I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

Carl D wrote

I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers'
in the UK and then follow the 'New Zealand only'
instructions for illicit purposes. :-)

Yep.

I've looked at those instructions on the websites,
but they don't tell me a few practical things, which
I wonder if anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

The distilling takes a few hours.

It takes a lot longer to ferment the brew that you distil
a week or so depending on the temperature that you
keep it at and whether you are prepared to pay more
for the more energetic yeast which isnt that cheap.

How much electricity does it use?

Not enough to worry about.

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

Not in australia we don’t, dunno about over there.

I doubt it, I would expect you would have heard
about it if it happened much.

On Feb 27, 11:17*pm, Carl D wrote:
I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 27, 11:17 pm, Carl D wrote:
I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

Bull****.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message ...



"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 27, 11:17 pm, Carl D wrote:
I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.
Or, in Rod's case, ****ing stupid.

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:18:59 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

On Feb 27, 11:17*pm, Carl D wrote:
I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

Nick

On 05/03/2013 10:26, Nick Odell wrote:
Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_alcohol

Andy

On Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:55:15 +0000, Andy Champ
wrote:

On 05/03/2013 10:26, Nick Odell wrote:
Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_alcohol

Thanks!

Nick

Nick Odell wrote:

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

They exist in the feedstock as a byproduct of fermentation.

What is really cool is that sometimes the distillation process can turn
the long-chain alcohols that make up fusel oils into esters that can add
pleasant fruity flavours, just as a side effect of boiling and reflux in
the presence of an acid.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Nick Odell" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:18:59 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

On Feb 27, 11:17 pm, Carl D wrote:
I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

thanks

Pretty easy to poison yourself or go blind.

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils
etc pre-exist in the original wine or beer

Some of them certainly do. That's why
you need top age it before you drink it.

or are they created by the process of distillation?

Not as much.

On 5 Mar 2013 10:49:59 GMT, Huge wrote:

On 2013-03-05, Nick Odell wrote:

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

The latter. They are by-products of alcoholic fermentation, principally
amyl alcohol, propanol and butanol.

Now I'm confused: I would have presumed that making the original beer
or wine would have been a process of alcoholic fermentation. I was
wondering if heavy drinkers of beer and wine have more to worry about
than their livers.

Nick

Huge wrote:
On 2013-03-05, Nick Odell wrote:

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the
original wine or beer or are they created by the process of
distillation?

The latter. They are by-products of alcoholic fermentation, principally
amyl alcohol, propanol and butanol.

Ironically, this morning I went to youtube and searched on "isoamyl alcohol"
and the first video that came up on the list was a paid ad from Smirnoff.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 27/02/2013 23:17, Carl D wrote:
I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK
and then follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for
illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they
don't tell me a few practical things, which I wonder if
anyone here can advise me about.

How long does a batch take to run?

How much electricity does it use?

That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
+ plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.

So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 28/02/2013 10:33, John Rumm wrote:
That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
+ plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.

So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ

Interestingly a continuous system should be more efficient - you can use
fresh liquid coming in to cool the vapour, which preheats the liquid...

Andy

On 28/02/2013 11:04, Andy Champ wrote:
On 28/02/2013 10:33, John Rumm wrote:
That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
+ plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.

So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ

Interestingly a continuous system should be more efficient - you can use
fresh liquid coming in to cool the vapour, which preheats the liquid...

Indeed - a cross flow heat exchange basically.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

John Rumm wrote:
On 28/02/2013 11:04, Andy Champ wrote:
On 28/02/2013 10:33, John Rumm wrote:
That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
+ plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.

So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ

Interestingly a continuous system should be more efficient - you can use
fresh liquid coming in to cool the vapour, which preheats the liquid...

Indeed - a cross flow heat exchange basically.

I'm left wondering if a vacuum still makes more sense. At least an
interesting project. A filter pump could easily get the bp of ethanol down
to 42°C at 0.2 bar which should save some electricity costs.

--
€¢DarWin|
_/ _/

Andy Champ wrote:
On 28/02/2013 10:33, John Rumm wrote:
That's probably not too difficult to work out - basically the energy
required to boil and then convert to steam however much liquid you have
+ plus a fair amount of waste heat to the surroundings probably.

