Moonshine anyone?

[Emporator Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emporator]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hi Peter,

Thank you for the information - I've been searching for some good tips on brewing alcohol but haven't had much success. I think I must be looking in the wrong places!

I had an idea that might be a bit silly, but I'd like to see what you thought of it. I'm guessing that some of the heat in the reflux column would be lost due to copper being a good conductor of heat. Now, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? I was thinking that it might be of benefit if the reflux column were wrapped in something like an exhaust insulating wrap or something similar. I'm thinking that it might retain the heat and allow the column to reach a working temperature quicker. Would this be right, or do you need to lose some of the heat for it to work properly?

[fantom Member Find all posts View Profile Close fantom]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Thomas
It would be of a great benifit to insulate ya coloumn. I sugest trying clark rubber.

Cheers Fantom

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

You might not be able to tell from the pic I posted earlier but my tower is insulated. That is it is insulated up to the T piece. It is wrapped in a few layers of some oil soak material then got a nice piece of heat shrink over the top of that.
The way the reflux process works it is better if it does not loose heat. It's also very complicated to try to explain.
To start off you have a wash of say 20% ethanol. When it boils the vapours will be say 30% ethanol. As the vapours rise up they will condense on the cool packing and warm it. Also as they condense they release latent heat which warms the packing even more. As the packing heats more the now 30% ethanol will boil at a lower temp than in the pot, and will give off vapours that may now be say 45- 50% ethanol. So it rises up higher, and will re condense. Again the process repeats and this time when the say 50% ethanol boils it might give off vapours at 70%. The water part does not boil at the lower temperatures in the tower and slowly finds it's way back to the pot.
I have a very informative book that explains the process much better than I can. It's called 'The Complete Distiller' by Nixon & mcCaw.

[Emporator Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emporator]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hi Peter,

I think I understand what happens in the process. The vapours do a sort of up-and-down type dance - am I right?

I'm guessing that this up-and-down action would have to happen several times over in order to get a purer end product?

[Guest Close David]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the info. I could try a batch of 14% but I would have to see if it were worth while. Definitely couldn't have sugar in the mix.
I'll do as you suggest and go visit a home brew shop and see what they can tell me.

I looked at distillation some time ago and was wondering if a relatively low alcohol concerntration at least could be achieved by having a pipe coming from the boiler and going up a way to a heater core from a car that had a fan blowing through to condense the steam.

If this were feasible, would the temp of the mash itself have to be controlled so the alcohol boiled off but not the water or is the critical temp measured at the top of the collum where the heater core would be?
Is there any any way of guessing what a basic one pass system like this would achive alcohol percentage wise?

Tom,

I could probably get hold of some foam pipe insulation for you from friends. One works in the aircon game and the other one is the warehouse manager for a place that makes the stuff. If your interested, let me know what size pipe you need it to fit round and I'll put my order in for some for you.

I don't know much about distillation but I do remember a device from school that had a load of coils in it for the water to go through. As I recall the teacher said the output was boiled and recondensed 100 times before it made it to the top of the column and came out as the finished product. As I understand it, the more times the mash "goes up and down" the more pure and water free it is.

[Emporator Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emporator]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hi Fantom,

It's funny you should mention Clark rubber - I had thought about using something bought from there when I remembered I had a roll of fibreglass exhaust insulating wrap. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes! Thank you though for the suggestion - I would have gone to Clark rubber had I not had this wrap. I don't know why I had the idea of insulating the column, but I think you're absolutely right that it will be of benefit. Anything to retain the heat surely has to be a good thing in a process like this, right?

Hello David,

Thank you for the offer, but I'll give this wrap a go - I'm hoping it will do the trick! I'll certainly let you know how I go with it!

The first batch I do I plan to heat the mash up to about 85 degrees Celsius. Hopefully this should do the trick. It's past the boiling point of alcohol but beneath the boiling point of water. Would I be safe in using a temperature like this Qwarla? What temperature do you heat your mash to?

