(this is not a parody thread)

How to make your own home-distilled liquor
(Disclaimer: Content in this thread is for informational, educational, or entertainment purposes only.)

Quote :

"Tony's Steps to Making Homemade Alcohol (http://homedistiller.org/steps.htm) For full details, read the rest of http://homedistiller.org/ · Check that its legal to distil in your country (it probably ain't). (1) · Make sure you clearly understand what you're doing. (2) · Make (3) or buy (4) a decent still. Only use a POT still if you intend on making whiskey/schnapps etc (ie flavoured by the mash). Use a REFLUX or FRACTIONATING still to make neutral (tasteless) alcohol to flavour up later. · To prepare 18-20 L of wash for use .... Whiskey (5) : Heat 4 kg cracked or crushed malt with 18 L of water to 63-65°C, and hold there for 1-1.5 hours. Heat to 73-75°C, then strain off and keep liquid, using 250 mL of hot water to rinse the grains (should have an initial specific gravity of 1.050). Vodka (6) : dissolve 5 kg of sugar & 60 g of nutrients in 20 L of water Rum (7) : as per vodka, but use some brown sugar or molasses, to give an initial specific gravity (SG) of around 1.06-1.07. · Cool the wash to below 30°C, then add hydrated yeast. · Ferment (8) the wash at a constant 25°C until airlock stops bubbling. · Let settle for a day, then syphon carefully into the still. · Bring up to boiling temperature (start the cooling water through the condensers once you get to about 50-60°C), then once it has started distilling; (9) -Discard the first 50 mL's (this may contain some methanol (10)), -Collect the next 2-3L of distillate. -Segregate the distillate into 500 mL containers as you collect it. -Stop distilling once the temperature gets to 96°C (else the flavours get nasty). -Set aside any distillate which smells of tails/fusels. This can be added to the wash of the next run, and cleaned up then. · Turn off the power, then the cooling water. Open the lid, so that it doesn't create a vacuum inside the still & crush it. Wash up the still, dry it well, and then store/hide the pieces. · If you've made a neutral spirit, dilute (11) it down to 30-50 % purity, then soak it with carbon (12) for a week or two to help clean up any flavours still present. · Dilute (13) it down to drinking strength (20-40%), then age and flavour (14) the spirit, using either commercial essences, oak chips, fruits. · Find a comfortable spot to sit, put on your music of choice, then sip & enjoy with the ones you love. · If you have any questions, ask them on the email newsgroups (15). ---------------------------------------------- 1) http://homedistiller.org/legal.htm 2) http://homedistiller.org/theory.htm 3) http://homedistiller.org/designs.htm 4) http://homedistiller.org/buying.htm 5) http://homedistiller.org/wash-grain.htm 6) http://homedistiller.org/wash-sugar.htm 7) http://homedistiller.org/wash-sugar.htm#rum2 8) http://homedistiller.org/ferment.htm 9) http://homedistiller.org/dtw.htm 10) http://homedistiller.org/methanol.htm 11) http://homedistiller.org/dilute.htm 12) http://homedistiller.org/polish.htm 13) http://homedistiller.org/dilute.htm 14) http://homedistiller.org/flavour.htm 15) http://homedistiller.org/update.htm"

So who's made their own liquor before?
Please share your experiences.
So who's "heard about someone" who's made their own liquor before?
Please share "their" experiences.

[Edited on February 21, 2009 at 10:43 AM. Reason : ]

2/21/2009 10:41:24 AM

a friend of mine makes fuel for his car. It's pretty good stuff.. I mean.. it really runs good in his car.

2/21/2009 10:51:15 AM

ive made a couple batches of 'shine before

twas good

2/21/2009 12:30:34 PM

i have drank some shine cause some old dorm mates were from Appalachia

2/21/2009 1:51:15 PM

^
lol... When a cop openly admits to having drank contraband liquor, it's time to legalize it...

Quote :

"shine"

So do you skip step 11, or 13, or both?

