Still

[Beer w/Straw]

I posted this on a science forum yet I gave a nuance...

And I would think posters on this forum have more experience in fermenting than me.

....

....

If I were to create a still (temperature control was my first concern but technology has progressed since Al Capon and prohibition and I live on the Moon where laws are different) if I where aiming for 95% alcohol I can also get methanol not just ethanol and I hear that would make you go blind.

I feel I've been shunned from brewing forums for posting about genetically modified yeast to make THC so you can have a drink and get stoned. Maybe they had a purest attitude and I was too fringe.

But now I could be entering danger levels.

Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water and I could set the temperature, say 80, 85, 90, 95C, no explosions or fire happen.

But, if I did this, are there poison hazards?

I don't know how many names alcohol has.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Does methanol have a lower boiling point than ethanol?

 

[jtratcliff]

Yes... Methanol will come off first... you'll typically discard the foreshots...
A countertop air distiller will work, but it doesn't have temp control either. So harder to get "clean" flavors... Depends on what you're after.

 

[jtratcliff]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forums/distilling.281/
https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

[Toxxyc]

The end result you're aiming for is more important to decide on a still design. Pot stills and alembic stills, for example, carry a lot of flavour into the final product, and generally doesn't distill to very high ABVs. Reflux stills on the other hand strip a lot of flavour, but you can distill to very high numbers using those.

I'd say a good middleground to start off with is a hybrid still, essentially a pot still but with the option to switch reflux on the column on or off. That way you have a bit of "best of both worlds" there.

 

[Snickers]

Does methanol have a lower boiling point than ethanol?

Methanol will vaporize beginning at 71c/160f and ethanol begins to vaporize at78.3c/173f. I would suggest if using a pot still get temp to 77c/170f and wait until it stops coming out of the condenser. Hold that temp for about 10 minutes, then increase to 79-80c/174-175f and you will begin collecting ethanol. I would also recommend having at minimum 20 small containers to effectively make your cuts. It is somewhat easy to calculate the size and # of containers you will need based on the size and ABV of your wash. You will find 3 basic cuts after the methanol/foreshots seperation and they are heads, hearts, and tails. But if you plan on multiple runs on this wash it would be senseless to worry about cuts until your final run/spirit run. Good luck, hope this helps, and happy distilling.

Oh yeah, I've heard that if you drink beer w/straw you get hammered quicker !!!

 

[Snickers]

The end result you're aiming for is more important to decide on a still design. Pot stills and alembic stills, for example, carry a lot of flavour into the final product, and generally doesn't distill to very high ABVs. Reflux stills on the other hand strip a lot of flavour, but you can distill to very high numbers using those.

I'd say a good middleground to start off with is a hybrid still, essentially a pot still but with the option to switch reflux on the column on or off. That way you have a bit of "best of both worlds" there.

Nice post. Glad somebody understands the differences. I would also like to point out that there are multiple differences between the hybrid still designs ie... Liquid management, vapor managment, and cooling management. It would be advantageous to understand the differences. I utilze all three capabilities im my pot still column attachment. Very versatile. Thanks for bringing the subject up Toxxyc.

 

[bracconiere]

I feel I've been shunned from brewing forums for posting about genetically modified yeast to make THC so you can have a drink and get stoned. Maybe they had a purest attitude and I was too fringe.

i don't care about THC yeast, but the morphine ones were pretty cool...wanted to start wild ferments next to the place!


i've never worried too much about the methanol in distilling...figure if i drink enough of it, the ethanol would get me first, otherwise drinking it undistilled would be bad too?

(and i have tried bud cell cultures for a kick. looked into restriction enzymes, all kinds of cool biotech! Welcome! )

 

[Snickers]

Would love to talk with you one on one regarding genetically modified yeast. Very interesting.

 

[PuddingWar]

Distilling is a fun and challenging hobby too but there is a lot to learn first thing to keep yourself and others safe, as well as a lot of options to consider for stills bases off of what spirits you want to make. You may want to jump over to home distillers form or and of the other ones out there and read through some of the getting started pages to start off on the right foot.
good luck

 

[Orval]

Forget about temperatures, t° changes matter! You always have a mixture, so the boiling t° of that mixture will depend upon the relative % of each component. I always do striping runs in a pot still setting, no cuts. I do three stripping runs for one spirit run. ABV of your low wines must be lower than 42%!!! The spirit run goes through the VM (vapour management) reflux still. The difference between the two, the pot still column isn’t as tall as the reflux, there is no packing material, no reflux condenser. Moonshiners use pot still and have two runs. For a spirit run, I let the system warm up with valve closed (! There must be an air inlet at the top of your reflux condenser!), wait for about one hour to have everything well balanced, then open the valve a little, the first products coming out are the fore shots (acetone, methanol-poison! discard or keep as general purpose solvent) then the heads, then open full valve progressively, the heart (ethanol), your desired product comes, when t° rises again, it's time to check whether you have tails coming, then time to stop, tails may be sticky heavy products. To keep some flavour, you can add some heads/tails to the final product, hence the importance of keeping your product in separate and numbered small jars you can blend afterwards. There are many types of reflux designs, I would not recommend the slanted plates liquid management reflux head often named Boka head. I highly recommend “The Compleat Distiller” by Nixon and Mc Caw, it's available as pdf file here: https://griersmusings.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/the-compleat-distiller.pdf

the file is too large to be uploaded here...

I attached another article “Blue Flame”, there are some comments I wrote in French for my son , but the original text is in English