Build a Lab Quality (ish) Distillation Apparatus.

Step 12: Results.

This section will be updated occasionally when I have a project involving the distillation apparatus.

10/29/2011: Attempted to put something in the carboy for later distillation. Carboy exploded due to improper use of equipment. Floor very sticky. Moral of the story: Don't assume your equipment is as purely awesome as laboratory equipment. As an unrelated side note, malted barley is freakin delicious.

11/04/2011: So I saved a little of the thing I was trying to put in the carboy on 10/29, and I distilled it today. It's definitely the right product, but it's completely undrinkable. It's vile. It's likely not a distillation problem, but an aging problem. I need a bottle with a cork to let the distillate breathe, and to put some oak shims in there with it.

04/08/2013: I tried basically the same experiment again. I fermented malted barley and some added table sugar. Regular ale yeast. Then I put something that may or may not have been the fermented product into the distillation pot and performed two simple distillations. The results were not much better than before. I removed all heads from below 85C. After obtaining something resembling ever clear from hell I diluted it doubly and put a mint tea bag in there for a few minutes. I took that out and covered the jar with two layers of coffee filter for a few days. The result is drinkable, but just barely.