2/22/2009 2:10:55 AM

Quote :

"When a cop openly admits to having drank contraband liquor, it's time to legalize it..."

so damn true.

2/22/2009 2:25:18 AM

well the guy making it for his car is violating gas tax laws. if hes caught he might have to pay some hefty fines.

2/22/2009 3:42:50 AM

Quote :

"i have drank some shine cause some old dorm mates were from Appalachia"

honestly, im surprised that you posted that

2/22/2009 10:42:38 AM

i too, have partaken in this spirit called "shine"

2/23/2009 12:08:28 AM

My uncle sells it out of the farm back home. Comes in Apple and peach (that I've had). Sooo smooth, nice after taste... Terribly hard kick. Overall A++ experience

2/23/2009 12:15:40 PM

^
As long as you hook up Republican18 with some, he won't bust your uncle.


No one answered my question about moonshine:

Quote :

"So do you skip step 11, or 13, or both?"

2/23/2009 12:49:17 PM

bttt...

Step 1: Legal issues

I, for one, think it's pretty fucked up that here in "the land of the free," we can't legally home-distill for personal use. In other countries, like new zealand, people enjoy the freedom to make liquor, while north carolina doesn't even allow the private sale of the stuff. I mean, the fucking prohibition party is still around. America has been hijacked by a bunch of religious nuts for too long. [/soapbox]

Quote :

"Spirits You cannot produce spirits for beverage purposes without paying taxes and without prior approval of paperwork to operate a distilled spirits plant. [See 26 U.S.C. 5601 & 5602 for some of the criminal penalties.] There are numerous requirements that must be met that make it impractical to produce spirits for personal or beverage use. Some of these requirements are paying special tax, filing an extensive application, filing a bond, providing adequate equipment to measure spirits, providing suitable tanks and pipelines, providing a separate building (other than a dwelling) and maintaining detailed records, and filing reports. All of these requirements are listed in 27 CFR Part 19."

Quote :

"What all this basically comes down to is ... 1. Americans can own a still, but it must be no larger than 1 gallon, and may only be used for water purification or the extraction of essential oils from plants. 2.Dealers/manufacturers of stills in the United States must surrender any address or other info on any customer who buys a still to the BATF, when they request it.(no warrant is required.) What this means is that anyone who buys a still in America can at any time expect a knock at the door and a man with a badge demanding to see what is being done with the still they bought. How this effects the companies seen advertising 5 gallon stills for use as a water purifier, was not listed, nor is there any info on solar stills. It is probably VERY illegal to import a still too."

Like I said, this thread is for informational, educational, or entertainment purposes only.

3/2/2009 10:57:23 AM

^ If this was something that a person was really serious about doing, they could just fill out the proper paperwork and pay the applicable taxes. It's not really that hard to do. As far as I know, the taxes are fairly low, especially if you're not producing commercial volumes.

3/2/2009 12:51:51 PM

did you not read all of this? that's hardly a little paperwork

Quote :

"There are numerous requirements that must be met that make it impractical to produce spirits for personal or beverage use. Some of these requirements are paying special tax, filing an extensive application, filing a bond, providing adequate equipment to measure spirits, providing suitable tanks and pipelines, providing a separate building (other than a dwelling) and maintaining detailed records, and filing reports."

3/2/2009 1:01:28 PM

^ Most of the requirements are actually quite reasonable, especially if you don't plan on burning your house down and flirting with blindness. Obviously, some of what you'll have to do is a pain and unnecessary if you don't plan on selling your booze. Distilling is not as easy as home brewing, but it's not impossible to legally pursue either. Also, unlike home brewing, there can be a real risk of bad things happening if someone doesn't know what their doing. Still explosions and methanol poisoning are very real risks when using home made equipment.

3/2/2009 1:44:38 PM

Also:

Quote :

" The following counties in North Carolina are dry: Yancey County, Clay County, Graham County, and Mitchell County. "

Welcome to the 21st century.

[Edited on March 2, 2009 at 2:17 PM. Reason : .]

