seabass07 said:
Isn't it legal to distill alcohol for fuel use? If it's not going to be consumed, there isn't a problem. Just light it on fire and call it fuel.
Pretty sure anybody using a beer-like grain bill and/or adding hops, not to mention bottling/kegging, and, well, drinking it, are obviously producing it for consumption. I hope you're not being serious, but I've lost count of how many times I've seen people on this board seriously think they've ingeniously thought up "loopholes" and other ways to beat the system for pretty much any and every law that's ever been discussed here, no doubt feeling very clever and proud of themselves for outwitting the man, despite the fact that very few (if any) of these ideas could ever stand even the slightest chance of helping them circumvent a law.
But, many people are fine with breaking the law, so I should add this: ever drink whisky? That's what happens when you distill beer, though in that particular case it's unhopped. The reason I point this out is that the distilled alcohol carries most of the flavor compounds (and a fair bit of water) with it, which is why the flavor intensifies as the alcohol content does too. However, if you distill whisky several times and you have the ability to separate nearly everything else to the point of being nearly pure alcohol, you essentially have vodka (though vodka is diluted with water back down to around 80 proof).
So perhaps if you have the equipment/capabilities to produce clean vodka (easier said than done, and quite expensive), you might be able to save some of the "waste", though since the information on that waste is nowhere near as abundant as that for the actual DESIRED product, I'm not too sure of the chemical makeup of that waste. There's probably residual alcohol left that's difficult to get rid of, but it's obviously a, smaller amount than you started with (seeing as how you end up with nearly pure ethanol that used to be mixed in it), but I have no idea how much. Still, it's an improvement, but that's just the alcohol part. What issv54 happening to the rest of that "waste"? Many hop compounds, for instance, are quite unstable, and I would imagine that, at best, you lose the hoppiness, and at worst, it creates some horrible off-flavors. Same goes for many yeast-produced compounds, and so you'd really have to choose a style with minimal hops character, and probably minimal yeast-derived flavor as well (eg Belgians, wheat beers, etc). Good filtering would probably also be needed, as subjecting all those yeast cells to the distillation process would likely be awful.
So, like with whisky, you'd probably need to focus on a very malty brew... which doesn't exactly give much room for pantydro-- *ahem* styles that are widely enjoyed by females not entirely into craft beer. But that's an issue that only even matters if you choose to ignore the fairly large legal issues. And even then, perhaps the biggest detterent is the equipment investment required to do this and have any chance at success (much more than your basic pot still, that's for sure). It would be several thousand dollars... insanely high when only needed for half a year, and especially when the potential for decent results is totally up in the air. If there were greater certainty, I'd actually strongly consider investing in it myself, as I would like nothing more than to reduce the alcohol content of my own beer, for my own consumption long-term.
(Apologies if the writing ends up a bit odd in places, I was nearly dozing off back to sleep at parts!)
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