Spirit distilling

[Bolebroke]

We are thinking of producing our own fruit based spirit using an old still. Anyone got any experiences.. ?

[Gaspode]

you do know it's illegal, don't you?

[Bolebroke]

Yes thank you. We are talking commercially here. Customs and licences and all that. Appreciate your concern!

[Gaspode]

Ah, right! I thought you were considering setting up a backyard still to make a bit of Calvados or something. In which case I would have been very interested in learning how it's done. From a purely theoretical point of view, of course. I could never indulge in such an activity myself, it's illegal

[fredt]

Gaspode said:

Ah, right! I thought you were considering setting up a backyard still to make a bit of Calvados or something. In which case I would have been very interested in learning how it's done. From a purely theoretical point of view, of course. I could never indulge in such an activity myself, it's illegal

sorry for OT

but I did this when I was a 'kid' (we were 17)

welded two stainless buckets (25 liter each) together and connected a 2.5 inch pipe to the bottom of one of the buckets. It was 60cm long iirc and half filled with glass beads. about two thirds up there were two smaller pipes going through attached to cold water supply to regulate temperature (was kept at 78.4 degrees c at the top)

at the top there was a small pipe for the distillate to come out, which had a sleeve around it with cold water going through to make condense the alcohol vapor to a liquid (not sure about the English technical terms here)

[Mobile Chicane]

The name of the device in which the distillate is cooled is a Liebig condenser.

I have long considered doing this myself. My father had a still and made a fabulous (5 times distilled) vodka).

[Willy Holloughby]

I would imagine if I had done this when I was younger I would have made a still using a burco boiler as you can control the temperature and has a handy hole on top, a copper t-junction with a thermometer and connected to coiled copper pipe contained within a large bucket full of cold water.
I would imagine I'd have used home made wine as a distilling liquor and I'd imagine the end result was pretty harsh.
I would imagine I would like to try that again some time as I have been watching too many episodes of Moonshiners.

[Gaspode]

Willy Holloughby said:

I would imagine if I had done this when I was younger I would have made a still using a burco boiler as you can control the temperature and has a handy hole on top, a copper t-junction with a thermometer and connected to coiled copper pipe contained within a large bucket full of cold water.
I would imagine I'd have used home made wine as a distilling liquor and I'd imagine the end result was pretty harsh.
I would imagine I would like to try that again some time as I have been watching too many episodes of Moonshiners.

I wonder if anyone might have imagined trying to distill cider, if they had, I wonder what the imaginary result might have tasted like?

[Bolebroke]

I wonder...do you know anyone that's tried, perchance..?

[Willy Holloughby]

Gaspode said:

Willy Holloughby said:

I would imagine if I had done this when I was younger I would have made a still using a burco boiler as you can control the temperature and has a handy hole on top, a copper t-junction with a thermometer and connected to coiled copper pipe contained within a large bucket full of cold water.
I would imagine I'd have used home made wine as a distilling liquor and I'd imagine the end result was pretty harsh.
I would imagine I would like to try that again some time as I have been watching too many episodes of Moonshiners.

I wonder if anyone might have imagined trying to distill cider, if they had, I wonder what the imaginary result might have tasted like?

I would imagine it would taste quite nice.

[Gaspode]

Bolebroke said:

I wonder...do you know anyone that's tried, perchance..?

I would imagine that if they had tried it with some basic chemistry equipment they might have had knocking about, the result would probably have tasted pretty awful, but it might have been enough to get them thinking about doing the job properly, on the basis that if French farmers can do it, how hard can it be?

[fredt]

We made basic (quite and understatement) 'wine' from water sugar and yeast. That was it.

The distilled result was pretty nasty. I think it was 80ish % alcohol that we watered down to 40 and filtered through 5 feet of activated carbon.
It was so rank we actually considered not drinking it, and considering we were 17, it was Saturday, we were broke and had nothing else to drink that's saying something
Anyway we drank it to good effect.

Not sure why as others has produced decent alcohol from this very basic wine.

The Austrians are very good at this with a lot of the population distilling their own 'Obstler'. My brother used to work down there and sometimes came home with some fantastic home distilled stuff from colleagues down there.