3/2/2009 2:13:04 PM

i wouldn't want to kiss those crusty bitches anyhow

3/9/2009 12:36:51 AM

^^ LOL I saw that pic the other day

EPIC IRONY

Quote :

"Most of the requirements are actually quite reasonable, especially if you don't plan on burning your house down and flirting with blindness."

does it ever occur to anyone spouting off this methanol nonsense that you drink roughly the same proportions of methanol to ethanol undistilled and don't go blind? methanol boils off first by all accounts, so if you take the most basic of precautions you actually consume less methanol per ethanol even with a half-assed home distillation. I've even seen analysises that indicate methanol isn't present in appreciable quantities for some fermentations. am I misunderstanding something about this?

[Edited on March 9, 2009 at 1:26 AM. Reason : all fun and games until someone loses an eyesight]

3/9/2009 1:16:35 AM

If i can remember right is not Vodka distilled from neutral spirts like grain, rye, or potatos. NOT sugar as this article indicates. I am certain sugar was not a readily avaliable commodity in distilling russian vodka during the 1700's.....

Quote :

" think it's pretty fucked up that here in "the land of the free"

Is that what you were told in 6th grade social studies. I am sad to inform you that this is just a fairy tale.

3/9/2009 8:34:46 AM

Quote :

"If i can remember right is not Vodka distilled from neutral spirts like grain, rye, or potatos. NOT sugar as this article indicates. I am certain sugar was not a readily avaliable commodity in distilling russian vodka during the 1700's....."

it can be done either way.. it isn't very common though to distill it from sugar

3/9/2009 8:43:30 AM

Better prohibition propaganda:



[Edited on March 9, 2009 at 9:20 AM. Reason : -]

3/9/2009 9:19:33 AM

Step 2: Theory

Quote :

