Home distillation?
 

I'm looking for information on the equipment needed for home disitlliation. I'm not distilling my own alcohol, but I am trying to seperate alcohol from water. Any advice would be great. I have a basic idea of HOW it all works, but if anyone has some experience, and maybe even some part numbers, that'd be great. :)

If you just want to distill alcohol from water, buy yourself a set of reflux/distilation glassware. You heat up the mixture to i believe around 60c to boil off the alcohol, that evaporates up a tube, goes through a condenser then collects in a seperate location. You won't get 100% pure alcohol, but it will be close.

This is a basic schematic
http://blog.crispen.org/images/distillation.jpg

Its something i've done in a lab a thousand times, nothing like creating your own super mix vodka.

Part numbers, depends on how much you plan on distilling and what you want to spend. You can do the above with a length of clear hose, a saucepan, therometer and a couple of mugs, or some custom lab glassware.

You can go with the traditional apple jack method and freeze-distill it. Alcohol has a lower freezing point than water, so you put it in the freezer and take the ice out periodically.

Expirience here. Works pretty well, and tastes damn great... With Apple Jack anyway.

stevie- save me from going the freeze distillation method (since it's the easiest). If I were to use stuff around the house, how do I get the evaporate INTO the tube to get to the condensing end? It seems as though most things that are safe for heating (say stovetop) do not easily get capped off with a small hose leaving from there...

Get a glass tumbler, put it in a small saucepan filled with water, heat the water up to the required temperature (78C)

Get a funnel, put it over the mug with a length of tube so the evaporate goes up it. Run that tube into a bottle in a bowl full of ice. In theory that should be enough, the hot gasses with travel around the tube into the bottle and condense. If you can loop the tube up high, then come down, you'll get some condensation due to the air temp cooling the gasses before they get to the bottle. You'll need to make a small gap in the top of the bottle (the bigger you can make it the better to account for this) to allow some of the hotter gasses to escape, or it might explode under pressure.

Its not too efficient, but you'll get your alcohol if you keep the temeprature right on the stove. You will get water in there, thats unavoidable, but it will be mostly ethanol.



I've just realised the schematic i put up is of a reflux unit, not a condenser, so i will find a better one for you.

Edit: Fixed with a diagram of the lab apparatus i use.