So a litre of water at 10 degs ambient, will need 90 x 4200 = 378kJ to
get to boiling. Then another 2260kJ to phase change to gas. So call it
about 3MJ to allow for losses. So a tad under 1 kWh which is 3.6MJ

Interestingly a continuous system should be more efficient - you can use
fresh liquid coming in to cool the vapour, which preheats the liquid...

It is, that's why commercial operations that want to make raw alcohol
rather than liquor use column stills.

Much of what makes a pot still interesting is reflux and I have never used
a Smartstill so I don't know what the situation there is.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Jethro_uk wrote:
On Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:56:46 -0500, Scott Dorsey wrote:

The finished alcohol comes out at c. 60%, and needs diluting (distilled
water, naturally ) down to 40%. Because of the nature of a pot still,
it can still carry some hints of the brewing medium (makes it taste
"cardboardy", so I've been told). So a good filter system is really
important. The original SmartStills used a "teabag" of charcoal which you
dripped the distillate through, as it ran. These were ****poor, and
occasionally they'd clump, and the distillate would overflow. They then
changed this for a system where you had a charcoal cartridge you fitted
to a receiver, and let the 60% drain through that.

Carrying hints of the brewing medium is important! The whole notion of
just randomly adsorbing everything through charcoal is horrifying. It
will remove all vestiges of flavour.

However, Essencia sell a filter which has a ceramic *and* charcoal
filter. As long as you replace them when needed (after 50 washes for the
ceramic, 5 for the charcoal) the polished alcohol is completely tasteless.

That sounds horrible. Why would I want alcohol that is completely tasteless?
If I just wanted raw alcohol I'd buy it in a shop.

Indeed, if you just want to make flavourless crap alcohol, a column still
can do it cheaper and faster than anything anyone could do in small batches.
The reason why you distill in small batches is to make bespoke brandies,
gins, and whiskeys.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 01/03/2013 16:35, Scott Dorsey wrote:


Indeed, if you just want to make flavourless crap alcohol, a column still
can do it cheaper and faster than anything anyone could do in small batches.
The reason why you distill in small batches is to make bespoke brandies,
gins, and whiskeys.

You wouldn't want to drink the stuff that comes out of a still for any
whisky. Virtually all the taste comes from the barrel it is aged in not
from the alcohol.

Scott Dorsey wrote
Jethro_uk wrote
Scott Dorsey wrote

The finished alcohol comes out at c. 60%, and needs diluting (distilled
water, naturally ) down to 40%. Because of the nature of a pot still,
it can still carry some hints of the brewing medium (makes it taste
"cardboardy", so I've been told). So a good filter system is really
important. The original SmartStills used a "teabag" of charcoal which you
dripped the distillate through, as it ran. These were ****poor, and
occasionally they'd clump, and the distillate would overflow. They then
changed this for a system where you had a charcoal cartridge you fitted
to a receiver, and let the 60% drain through that.

Carrying hints of the brewing medium is important!

Not if you add the flavour later like you do with some distilled spirits.

The whole notion of just randomly adsorbing everything through
charcoal is horrifying. It will remove all vestiges of flavour.

You add the flavor later with some distilled spirits.

However, Essencia sell a filter which has a ceramic *and* charcoal
filter. As long as you replace them when needed (after 50 washes for the
ceramic, 5 for the charcoal) the polished alcohol is completely
tasteless.

That sounds horrible. Why would I want alcohol that is completely
tasteless?

So you can add the flavour later.

If I just wanted raw alcohol I'd buy it in a shop.

Its much cheaper to make it yourself.

Indeed, if you just want to make flavourless crap alcohol, a column still
can do it cheaper and faster than anything anyone could do in small
batches.

Yeah, that was my reaction, most home distillers would be better
off with a basic column still, much simpler and easier to maintain.

The reason why you distill in small batches is
to make bespoke brandies, gins, and whiskeys.

Yes, but not every is making those.

Its perfectly possible to get as good as the commercial
spirits by producing close to pure ethanol and adding
whatever flavour you want to that once you have that
and saving a heap because you don’t pay the excise duty.

Yes, that wont be anything like the best single malts etc
but those really arent very practical for home distilling
on the time before you can drink it alone.

Jethro_uk wrote:
Ah, but you're not distilling whisky (or whatever). You are trying to get
a pure (ish) alcohol to add flavourings to.

If you want to make cordials or liqueurs, that's fine. But to be honest,
I can't imagine it will be any cheaper to make your own in a pot still
than to just buy column-stilled grain alcohol (Everclear or the like).
Grain alcohol at least here in the southern US is very cheap.

