Mephistos Minion Posted October 7, 2006 Posted October 7, 2006 I don't want anything that large. By the way, I opened my barrel today, and it smells strongly like really really strong wine of something. It is stil bubbling slightly, does this mean teh fermentation is still going?
hst45 Posted October 7, 2006 Posted October 7, 2006 Yup, it sounds like the fermentation is still going. A quick way to tell is to shake the fermenter around two or three times. If there is still available fermentable sugar this aggitation will get the fermentation energized and your airlock will bubble vigarously. If it only bubbles slightly I would consider the fermentation essentially complete. With this method you don't have to open your fermenter, thereby elimination the risk of contamination which could yield off-flavors. As far as charcoal is concerned, I have never heard of it poisoning the product. Activated charcoal is recommended for filtration; something about it being better at the adsorbtion of coginers, but I have known folks who simply put a few good handfuls of homemade charcoal from the firepit into a glass jar, fill it with raw product, let it sit for some weeks, filter, and enjoy. I used to live in the south, and knew some folks who were third-generation moonshiners, so my info. is observational, not operational. None the less, the product was quite delightful. My favorite party trick was to take a glass of this "white dog" and drop in an ice cube. This product tested out at 92%, and the ice cube would drop to the bottom of the glass. Sadly my supply is now a long-gone memory.
Chemguy Posted October 14, 2006 Posted October 14, 2006 Hi guys, I am thnking about bidding on this distillery, it is on trademe,(NZ eqivalent of eBay) It is at $50NZ ($30american?) It holds 20L and works fine apparantly. Any thoughts on it.
Ramiel Posted October 15, 2006 Posted October 15, 2006 This is my first post here, so I'll try not to offend anyone! Chemguy: it looks okay, you want some more pictures to see that it's got all the right coils etc. inside, but other than that It looks fine. You may want to modify the coolant inflow to the reflux coil to acommodate a tap or something after you buy it, that way you can get proper control. Weird heatsink! Draco Aster: It's possible that your coil is too big, I've used one about a quarter of that size and it worked well. I recently made another still with a coil about half the size of your pictured one and it was too large! Even tiny adjustments to the coolant inflow and the distillate went from coming over too fast to not coming over at all. It does depend on the control you have over the rate of coolant inflow though. All those people who anneal the copper before bending it: I've been using a steel bending spring (made out of spring steel) to bend metal tubing - you can usually find them at Plumbing trade stores. Maximusg: I see you're using plastic to collect your spirits? At higher ethanol concentrations, ptfe doesn't hold up very well to warm spirits, better to use glass. Another thing which is very important is insulating your reflux column. Insulation means that you have proper control over reflux rates by changing coolant inflow alone. Without insulation, changing weather conditions [e.g. a breeze picking up!] can really mess up your fractioning. Just FYI, my "pure water" rig is a 55L SS keg w/ 2x 2200W element heaters, 160cm x 10cm diameter SS column (packed with about half a meter of ceramic), ~ half meter copper reflux coil wound to 10cm length, 1.5m copper condensing coil. I recycle my coolant water through a radiator (Australia is in a permanent drought these days). She's a real beaut! [edit - spelling]
Chemguy Posted October 16, 2006 Posted October 16, 2006 Ramiel, I'm afraid I cannot get any more pictures. This is the only one displayed. I am probably going to buy it unless it gets too expensive. It does work. I am not a pro at making alcohol so it doesn't have to be state of the art. Not yet anyway. It is a very weird looking thing isn't it.
hst45 Posted October 17, 2006 Posted October 17, 2006 Chemguy, it seems to me that the reflux column might be on the short side. If the column was taller there would be more temperature differential between the top and the bottom leading to better reflux. Not that you couldn't stabilize the temperature to acheive reflux, but it seems to me that a taller column would be more forgiving of small temperature fluxuations. None the less it seems to be a good buy. Even if you want to modify it later you already have probably 90% of what you'll need. You might want to attatch a temperature probe at the top of the column too. Try an electronic meat thermometer. Put a rubber gromet in the top of the column so the probe fits in snugly. Ramiel, I've never seen a heat-sink like that either. It looks like it might be an aluminum extrusion used for a shower-door track or some such thing. That's pretty creative.
