filter media in water filters.

As a recall, certain counties here in the U.S. you can make small quantities of your own beer and wine for your own consumption. If you try to mass produce it and sell it with reporting the sales to the Internal Revenue Service. Then they will shut you down. So stll workers had to be on the lookout for "Revenuers".

Lot of homemade wine made around here, most of it is very good. It's really not that hard to make. My grandmother made some with grape concentrate, a lot of sugar, yeast, glass jug and a balloon....that's it. That stuff wasn't exactly Dom Periogn though. The better stuff uses similar recipes.

Lot of history in moonshine though, ever hear of NASCAR.

[The village idiot]

Most places allow up to something like 50 gallons of "brew" per year.
At 12% that would be something like 6 gallons of shine

[The village idiot]

And since we have an expert... Are all activated charcoal products for filtering the same? Or would you need special food grade filters?

[thecoalman]

Most places allow up to something like 50 gallons of "brew" per year.
At 12% that would be something like 6 gallons of shine

You need to destroy the evidence as soo as possible, then you could make as much as you want.....

[thecoalman]

And since we have an expert... Are all activated charcoal products for filtering the same? Or would you need special food grade filters?

I'm by no means a expert as far as water filtering goes. It's not charcoal but anthracite coal. It's glasslike and doesn't break down in water, similar to sand. The "fines"are as fine or finer than sand are sold to filtering companies. The filtering companies then screen it further into different sizes. I would assume that it would have to be sterilized before being used for filtering water to be used by humans if at all, but I'm pretty sure it is. At any rate it's processed quite a bit after leaving the anthracite coal plant.

[The village idiot]

I guess ready made charcoal filters from a water filter would work just as well then. Thankfully, those can be found anywhere tap mounted water filters can be purchased.

[thecoalman]

You got my interest up so I went hunting, seems it's used in a lot of filtering appplications including filtering for human consumption. One of the pages mentioed that it was a good media because of it's physical structure. It's not round like sand so the crap your trying to filter will penetrate further into the filter adding life to it. It also mentioed that it could be layered in different sizes to also increas filter life and was used in conjunction with other media.

You want to know anything about how well it will heat your house for less than 1/3 the cost of oil or gas.

[Guest]

used to homebrew,lost interest. In college, we would bring home the glassware from org chem and distill like mad.You could take crap vodka(6$/fifth) and repeatedly distill it into some pretty pure ETOH(190proof).All of the crap got distilled out.