Yes, granted, it won't be as good, or nice as a properly distilled
whisky. But then one costs c £3 a litre, while the other can cost £30
(incidentally IMHO the £3 litre is still better than the supermarkets £12/
litre offerings). Now the £30/litre is better, but 10x better ???

I don't know, there are an awful lot of people making properly distilled
whiskeys at home. Not as many as there once were, but a surprising number.

FWIW when I have offered people a dram of homemade scotch (without
explaining it's origins) no one has ever called me out and said "that's
home made". I'm sure there are connoisseurs who could though.

Was it in fact Scotch or a liqueur?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Jethro_uk wrote:


The finished alcohol comes out at c. 60%, and needs diluting (distilled
water, naturally ) down to 40%. Because of the nature of a pot still,
it can still carry some hints of the brewing medium (makes it taste
"cardboardy", so I've been told). So a good filter system is really
important. The original SmartStills used a "teabag" of charcoal which you
dripped the distillate through, as it ran. These were ****poor, and
occasionally they'd clump, and the distillate would overflow. They then
changed this for a system where you had a charcoal cartridge you fitted
to a receiver, and let the 60% drain through that.

However, Essencia sell a filter which has a ceramic *and* charcoal
filter. As long as you replace them when needed (after 50 washes for the
ceramic, 5 for the charcoal) the polished alcohol is completely tasteless.

If you're making liqueurs or something like
that, do you need to dilute the 60% output to
40% first, or do you just dilute as part of
mixing up the liqueur?

In message
emailer.net, Carl D
writes

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell the
produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?

--
Simon

12) The Second Rule of Expectations
An EXPECTATION is a Premeditated resentment.

On 04/03/2013 17:14, usenet2012 wrote:
In message
emailer.net, Carl D
writes

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell the
produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?

Although rather a lot of years ago, my school had its own still simply
for distilled water in the science block. We were told that the revenue
had to know of it and could descend at any time to check its contents. I
hardly think they are going to turn a blind eye to distilling now.

--
Rod

usenet2012 wrote
Carl D wrote

If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the
'revenooers' asking to see what you're doing with it?

A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell
the produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?

He's just plain wrong in all but New Zealand and
a tiny handful of even more obscure jurisdictions.

Hardly any jurisdiction appears to care much
about it done on a small scale anymore tho.

On 2013-03-04, Jethro_uk wrote:

Home distilling really took off in the 90s in New Zealand, when the
government there accidentally legalised it. Having let the genie out of
the bottle, they decided not to try and re-enact the previous ban. And so
a whole country became experts in distilling and making spirits. And
exporting the technology.


The way I heard it was that the NZ customs officers asked the
government to legalize it because they said enforcing the ban was a
waste of their time.

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
eb.com...
On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:17:06 +0100, Carl D wrote:

I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK and then
follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they don't tell
me a few practical things, which I wonder if anyone here can advise me
about.

How long does a batch take to run?

You can ferment a 25l wash in 48 hours if you're really desperate. 5 days
is more sensible. Once you have cleared the wash, it's 6 runs of 4l which
produces 800ml of alcohol at 60% which you dilute down to 40% by adding
400ml water.

Thats one thing I have always wondered about, why bother with a fancy
reflux system and then dilute what you produce, instead of just using a
simpler still and not bothering to dilute as much ?

Each run takes about 2.5 hours

Once you've got the 40% it needs filtering. The Essencia 2-filter system
is by far and a way the most effective.


How much electricity does it use?

320W


If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the 'revenooers' asking
to see what you're doing with it?

Not in 5 years. AFAIK sales of stills are not recorded. I suspect they
are suffering in silence on this one, to avoid the Streisland effect.

If you are interested, there are more sophisticated stills available.
Check out the Essencia reflux range (The Smart Still is a pot still)

Rod Speed wrote:

Thats one thing I have always wondered about, why bother with a fancy
reflux system and then dilute what you produce, instead of just using a
simpler still and not bothering to dilute as much ?

If you were starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and you wanted
to get a mixture of water and alcohol, that would be a good thing to do.

But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and nasty fusel
oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff. You are trying
to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light fractions and the
alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

Depending on what you are fermenting and how you are fermenting it, you
may want to remove some part of the light fraction and not some others.
There are some cognacs where they discard the heads, then keep the first
part of the run, then discard the next part of the run, and then keep the
greatest part of the run while discarding the tails.