Chemguy Posted October 18, 2006 Posted October 18, 2006 Thanks for the help guys, but I was outbid unfortunately. It went for $160. Which is a lot for me. I will look for more and I will get one. I was thinking of buying one new at the distillry shop. But it was $400.
Chemguy Posted October 21, 2006 Posted October 21, 2006 Sorry for doing this guys but here is my n00b post #2.I have succesfully made about a liter of cider. (Not much, but I will move onto bigger things.) And I have searched on google about filtration. But it says I need to use carbon in a filter funnel. Would burnt woods like balsa wood be safe as carbon? If not are there any other ways to get rid of the yeast. Thank you for your help so far.
Swany Posted October 21, 2006 Posted October 21, 2006 Activated carbon is toasted to become very crispy, with no exellent smelly hydrocarbon leftovers that make BP wonderful. I am willing to bet that your cider may take the taste of your non-completely toasted balsa. This may not be good. Activated carbon is readily avalible, cheap, and useful for many other things anyhow.
Mumbles Posted October 21, 2006 Posted October 21, 2006 It is commonly available in nurseries and garden shops for god knows what. It is common to find it around ponds and aquarium pumps and such, where it is used as a filtering agent. Also those water filters are charcoal filters. Pour it through one of those a few times.
Mephistos Minion Posted October 22, 2006 Posted October 22, 2006 If you are going to drink your cider then get activated carbon from the home brew shop. I wouldn't trust anything not made for use with consumables IE garden or pool charcoal.
h0lx Posted October 22, 2006 Posted October 22, 2006 Just tought I'd share, the violent fermenting is over, I estimate about 2 weeks until, it's done.. my baby:http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/6104/p1010146uv3.jpg(BTW it's my first attempt and it is 15l of apple wine)
Mephistos Minion Posted November 4, 2006 Posted November 4, 2006 Nice one htere h0lx. Just wondering. Say I have my barrel of fermented sugar water. And say someone wanted to mix it with cordial water to make it alcoholic. Would this be a resonably safe thing to do? No distilling, just the 23% stuff. Or is there shit in there that will kill someone if they decided to drink it?
Draco_Aster Posted November 4, 2006 Author Posted November 4, 2006 Well I would then say that filtering out all the bad tasting yeast, then mixing with activated carbon would be wise. If you do go with the carbon then you can't just pour it through like a filter, you will need to let it sit for a while and swirl it round (so I have heard). Same with the apple cider there, or any drink that hasn't been distilled to remove voliatiles.
Mephistos Minion Posted November 4, 2006 Posted November 4, 2006 Ah ghey. How long is a while? I am pretty sure I was going to get drunk tonight, but I am out of beers.
Draco_Aster Posted November 4, 2006 Author Posted November 4, 2006 I'm not exactly sure about that one. I would leave it for a couple of hours, but its not gonna kill you if theres still a few voliatiles in there. Mmmmm, drunk, haven't been there for a while.
maximusg Posted November 4, 2006 Posted November 4, 2006 I've dipped my finger into my wash before distilling... it tastes like Vegemite and molasses. Which is pretty much what it is. I wouldn't recommend drinking it as is. Remember yeast is a live fungi, i doubt its very good for your insides.
