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  • Moonshine anyone?

    Hello everyone!

    As a few of you already know, I've recently purchased a water injection kit for my Peugeot 306 turbo-diesel. The pump of the kit is alcohol compatible, so I've made up a solution of 50% water, 25% methanol and 25% ethanol to trial in initial tests. I thought I'd use a combination of both methanol and ethanol as methanol can absorb more heat than ethanol, but burns with less energy (apparently!). The opposite applies for ethanol supposedly.

    I thought I'd buy a 10 litre bottle of spring water as it's meant to be great for water injection - not having all the impurities that tap water is meant to have. It's probably not necessary to buy bottled water as Sydney water is excellent in my opinion!

    There was something bothering me when I bought the ethanol for about $3.10 a litre compared to $1.40 for methanol. I've always had an interest in brewing alcohol, but never really knew how to do it. I've long known of "moonshiners" and such, but I was never able to figure out the process. I decided to throw my hat over the wall and brew my own!

    By downloading a PDF file on how to make your own moonshine reflux still, I was able to nut out how it's done. The PDF file described in detail how a reflux still works, and how to make one simply and cheaply.

    About an hour ago I won some glass beads on eBay that will be perfect as a column packer. Apparently having a column packed with something like glass or ceramic beads gives a kind of reflux action, hence the name of the still. It makes for purer ethanol I'm told!

    I began putting together a few copper bits and pieces, and just today I bought a 20 litre hot water urn that I intend to use to heat the mix. By mix I mean the 20 litres of water, 8kg of sugar and yeast that has now fermented - I prepared it about a week ago.

    It's extraordinary how many of my friends seem to be closet alcoholics as I've generated quite a bit of interest by telling them I intend to start making my own absinthe! I've had requests for bourbon, rum and vodka thus far.

    I did some further reading on reflux columns and found out that you can make your own distilled water, as well as make essential oils from lavender and such. I guess I'll never have to buy distilled water again!

    Speaking of lavender, earlier this morning I went and picked some stalks and flowers from a lavender bush we have out the front. I threw them in a pot with water and warmed it gently to extract the oil. Not doing anything by halves, I let the pot sit on the stove on a low heating setting all day long. The house now stinks (and I mean stinks!) of lavender oil. Apparently I'm meant to let it sit for a day or two to extract all the useable oil.

    Attached is a few pictures I thought might be of interest.

    I'd love to hear from anyone who has had any experience with a reflux still - I'm keen to learn all there is about this rather esoteric hobby!

    From left to right:

    1) General overview. The reflux column is on the left and the condenser coil is on the right. I still need to cut another piece of copper tubing to cover the coil. I also need to braze the rest of the fittings.

    2) Another general photo. The long 1/2 inch tube to the most right is the cold water inlet, and the one that bends 90 degrees under the condenser coil is the outlet. The one to the left of this is where the alcohol drips out.

    3) Close-up of the condenser coil. I've yet to cut a length of copper tubing to cover this. Cool water will run inside the copper tubing making it more of a water jacket.

    4) This is the hot water urn I won on eBay. With a temperature control setting it's ideal!

  • #2
    Re: Moonshine anyone?

    Hey Tom,

    I knew as soon as I saw the title of this thread it was something that was going to be very interesting even though I'm not much of a drinker.

    I'm glad you are doing your distillation as an experiment and not to save money. You must have spent over 300 bucks on copper fittings for your collum which could have bought you a drum and a half of methanol already

    Are you intending to make your firewater as pure as possible and water it down afterwards or just distill it to 50% so you can put it straight in your car?

    I don't know much about home brew hooch having only read a bit on it years ago but I do know that if you are going to make up some ....elixir... for your friends, make sure you either silver solder or Braze the fittings together. I believe the lead in soft solder can leach into the spirit very effectively and Lead is something that you probably don't want to be administering to your friends.

    I look forward to seeing how you go with this and wish you the best of luck with it.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Moonshine anyone?