The point here is that you're starting out with a complex mix of stuff
and you want to end up with a complex mix of stuff, and your only tool is
the ability to sort by molecular weight. The reflux will affect how that
sorting operates.

Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels and still shape
while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer the way the folks at Glenfiddich
have, the only tool you have to tell what is in the distillate are your
nose and tongue.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote
Rod Speed wrote

That's one thing I have always wondered about, why bother with
a fancy reflux system and then dilute what you produce, instead
of just using a simpler still and not bothering to dilute as much ?

If you were starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and you
wanted
to get a mixture of water and alcohol, that would be a good thing to do.

But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and
nasty fusel oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff.

Is that normally true with home distilling ?

You are trying to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light
fractions and the alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

Is that so true with the cruder home distilling ? That seems to be
much more about just getting rid of the bulk of the water and then
adding the flavours to the distilled alcohol, not trying to ensure that
they are there in what you distil and getting them thru to the end result.

Clearly the best of the single malts are nothing like that, but most of the
home distilling isnt even attempting stuff like that and stuff like that has
other massive downsides like the 50 years before you can drink it etc.

Depending on what you are fermenting and how you are fermenting it, you
may want to remove some part of the light fraction and not some others.
There are some cognacs where they discard the heads, then keep the first
part of the run, then discard the next part of the run, and then keep the
greatest part of the run while discarding the tails.

The point here is that you're starting out with a complex mix
of stuff and you want to end up with a complex mix of stuff,

I'm not sure most do with the bulk of home distilling on that last.

and your only tool is the ability to sort by molecular weight.

Not with the bulk of home distilling, you just
add that to the alcohol you produce with the still.

You do that anyway with quite a bit of distilled spirits
like gin, schnapps, etc.

The reflux will affect how that sorting operates.

Sure.

Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels
and still shape while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer
the way the folks at Glenfiddich have, the only tool you have
to tell what is in the distillate are your nose and tongue.

Sure, but most home distilling isnt about that stuff.

So are you saying that if you don’t care about that stuff, there
is no point in bothering with the more complex reflux stills ?

Rod Speed wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote

But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and
nasty fusel oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff.

Is that normally true with home distilling ?

I don't know what people out there are distilling at home, but most of
the folks here are doing things like corn and rye liquors and fruit
brandies. All of which have a lot of light stuff coming out.

Folks who do commercial distillation of grain alcohol tend to use
turbo yeasts that can handle very high proofs, and those turbo yeasts
tend to produce a lot of phenols. Even if you're careful how you cut
the heads and tails, a pot still will leave a lot of that crap behind.

If you're fermenting a sugar mash with a baker's yeast or something
crude like that, I'm not sure what the beer going into the still is
going to be like. My suspicion is that it wouldn't taste so good.
The cleaner it is going on, the easier it will be to distill cleanly.

You are trying to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light
fractions and the alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

Is that so true with the cruder home distilling ? That seems to be
much more about just getting rid of the bulk of the water and then
adding the flavours to the distilled alcohol, not trying to ensure that
they are there in what you distil and getting them thru to the end result.

If your goal is just to make as much alcohol as possible as cheaply as
possible, and you don't want the trouble of setting up a small volume
column still, you could do that. I don't see a lot of point to that,
but if you're in a place where alcohol is expensive or difficult to get
you could.

Clearly the best of the single malts are nothing like that, but most of the
home distilling isnt even attempting stuff like that and stuff like that has
other massive downsides like the 50 years before you can drink it etc.

Here in Virginia, "white liquor" made from corn is very popular. It has
a very interesting sort of corn taste, none of the spiciness that you get
from rye liquors. Sometimes it's aged, sometimes it's not aged at all.
It gets much mellower with age, but just a couple years of aging can do
wonders.

Things like fruit brandies tend to take a lot more aging to mellow out,
but you can make a poire william or something at home that you can drink
immediately. The key to doing that, I think, is to have the cleanest
possible beer.

Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels
and still shape while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer
the way the folks at Glenfiddich have, the only tool you have
to tell what is in the distillate are your nose and tongue.

Sure, but most home distilling isnt about that stuff.

At least around here, it's difficult to make alcohol much cheaper than you
can buy in the stores, and it's also illegal. So the folks doing it are
mostly doing it in order to make something that you can't get in the stores.

So are you saying that if you don’t care about that stuff, there
is no point in bothering with the more complex reflux stills ?