With my condenser coil, I've got an inlet and an outlet both in 1/2 inch piping. What I plan to do is run cold water through it using a submersible aquarium water pump. I've bought a little plastic container (holding about 10 litres) that will hold the pump and a few blocks of ice. Surely ice water will aid in the process? I figured that the colder the coil is the better the condensing action would be. Only one way to find out I guess!

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hi just reviewing my manwell. Found somehting that may be of interest.

* %alcohol desired x 17 = grams of sugar per litre of solition.

Now that may look like a simple thing. Say you want 10%, so 10x17=170, so just chuck 170g sugar into a litre of water...... WRONG.

That will give you more than 1 litre of solution. The correct way would be to weigh out the sugar then add just enough water to make it up to 1 litre.

David,
The %age you would get out of a simple pot still will depend on the ethanol% in the wash. At a best guess you may be able to acheive 40% but 30% may be closer to the mark. I've never used a pot still for ethanol, but I do use one for methanol recovery from my glyc, but that's another matter.
For a condenser you don't need much. Ethanol steam will condense far more easiely than water steam. A tube from the top of the boiler bent over then down into a caonainer of water would do the trick for a time until the water in the container got warm. What comes to mind here is a large tin. The type used for friut juice. Pass the tube through the bottom near the side, or through the side down low, and solder in. Then as the water gets a bit warm dip some out and replace with fresh cool water.
As for the mash temperature, you don't have to control the temperature.

Thomas your thinking was the same as mine in regard to temperature. But the thing is we where both incorrect.
What happens is pure water will boil at 100oC, and pure ethanol will boil at 78.5oC. But a mixture of the 2 will boil somewhere in between these 2 numbers. So for a 50:50 mix the boiling point should be about 89.25oC, and as the ethanol boils off the BP will slowly rise to 100oC. Only problem is water is also evaporating with the ethanol, so this is where reflux comes in. Yes that little up n down dance. The only temp I monitor is the temp at the top of the colomn. At the start with my reflux still I have the vavle closed to the product condensor (running under 100% reflux). At first the temp will suddnly rist to something like 85oC then start to drop back to 78-79oC. This tells me the purity within the top of the tower has increased to it's max. Then we open the gage valve and start collecting product. As the run progresses the temp will start to slowly rise. As this happens I usee to slowly close off the gate valve so as to increase reflux, and keep the temp under 80oC. But I have discovered a better way. I use a variable power control to the second element and apply MORE heat. This increases evaporation in the boiler and produces more vapours. This in turn increases the ethanol to water ratio in the tower and in doing so the temp at the top actually drops.

I can't help wondering if it would be cheaper to just buy metho for your purpose. Hardware shops may be a cheaper supply then Supermarkets.
Considering I pay $8.60 for yeast and I think $3.70 for 3kg sugar. So for a 25 litre wash that's about $9.85 for sugar, totalling about $18.45 to produce 5 litres of what is essentually metho without the denaturing additive. I think I looked at 20 litres of metho in Bunnings and it was in the order of $60.
But then it's more fun to make your own. Ya never know when one will get thursty one day.
One thing to remember. Before you can drink your product it has to be finished off. Just like most people don't use bio straight from the settling tank, ethanol has also to be 'polished' before consumption. Polishing, luckly is as simple as running it S L O W L Y through an actavated charcol filter. These are very easy to make from a few bits n pieces, and greatly improves the flavour.... but more on that later.

Regards,
Peter.
Just added a pic of the intersection between the packed column, reflux condensor and product take-off, showing the location of the temperature probe. I is just above the packing and held in with a compression fitting.

[Emporator Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emporator]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hello Peter,

Many thanks for the information - I've learnt quite a bit already. It would seem if you could get the yeast and sugar for a cheap price it would make the exercise worthwhile cost wise. Still, about $19 for good quality drinking moonshine is a good price! I've just found a website on how to make absinthe - looks very promising indeed!

I'll have to read a little further about filtering the ethanol with activated carbon or whatever it is.