Draco_Aster Posted November 7, 2006 Author Posted November 7, 2006 Yah it does taste gross, but each to his own. The yeast will be dead after fermentation because they cannot survive in an environment with high alcohol (otherwise it would not stop fermenting ).
maximusg Posted November 7, 2006 Posted November 7, 2006 made a 22L wash yesterday using turbo yeast and 6kg of white sugar that turbo yeast is fast shit. its already at 10% avb. another day and it will be done. white sugar tastes kind of fruity and sweet. more so than brown sugar anyway
asilentbob Posted November 7, 2006 Posted November 7, 2006 Well i decided to hop on the alcohol train and contribute somewhat. I actually wrote a little compare/contrast paper on beer and wine yesterday for english... I havn't read through all of the thread, so... Methyl alcohol usually shows up only when fruits are employed as a big source of sugars as i understand it, when just simple sugars such as sucrose are used methyl alcohol content is practicly non-existant, though their are probably still tract ammounts, but hey, ethanol is given for methanol poisoning, so no worrys. My first brew was a crappy sugar wine i tried to use in a solar still, it sucked and i abandoned it because i used bread yeast anyways and alcohol was probably only like 5%. Since then i have gotten my mom's support and have gotten some nice red star yeast, honey, about 4 1 gallon glass fermentors (apple juice at HEB), an airlock, a triple scale hydrometer, and some other nice stuff. 2nd brew was a hodge podge mead since i didn't have enough honey at the time i used some molassas and brown sugar to make up for it. It also had some berry spread of some sort, raisens, cinnimon, and something else... I used a red star wine yeast and it turned out definatly alcoholic, id guess 12-18%, flavor isn't that great, but its only been about 5 months now. Next im debating on either a 1 gallon mead (mabey blueberry) or about 4 slightly less than 1 liter experimental runs (about a gallon total volume). For experimental runs im considering: molassas/honey, mint mead, camsicumel (mead + peppers), maple syrup based, and a few other ideas once i think of them... For christmas im wanting a nice big brew pot (which i could also use for a still pot), a 5gallon PET better bottle fermentor, several more stoppers and airlocks for small experimental batches, many wine bottles (havn't decided between synthetic cork or screw top closures yet, though screw cap would be cheaper since you don't have to buy a corker (to force the corkes into the bottles) too... dried malt extract, nylong boil bags, yeast... I don't know, a good deal more... total is around $120... I also want to try a home brew champagne but the pressure scares me lol. As for distilling i have 90% of the material for a copper packed reflux column, but i havn't soldered anything together yet because i havn't found a pot for the still and i keep having thoughts about how i should do it. Currently im thinking of having the column attached to a plate that can attach to the top of the pot with metal bolts with wingnuts and a plastic or some other material seal. I can get a few types of distillers yeast locally cheap, so im considering this. I feel like im more of a wine guy than a high proof guy right now though...
maximusg Posted November 7, 2006 Posted November 7, 2006 but hey, ethanol is given for methanol poisoning, so no worrys. Yeah heh. my parents didn't believe me when i told them that, but it was on house md. so it must be true. When distilling the first 20-50 ml is discarded (in my case, used to make methyl borate ) and this takes care of the methanol in the final product
somebody Posted November 10, 2006 Posted November 10, 2006 Methanol will be formed thanks the pectine in the pits and skin of fruits, I don't believe it's in the rest of the fruit, so might be dafe to use that.When using normal sugar no methanol is forming at all. MM, yours fermented upto 23% alcohol? most yeasts will die at about 13%, some 'turbo yeasts' might go up to 18%, never heard of over20%.
Mephistos Minion Posted November 11, 2006 Posted November 11, 2006 I am going off what the lesbian woman at the store said. It might be less as she said 8 kilos of sugar plus the turbo yeast makes 23%. I read the pack it said use 6 kilos. So it may well be less.
maximusg Posted November 11, 2006 Posted November 11, 2006 6kg of sucrose is = to about 8kg of dextrose in regards to fermentable sugar. maybe this is what she meant.
Chemguy Posted November 15, 2006 Posted November 15, 2006 Well I have done enough mucking around with plastic bottles with 1L of useless cider... I just bought a $180NZ still off trademe, which is like eBay, but in NZ only. I tis a 25L still and comes with carbon filters, marbles, bottles, etc. I will pick it up over the week-end, and will post on results I get from it.Not that I will be drinking any , I am 15....
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