"Distillation Theory The concept of distillation is really quite simple. -Mike Nixon has compiled an excellent pdf "Distillation - How it Works" explaining all this a lot clearer than what i have below. Right down to plate theory for heat exchangers, without making it complicated. ...download it from me here (95 Kb, 16 Nov 99) http://homedistiller.org/howitworks.pdf. A more detailed explanation is in his new book "The Compleat Distiller" at http://www.amphora-society.com. -Another explaination, geared towards distilling ethanol from agricultural products,is Purdue University's http://persephone.agcom.purdue.edu/AgCom/Pubs/AE/AE-117.html note "Alcohol distillation : basic principles, equipment, performance relationships, and safety". -The University of Akron has a slide show covering the basics too. http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/chemsep/distillation/ -See also : "The Brewery's" Technical Library for articles on brewing related topics (extremely comprehensive). http://www.brewery.org/brewery/Library.html Here's a some-what simplified explaination ....(thanks to Mike) When you have a mixture of liquids, each with its own boiling point when pure, then the boiling point of the mix will lie somewhere in the middle, and this will depend on the relative concentrations of each liquid. Pure water boils at 100 deg C, and pure ethanol boils at 78.5 deg C, but a mixture of water and ethanol will boil at some point in between. The major point about distillation is that when a mixture like that boils, then the vapour given off is richer in the most volatile component, and when that vapour condenses then the resulting liquid has a lower boiling point than the mix it came from. By repeating this boiling and recondensation process up a column, using packing to hold the condensed liquid at each stage, you can separate the components more and more. So if you have a mixture of liquids each with a different boiling point, then you heat the mixture, it will heat up until the new intermediate boiling point is reached. When you first start a distilling run, the packing in the column will be at room temperature, so vapour given off by the boiler condenses on the first cool packing it reaches. In condensing, the vapour gives up a lot of heat, and this warms that packing until the liquid on it boils again. However, this liquid is richer in volatiles than the mix in the boiler, so its boiling point is lower. When it does boil again, from the heat given off by more condensing vapour, what you get is even richer in those most volatile components. This process of boiling and condensing continues up the column and, because the condensed liquid is always getting richer in volatiles, the temperature gradually falls the higher you go. The temperature at any point is governed solely by the boiling point of that liquid mix, and any attempt to interfere with that process will disrupt the separation that Nature is carrying out automatically. In contrast, the boiling point of the mix left in the boiler will very slowly start to rise as it is left with less and less of the most volatile components. If you started with a mixture (fermented wash) that is mostly water & ethanol, with trace amounts of methanol, propanol, etc. then the net result will be that the most volatile components will tend to rise in greater quantity up the column than their less volatile cousins, and will be found in greatest concentration at the top. This would mean that methanol, the most volatile of the lot, will win the race and you will able to collect it and set it aside. This continues until you have collected all of the "heads" (components that are more volatile than ethanol), and you can then collect just ethanol with a trace of water. You cannot get rid of that small amount of water, as once you reach a mix of 96.5% ethanol/water, with a boiling point of 78.2 deg C, then you have reached a stable mix that no amount of re-boiling and re-condensation can change (at normal atmospheric pressure). Once you have collected the main bulk of ethanol, then the components that are less volatile than ethanol, such as propanol and the bigger organic molecules, will start to reach the top, and you will have arrived at the stage called the "tails". These "tails" may be recycled in the next batch you do, for they still contain a lot of ethanol, or a proportion may be retained as they contain many of the compounds that give a spirit a distinctive flavour, like whiskey or rum. Note that you are not changing any part of your original brew - you're not "making" the alcohol, or converting it to something else or nasty. All you are doing is concentrating off the original brew into its various parts. There is no more methanol after you finish than what you started with. What does happen though, is that because most of the methanol comes off at once (first up), it is highly concentrated, and can damage you. You definately don't want to be sampling the first portion of distillate that you collect. But once you have thrown away this part, you have guaranteed that the remaining distillate is safe enough to partake of. Distillate Strength You can use the graph below (thanks to Grant D) to relate a liquid's % alcohol and its boiling point. It also shows the % alcohol of the condensed vapour. (The data for the graph (and heaps of other stuff) is on my Calculation page if you're interested in drawing it yourself http://homedistiller.org/calc.htm.) For example: A liquid of 10% alcohol will boil at 93 degrees (ie the point on the blue line directly above 10 on the Alc by Vol axis). If you head horizontally from the 93 degree point until you hit the red line, then drop down to the alcohol axis, it strikes 55%. So, for a simple still, a 10% alcohol wash will boil at (initially) 93 degrees and the vapour, once condensed, will contain 55% alcohol by volume. Likewise, redistilling a 40% spirit should result in a brew around 80%. Note that only 96.5% ethanol can be obtained by regular distillation of alcohol & water. Absolute ethanol (100%) is made by distilling with benzene (poisonous) (an azeotropic mixture of benzene, alcohol & water distills at 65C and removes the last few percent of water), by vacuum distillation, or by chemical means (eg using drying agents like molecular seives - which with holes of 3 Angstrom (one Angstrom is one ten billionth of a meter) can seperate water (which has a diameter of 2.5 Angstroms) from ethanol (which has a diameter of 4.5 Angstroms)). Update: Phil advises me that most major commercial distilleries in Australia use Cyclohexane rather than Benzene."

5/27/2009 5:45:02 PM

I did it once before. It didn't turn out well.

I mean, I ended up with something that was high % alcohol, but it took a long time, tasted kinda bad, cost &, and I was left with a decent mess to clean up.

5/28/2009 9:31:10 AM

Quote :

"well the guy making it for his car is violating gas tax laws. if hes caught he might have to pay some hefty fines."

very true. the same thing happens with vegtable oil cars.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/599471.html

5/28/2009 10:31:03 AM

That's why you go electric! amirite?

5/28/2009 11:00:30 AM

No.

5/28/2009 11:04:00 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRy8xppsh88

Matt Stillwell's "Shine" Music Video

5/29/2009 2:17:31 PM

RIP POPCORN

5/29/2009 6:24:29 PM

^^^^ Until some state attorney working for a broke state government sues to recover highway tax on your power bill.

5/29/2009 6:38:07 PM