How to make a still

Step 3 Use

A person might take two bottles of cheap wine. put them in the pressure-cooker an heat them to the boil. The distillate would be enriched in alcohol, collected from the bottom of the still.
One might wish to add a bit of colour with homemade caramel, and have homemade brandy.

And then one might drink the output and try to post a coherent Instructable.

Comments

[sttt]

(removed by author or community request)

[romandoc]

nothing needs to be made out of copper. stainless steel works best

[freddysserpent]

acutually copper helps remove some of the sulphides where as stainless doesnt, unless you use a reflux tower (generally they are packed with copper mesh though) only a tast thing though.

[lemonie]

Hello!
This Methanol-business is often repeated, but it makes no sense. If you drink a bottle of wine you drink any methanol in it. Also, you find it very hard to separate meth/ethanol without a sophisticated fractional-still.

L

[brimble1]

you can separate methanol from the ethanol using a pot still like the one you've kindly shown us how to use. methanol boils at a lower temperature than ethanol, about 64 degrees C i think. so this will come out of the condenser as a steady stream before ethanol. i think this method is called topping and tailing. i heard somewhere that the methanol is a bi-product of distilling so is created by cracking during the heating. if the methanol was in the wine originally you'd be poisoned!

[lemonie]

Not that simple - look up azeotrope.
Methanol is not created by 'cracking' during the heating, that's something I've not heard before.

L

[brimble1]

thanks for that link. i have since done quite a lot of distilling and was always worried about the methanol because i only seemed to be getting fluid coming out of my condenser at about 90 degrees!
Everyone seems to be so scared of methanol because of stories of moonshine turning people blind and making them paralyzed in prohibition america. But I've read that this was caused by moonshiners adding denatured alcohol to their drink to make it stronger!
Thanks for the help

[mgraham12]

Do I pour both bottles in the cooker? Please email a prompt response @ [e-mail].

Thank You sir!

[lemonie]

One or both would work.

L

[whiskymonster]

methanol is made from the thermal breakdown of fructose, or fruit sugar, and is easily removed in your still. the first few shots will be the stuff with the lowest boiling point, ie methanol and other nasties. just throw away the first few shots (the foreshots and heads) and youll befine.
besides, methanol isnt all that bad in the doses your gonna encounter here.
and the natural antidote to methanol? ethanol!
the main problem with a still is fire hazard. anything over 40% will burn, so as such you might as well be boiling petrol!
just be carefull and youll be good

[guiwegian]

Hi, Great instructables.
I have made alcohol with my dad since I can remember it(in France it is legal if you have a right from the sate or pay a tax).
what I can tell you is, you won't die from drinking the first drop, but you should surely distill it twice. My Dad own some fruits tree, and a vineyard, we always 2pass" it twice, because the first "pass" is always coming out at around 35/40% ABV maximum and full of impurity (like in vodka), the second pass will get rid of most of the impurity but still keep the flavour of the fruit.If you triple distill it you ll get an alcohol close to 80/85% abv but tasteless.

So Distill it twice, the first drop will be at 75/78% ABV and stop when the alchol % decrease to around 15/20 (you ll and alcoholmeter, or whatever it is called) if you want to make something proper.
And my last advice is:distill it slowly, most people distill too fast and it taste like Denatured alcohol.
Enjoy drinking responsibly :)

[lemonie]

I agree with you on those.

L

[mattbomb]

3 CHEERS FOR MOON SHINE, hip hip! HORAY, HIP hip hip, hoRAY, HIP HIP hoRAy!!!

[lemonie]

Cheers!

[wayne wong]

when using the still wud all the mash go in the pressure vessel or wud it be strained off first and if anybody has any good recipes wud be most thankful

[lemonie]

It would be best to strain it.
http://www.instructables.com/tag/?sort=none&limit%3Atype%3Aid=on&q=brew

L

[dominic.tarr]

a croatian friend showed me how to make rakia (um, eastern European spirit made from what ever fruit is easily available...) and he taught me to always throw out the first 150 ml (this was on a 20 litre still, on your will be less). it's important to throw out the first bit, because it's methanol. which is poisonous. a little bit won't hurt you too much I guess, but if you drink it regularly it will.

[germanater]

hey quick question i herd from a friend that using copper or any other metal other than stainless steel in your stil can turn poisonous, any truth to that?

[dammat]

That is correct but not if you're using wine to make ethanol. Methanol is produced during the fermentation process. Also a little bit of methanol will hurt you, usually in its purest for though. If your getting boozed up on ethanol, and your drink contains mostly ethanol chances are your body will be busy processing the ethanol and the methanol will slip by unnoticed and it will be excreted safely. But dont take my word for it. I have a little experience with biochemistry and i am certainly NOT an expert. better safe than BLIND OR DEAD>

[dominic.tarr]

yes, but wine it made with the fermentation process... are you suggesting that commercial wine has the methanol removed? I've never heard of such a thing, and haven't been able to find any such information describing such a methanol removing process for wine.

how ever the amount of wine is low, this website: http://homedistiller.org/methanol.htm recommends discarding the first 50 mL of distilate from a 20 litre pail, and says the lethal dose is around 100 ml, so you the amount you would have to drink to be poisoned would be such that you would suffer severe effects from the ethanol first.

and, in the case described here, where you are only distilling 2 litres, would produce 5 mL or less of methanol. probably not advisable to drink the lot your self... and would definately give you a nasty hangover.

i'd throw out 5-10 mL, myself.

also check out this: http://www.antizol.com/mpoisono.htm

I think my earlier comment about drinking regularily thing is incorrect. it looks like piosoning occurs following after a single session where too much has been consumed, and following that, all the alchols will be processed.

[sbdeagle]

Methanol is wood alcohol which is produced in very small amounts during grape fermentation, and most of that is lost in the CO2 during this process. Methanol is very poisonous and can be lethal in very small amounts, but is not a problem in solely fermented wine. If you do choose distill, throw out the first 50-60mL to make sure the methanol is gone. Distillation will bring out the methanol first due to methanols lower boiling point than ethanol, and in a much more concentrated form than when present in the wine. Note: If you do ever drink methanol by accident, it will stay in your system because it cannot be broken down. The only treatment for it is actually to drink alcohol because the enzymes which break down alcohol will slow the poisoning process of methanol, and then seek medical attention immediately.

[Derin]

in turkey,people drink grape rakia with fish it is delicious(i never tasted it though)