      You might want to have a scan through the ethanol board here with regard to the legalities.
      Having said that, I would like to see the "build" as you go and see the results.
      Oh and mines a bourbon thanks.
      Best of luck
      zigparacingtadpole
      Senior Member
      Last edited by zigparacingtadpole; 1 February 2007, 10:39 PM.
      Rgds

      Adam

      "Revolution never comes with a warning!"

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Moonshine anyone?

        Hi thomas
        ok a few tips for ya.
        1 on ya product condenser feed the cooling water into the bottom not the top.
        2 If at some time ya plan on drinking any of ya product DO NOT braze it all up, it would be a lot safer to silver solder it.
        3 when it is all soldered up put it into a bath of vinegar to clean it inside and out this may take 24 hours to do.
        4 I origanally used stainless steel pot scrubbers as column packing which worked well, untill i got onto some woven copper packing which is much better.
        Feel free to ask any other questions you may have.

        Cheers Fantom

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        • #5
          Re: Moonshine anyone?

          Hello Thomas. heres a pic of a reflux tower. A bit more complicated than yours but will produce 92 - 94% ethanol without any problems.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Moonshine anyone?

            Hello David,

            You're right about the price of the copper fittings - what I couldn't scrounge I had to buy. Man alive is copper expensive! Still, if I use it enough I should re-coup some of the cost back - I hope!

            At first I just want to make some impure ethanol to mix with water for the water injection system. As I get more experienced I'll try my hand at moonshine.

            Thanks for the advice regarding brazing or silver soldering. I'll definitely be doing one or the other as I don't like the idea of lead in whatever comes out!

            I'll keep you posted as to how it's going!

            Zigparacingtadpole,

            I'll do a search of the ethanol sections here and see what I can learn. There's bound to be some good information here about what I'm doing.

            The next drink is on me!

            Fantom,

            I like the idea of cleaning the entire thing with vinegar! I'll give it a shot when I'm done. I wonder if citric acid would work?

            I'm intrigued by the idea of using woven copper as a column packer. I was going to use some glass beads, but copper sounds like a much better idea. Apparently using stainless steel scrubbing pads is a bad idea as they turn to rust pretty quickly. Do you know where might I get some woven copper?

            Qwarla,

            Thanks for the picture. That still looks like a beauty! Must be about 4 and a half to 5 feet tall! Mine's quite a bit smaller than that, but I hope it still works as well.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Moonshine anyone?

              I just found a place that sells molasses for $22 for a 25 kg pail! Woohoo! Looks like my dream of making cheap rum will come to fruition!

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Moonshine anyone?

                Hi Thomas, most rural suppliers stock molasses in 44 gallon drums. Last time I bought some it was $125 a drum, which is 61 cents a litre. I don't know the specific gravity of molasses, but the drums are very heavy!!!
                Cheers, Michael

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Moonshine anyone?

                  Hi Emporator
                  You don't need to worry about using molasses or any of that stuff to make an excellent rum. All you do is ferment sugar and water and make what is called a Vodka. Then you simply add the essance of your choice. Alcholic cordial..... hic!!

                  Yes that tower of mine is a fair size. Packed with structured copper packing available from HERE. Stainless Steel should not rust if it is true stainles steel. You might be thinking of the older more common steelwool which will certianly rust.
                  The bottom section of the tower is fully packed, about 1 metre in height, then the T and above that is a reflux condensor, about another 450mm. Constructed from mirror finish 50mm electrical conduit.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Moonshine anyone?

                    Hi Michael,

                    I know of a rural supply store near me that would probably stock molasses. I'll have to make some enquiries! I think that with all the sugar molasses would have to be pretty damn heavy in a 44 gallon drum! It's probably a good thing I don't have space to store one!

                    Qwarla,

                    The first mash I've made is with the sugar and water recipe. I'm dying to put some brandy or rum flavour in it, but I want to do a run of ethanol first! Would molasses be cheaper than sugar? I bought sugar from Woolworths, and I thought that if I could get it cheap enough, molasses might be the go. If I could get sugar cheaply then I'd go with that - much easier to clean than a molasses spill!