I've got another question for you Peter. When you first start collecting the condensed spirit, how much would be methanol? Or, maybe I should ask, how much of the initial product should I discard?

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hello Thomas,
according to the book when distilling a 'sugar only' wash there is no need to worry about methanol. When you have a wash made from other stuff like grains and the like, fermentation will produce small quantities of methanol.
As my washes are only sugar I collect it all.

Regards,
Peter.

[Emporator Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emporator]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Hi Peter,

That good news! Looks like I can collect all that comes out of the condenser - excellent!

I was wondering - do you have a problem with cleanliness of the pipes? I'm thinking that over time mine might build up a scale. Is it something I need to be worried about?

Thanks again for all the information you've provided!

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

No real problem with the pipes. I have found you do get a bit of a buildup on theh packing, which can be removed with a good backflush of hot water.
What I do is remove the tower from the pot and take the tower into the shower. Remove the shower rose and run the full stream intot he top of the tower. That is about all I can do with my system, without getting complicated.
I have read where people use a small pump to recirculate water and detergents through the tower.

Regards,
Peter.

[Emporator Member Find all posts View Profile Close Emporator]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

I made my first run of ethanol with the still today! It took a bit to get it to work properly, but once it was warm the ethanol flowed out nicely!

I'll see if any improvements can be made now to the setup. I'll need a bracket or something to hold the reflux cloumn upright for one. I think I'll need a base for the boiler too.

I'm amazed at how simple the still is to operate! Can anyone tell me how much ethanol I should expect to get out of a mash of 9 kg of sugar?

[Qwarla Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Qwarla]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

G'Day Thomas,
Yes the still is very easy to operate once you have a go and loose the nevrous condition that comes with anything you do for the first time.
Make adjustments/improvements and ya set.

In my production I think I use 8kg sugar or 9 kg dextrose in about 22 - 25 litres of water. That will usually produce somewhere around 5 litres at about 94%. Your production can be influanced by many factors, such as temperature during fermentation. Then during the cookup it will also depend how far you want to push the run. You will have noticed that the rate of production drops off as the run continues. You have to decide were the point of econome kicks in and end the run.
One thing to take into account when producing drinking quality product is that the longer you maintain a run more unplesant tastes start to come into it.

Anyway you are on the way.
Good luck.
Peter.

[wheeloftime Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close wheeloftime]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

hey

also made a first run tonight. Went ok. short blue flame after two distillings. have alot of refinements to do with the still but i have proven to my son it can be done.he was surprised at the flame and the intensity of the heat. It was just a make shift teakettle still in the kitchen. So after a more permanent still is made we hope to distill and run a bit of ethanol to run in his car. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. A filter of dried corn stalks is made to filter out the remaining water from the finished ethanol.



will the ethanol reaborb water from siting or once the mixture is about 100 % will it stay that way?

[Gil Hardwick Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Gil Hardwick]

Re: Moonshine anyone?

Perhaps I should post some pics of my still. Yes, it took me a few years to nut out the reflux column, but finally got there.

That PDF with the column, and the pics shown here above, can do with significant improvement. As I recall its original design was ultimately intended for fully automated control, so driving it along manually is a fair bit of work.

Don't worry about the glass beads either. In a 1m x 50cm column I have three ordinary stainless steel pot scrubbing pads packed in, at 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 the way up.

My average yield from 25l raw sugar wash fermented with white wine yeast and a few nutrients is about 1 1/2 litres at &9-80%, with the rest just distilled water.

There is a lab close by to service all the wineries here, and he told me the best he every obtained with his lab gear was 85%, so my results are pretty good regulating the thing by eye only.

The moral is low tech, simple as possible, but high operator skill. If you want to automate there is a great web site at Home Distillation of Alcohol. Those guys know quite a lot about the business.

Any way you want to go you still need to do a lot of homework and understand a lot about what is going on inside the column, otherwise you are not going to be able to calibrate the thing properly.

Gil