There is _always_ reflux going on with any pot still... the shape of the
vessel you're boiling it in affects the reflux action because the top of
the vessel is cooler than the bottom and stuff is always going to be
condensing somewhere on the top. How important this is seems to be a
matter for argument still, even after centuries of research.

Adding a deliberate refluxing stage (what people here in Virginia call a
"thump barrel" or similar) is going to affect the flavour considerably,
because it will narrow down the band of different molecular weights that
pass through the still.

A lot of people specifically avoid the thump barrel because they don't
like the way it changes the taste. The advantage of the thump barrel is
that it gives you a higher proof distillate, so you can get away with
fewer passes through the still for a clean final product.

If you don't care about the taste or you're trying to eliminate the taste,
the reflux still is a huge win. It's not as big a win for eliminating taste
as the column still; the column still can pick out a very narrow range of
molecular weights from the raw beer and one trip through the still gives you
very pure alcohol. But, the column still is a pain to operate on a small
production basis. I don't know of anyone doing that sort of thing at home
but it might be fun to try just to see.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Scott Dorsey wrote

But you're starting out with a mixture of water and alcohol and
nasty fusel oils and tasty light fractions and all kinds of other stuff.

Is that normally true with home distilling ?

I don't know what people out there are distilling at home, but
most of the folks here are doing things like corn and rye liquors
and fruit brandies. All of which have a lot of light stuff coming out.

Sure, mine wasn’t very specific about the 'normally'

Those that use a basic commercial home reflux still normally
start with just a sugar and water mix fermented with yeast
and distil that to get as close to just ethanol as they can
and then flavor and dilute that with water.

Most do discard the first bit of the output of the
still so without actually analysing it, I don’t expect
that there is that much in the way of nasty fusel
oils or much 'all other kinds of stuff' either.

Folks who do commercial distillation of grain alcohol tend
to use turbo yeasts that can handle very high proofs,

Those do get used quite a bit with home distilling too.

and those turbo yeasts tend to produce a lot of phenols. Even if you're
careful
how you cut the heads and tails, a pot still will leave a lot of that crap
behind.

But how much of that gets past the carbon filter ? Not
much IMO and that’s the reason for the carbon filter.

If you're fermenting a sugar mash with a
baker's yeast or something crude like that,

I don’t know of anyone who uses baker's yeast
instead of a brewing yeast. There isnt really
any point, the difference in price isnt enough
to matter in the total cost of the brew.

Plenty do use more expensive turbo yeasts tho.

I'm not sure what the beer going into the still is going
to be like. My suspicion is that it wouldn't taste so good.
The cleaner it is going on, the easier it will be to distill cleanly.

Sure, but don’t forget the carbon filter.

You are trying to get a quality liquor which retains the tasty light
fractions and the alcohol and removes the fusel oils and the water.

Is that so true with the cruder home distilling ? That seems to be
much more about just getting rid of the bulk of the water and then
adding the flavours to the distilled alcohol, not trying to ensure that
they are there in what you distil and getting them thru to the end
result.

If your goal is just to make as much alcohol as possible as cheaply as
possible,

That is basically the main purpose with quite a bit of it,
just aiming to avoid paying the excise duty and to get
something that’s as drinkable as the cheap end of the
discounted scotches, not aiming for a single malt etc.

Particularly with the simpler spirits like gin, vodka, schnapps etc.

and you don't want the trouble of setting up a small volume
column still, you could do that. I don't see a lot of point to
that, but if you're in a place where alcohol is expensive

It mostly is right throughout the modern english speaking world.

Particularly when you brew your own beer to get better
than the commercial beer and to avoid paying the excise
duty, that what most are trying to do with home distilling.

Is not really feasible to do better than the best of the commercial
aged single malts etc on the time for aging alone tho I would
certainly prefer to go that route if I could. But if it was that easy, you'd
expect someone would be doing it commercially and they arent.

or difficult to get

That would only be true in the dry places. We haven't been
stupid enough to go that route and never had your Prohibition.

you could.

Hordes do. To get back to the original question, if that what you
want, presumably there is no point in a fancy reflux still, you might
as well just take the packing out of a commercial electric still and
get the benefit of easier maintenance, easier cleaning involved etc.

Clearly the best of the single malts are nothing like that, but most of
the
home distilling isnt even attempting stuff like that and stuff like that
has
other massive downsides like the 50 years before you can drink it etc.