                    That column packing material looks brilliant! I was going to use some glass beads I bought, but this stuff looks even better! Many thanks for putting me onto that!

                    Your column is a beauty! How long does the reflux column take to get warm?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Moonshine anyone?

                      Hi the colmn heatup is a bit hard to time. I usually cook up about 25 litres at a time and that usually takes about 45 minutes to get up to the temp were it will start to produce. 2 elements, one 1.800 watts and the other 900 watts. Both on until it's hot then cut back to the 900 watt element only.
                      I buy the cheapest sugar I can find at the time. The no-name stuff or if you expect to use a fair bit of it you may find a 20kg bag is cheaper. Also you have to use the correct yeast for this process. All available from your local Home Brew Shop.

                      That reminds me it's about time I started another brew off. Getting low in supplies.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Moonshine anyone?

                        Hi Qwarla!

                        45 minutes is quite quick I think! I thought it might have taken longer - say, and hour or two.

                        I'll have to scout around to find some cheap, bulk sugar. What would you estimate is the cost to produce a litre of ethanol?

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Moonshine anyone?

                          Originally posted by Emporator View Post
                          What would you estimate is the cost to produce a litre of ethanol?

                          Just off teh top of my head I can't say. But hopefully I'll start a wash fermenting tomorrow , so I will be able to give a better estimate by then. From a normal sugar wash (9kg in 25 litres water) I collect usually just on 5 litres of the good stuff. That is about 94% ethanol. So you have the cost of the sugar and the special yeast/nutrient. If I remember correctly that's about $8.
                          For what you want you can distill to a lower purity and probably collect say 10 litres at somewhere around 50%. Thing is the yeald will vary with many factors that can influence fermentation. Temperature being probably the main one. If the wash gets too much over 25oC or 30oC ethanol yeald will start to drop off. I use the Alco-tec 48 TURBO Super Yeast. That can give you up to 20% ethanol in the wash.
                          Actuall from there you would not need much distilling to have a usable product for your experiments.

                          Rergards,
                          Peter.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Moonshine anyone?

                            Peter,
                            I'm pretty ignorant on the fermentation process so please excuse this if it is a really dumb question.

                            From what I am reading above, am I correct in thinking that it is possible to get a 20% alcohol/water soloution just by mixing up the yeast and sugar you mention and letting them ferment and not having to distill them at all?

                            If this is correct, I would take it that all I would have to do to put it in my water injection system would be to filter it?

                            Am I also correct in understanding this 20% wash would be the whole ( or near enough) 25L originally made up.

                            Once a sugar/ yeast mix is made up, how long and at what temp does it need to be held at to ferment?

                            While 20% is a lower than ideal, If I could make a soloution for my injection system for running around on without the need to distill it, it would be something worthwhile.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Moonshine anyone?

                              Hello David that is correct. Teh yeast I use will produce up to 20% ethanol. Instructions from the pack:-
                              25 litres, 14%in 48 hours or 20%in 5 days.
                              Pour 21 litres of 40oC water into fermenter. Add 6kg for 14% or 8kg for 20% and mix well. Then add I sachet of yeast and stir for 1 minute. Leave to ferment in 20-32oC.

                              So any temp up to the high 20's would be Ok and about 5 days. The only problem I see is if there is unused sugar still in the wash. What happens is the yeast can only tollerate so much ethanol in the wash then it dies. so this can happen before all sugar is consumed. Now if you only added say the 6kg sugar and was happy with 14% ethanol that would be better. I have noticed some washes do have a slight caramel colour to them indicating unused sugar in the wash.
                              But i would go into a brew shop and have a talk to them. There are a lot of new yeasts coming out and some are better than others in regards to temperature tollerance and yeild, and the % ethanol they can tollerate.

                              Regards,
                              Peter.
                              Qwarla
                              Senior Member
                              Last edited by Qwarla; 3 February 2007, 03:38 PM.

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