making spirits?

[melbourne man]

i know nothing about making spirits but what would i get if i mixed up 9kg of normal white sugar in 25L of water in the fermenter and pitched some still spirits turbo extra yeast.

[blandy]

I heard a story about a guy who tried this, and it was totally undrinkable. To my knowledge the process for making spirits would use glucose, turbo yeast and yeast nutrient.

Using normal sugar would put some off flavours in your wash in a much higher concentration than if you just used a kilo in your beer.

The Brewcraft brewing calculator should give you an idia about how alcoholic 9kg in 23L will be.
I'd work it out myself but I've exceeded my download limit for the month and am back to dial-up speed.

[lethaldog]

In theory u would need 7-8 kg dextrose 20 litres of water at 40 *C and i pack turbo yeast which would produce around 14.5 % then u would have to distill it to get rid of all them shocking things you dont want in there and this would of course in aus be very illegal. But if you were that way inclined you could possibly produce a clear spirit ready to filter ( around 3-4 litres at 80-90 percent) dilute to desired alc % and filter through carbon.


I THINK, its not like i would want to be doing anything against the law

[Chris]

That stuff would make you go blind. You got to get rid of the methanol and other nasty biproducts.

[lethaldog]

not if its done properly and all the bi products stay in the still, as long as you discard the first 50ml that comes out its completely safe providing you use your head and dont drink it at 80% or something silly like that.
its bassically how distillerys do it but obviously they do it on a larger scale,

( IN THEORY )

[Cat]

One of my friends was telling me about freezing his ginger beer and pouring off the alcohol that appears when the rest of it freezes for an ultra concentrated alcohol %.

Not sure if that would work here, but he did have fun with ginger beer slushies for a couple of days

[Chris]

Oh, I thought you were talking about making spirits WITHOUT distilling. That is a bad idea, but as for spirit-making, I'm all for it. (In countries where it is legal of course).

[Lord Azrael]

If distilling is illegal (In australia), how come they sell stills in my local brew shop???

then again that almost good as asking why they sell bongs in tobacconists

[gregb]

If distilling is illegal (In australia), how come they sell stills in my local brew shop??? ...

It is legal to own a still of not more than 5L capacity for the purposes of distilling water or essential oils.

... then again that almost good as asking why they sell bongs in tobacconists

Again, the bong is being sold *cough* for the smoking of tobacco, which is legal (for now at least).

Cheers,
Greg

[Lord Azrael]

Yeah i hadn't read much into it before i posted... better let my uncle know his 18L still ain't going to be exactly 'legal'...

[Flippo]

As the old saying goes, your not doing wrong until you get caught doing wrong

[OldEvan]

I was told by my homebrew shop guy that a 25L still is fine as long os the condenser isn't screwred into to unit, because technically it is just a condenser (from a legal 5L still) which happens to be sitting next to a 25L fermenter with a heating element in it (also legal). Of course once you screw the two parts together you have a 25L still which is illegal.

[Brewaholic]

hey guys the brew using plain white sugar and turbo yeast should get you between 15 and 20 percent alcohol and before distilling tastes like a sweet white wine but not so tasty! about the going blind thing it is back from the old days when using fementing fruit or vegetables for alcohol production which can produce alot of unwanted alcohols such as methanol which is the stuff that causes blindness this was also distilled in pot stills which have no temp monotoring and would come out at rond 40-50% but with the clean brewing of straight sugar and water it is a very clean wash it will not contain anything a batch of beer doesnt and distilling itself doesnt produce anything that isnt already in the wash it mearly seperates what is there. With a good reflux still any unwanted alcohols such as metanol can be discarded as it will boil off at 64.7 degrees,acetone 56.5 etc and ethyl alcohol which is the good stuff boils off at 78.3 so it is very easy to seperate. a good quality still should produce at least 90% . Still spirits stills {found in most brew shops} produce around 80% leaving 20% rubbish requiring extra filtering to get unwanted flavors out i recomend geting a decent still to start with and you will be much happier with the end result

[beernut]

If I could just get mine to work!

[Brewaholic]

What type of still have you got and whats going on with it????

[beernut]

Sorry 4 the delay Brewaholic. Festive season!
25lt boiler/ 43'' reflux column from "mile hi distilling"(now defunct)
Having trouble stabilising temp thru condenser.
Cheers Glenn

[lethaldog]

Just play with the cooling water till it is right, depending on your water temp you may need a bit more/less

[beernut]

I spent a whole day trying Leigh.
I think the problem is with the heat source.The guy that sold them had a 1400w hotplate to match(110v), but I thought my Breville (1800w with thermo) would be ok but its not.I only ran water thru it to test.
I'll work it out eventually.Still too busy trying to work out the beer.

[Brewaholic]

Hi beernut I think i have seen those columns in the boronia home brew shop they look alright i have found that you cant use a thermostat cause the differential in them is about 5 degrees so your temp goes up and down and so does the alcohol content the still spirits 25 litre stills use a 1380 watt element and i have found them to be good for up to 50 litre stills they are only about 37 bucks from and homebrew shop or just bypass the thermostat but you might have to weld a few more coolent tubes in the column

[beernut]

Thanks Brewaholic,
You're right. I need constant temp from the hotplate.You cant jiggle it on both ends.Soon I'll buy a new one and start experimenting.
Cheers Glenn.