Here in Virginia, "white liquor" made from corn is very popular. It has
a very interesting sort of corn taste, none of the spiciness that you get
from rye liquors. Sometimes it's aged, sometimes it's not aged at all.
It gets much mellower with age, but just a couple years of aging can do
wonders.

OK, that’s worth doing. I age my beer already and while I don’t
age it as much as that, a couple of years is very feasible.

Things like fruit brandies tend to take a lot more aging to
mellow out, but you can make a poire william or something
at home that you can drink immediately. The key to doing
that, I think, is to have the cleanest possible beer.

What do you mean by that ? Do you mean
actually filtering it before distilling it ?

Unless you are willing to experiment with thump barrels
and still shape while spot-checking with a mass spectrometer
the way the folks at Glenfiddich have, the only tool you have
to tell what is in the distillate are your nose and tongue.

Sure, but most home distilling isnt about that stuff.

At least around here, it's difficult to make alcohol
much cheaper than you can buy in the stores,

Its completely trivial to do that almost everywhere
else in the modern english speaking world.

and it's also illegal.

Sure. About the only place it isnt is New Zealand.

So the folks doing it are mostly doing it in order
to make something that you can't get in the stores.

OK, that’s very different here.

I'm not sure that you can actually by ethanol that’s distilled,
most of it is called absolute alcohol and that has the last of
the water removed using benzene and isnt fit to drink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol#Absolute_alcohol

There is another form, called SVR, used in chem labs where
the purest alcohol is needed, but that more expensive than
the cheapest commercial drinkable spirits because its so pure.

So are you saying that if you don’t care about that stuff, there
is no point in bothering with the more complex reflux stills ?

There is _always_ reflux going on with any pot still...

Sure, that’s why I used the phrase 'more complex reflux stills'

the shape of the vessel you're boiling it in affects the reflux action
because the top of the vessel is cooler than the bottom and stuff is
always going to be condensing somewhere on the top. How important
this is seems to be a matter for argument still, even after centuries of
research.

Adding a deliberate refluxing stage (what people here in Virginia
call a "thump barrel" or similar) is going to affect the flavour
considerably, because it will narrow down the band of
different molecular weights that pass through the still.

Presumably you mean there at any one time etc.

A lot of people specifically avoid the thump barrel because
they don't like the way it changes the taste. The advantage
of the thump barrel is that it gives you a higher proof distillate,

Yeah, that what brought up my original question.

Why do you care about the proof if you dilute it anyway ?

so you can get away with fewer passes
through the still for a clean final product.

Guess that could be why so many of those doing the sort
of basic home distilling uses the more complex reflux stills,
so you can just do one pass when combined with a decent
carbon filter.

If you don't care about the taste or you're trying to eliminate the taste,
the reflux still is a huge win. It's not as big a win for eliminating
taste
as the column still; the column still can pick out a very narrow range
of molecular weights from the raw beer and one trip through the still
gives you very pure alcohol. But, the column still is a pain to operate
on a small production basis.

Why ?

I don't know of anyone doing that sort of thing
at home but it might be fun to try just to see.

I used to be a chemist, and I did wonder about going
that route with a standard chem lab column still and
I did wonder why it wasn’t used more.

I don’t see why its any harder to use than one of the small
commercial stainless steel reflux stills being discussed.

Jethro_uk wrote:

On Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:17:06 +0100, Carl D wrote:

I understand you can buy these 'water purifiers' in the UK and then
follow the 'New Zealand only' instructions for illicit purposes. :-)

I've looked at those instructions on the websites, but they don't tell
me a few practical things, which I wonder if anyone here can advise me
about.

How long does a batch take to run?

You can ferment a 25l wash in 48 hours if you're really desperate. 5 days
is more sensible. Once you have cleared the wash, it's 6 runs of 4l which
produces 800ml of alcohol at 60% which you dilute down to 40% by adding
400ml water. Each run takes about 2.5 hours

Once you've got the 40% it needs filtering. The Essencia 2-filter system
is by far and a way the most effective.


How much electricity does it use?

320W


If you buy one of these, do you get visits from the 'revenooers' asking
to see what you're doing with it?

Not in 5 years. AFAIK sales of stills are not recorded. I suspect they
are suffering in silence on this one, to avoid the Streisland effect.

If you are interested, there are more sophisticated stills available.
Check out the Essencia reflux range (The Smart Still is a pot still)

ok, thanks