Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: BjornBee on December 27, 2010, 07:18:47 pm
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I have made a bit of mead over the years. And recently I saw a still on a TV show, and of course now I'm thinking of getting a still.
My questions are....is it legal to have one, operate one, and under what limits?
Can you produce moonshine for home use?
I see plans on how to build one and also actual stills on Ebay.
Anybody have details they pass along?
I would like to build my own.
Thank you.
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I have all the parts for a I think it was called a refractory still. I was going to make fuel out of the sugar od sorghum. You can do it, but you have to register it with the Feds and once you do that you open your property to inspections anytime without warning. That was to use it as fuel , which you need to put methanol in the ethanol so you are not drinking it all day long lol...... Anyways yeah i was going to distill 55 gal longs of sorghum sugar but i decided it wasn't worth doing it illegally nor legally
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One of the problems with stills is that when you ferment some things you produce both good and bad alcohols. In the original product like wines the bad alcohols are in low concentrations and your body tolerates them. When you use a still you are concentrating the alcohols and can bring the bad alcs up to a point where they cause harm. Growing up I remember stories of people going blind from the wood alcohol in the homemade hooch.Different alcs have different boiling points so that is how you seperate them. Just need to know what you are doing. If I remember correctly the wood alcohol has a lower boiling point so comes off first. Discard it.Use a thermometer in your condenser to know when the different alcs are boiling off. I'm not sure if your mead will have any methanol as it seems to be more associated with fruits. I make a lot of fruit wines and sometimes I'm a little suspect of what I am producing, but they are good.
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http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:h3249ih.txt.pdf (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:h3249ih.txt.pdf)
Home distillation of ethanol for commercial purposes is illegal in the United States. Legislation was introduced, but failed to pass in November 2001 to legalize home distillation in much the same way as home brewing of wine and beer were legalized in 1978.
From Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country)
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i've been impressed by the stills on this site:
http://www.amphora-society.com/ (http://www.amphora-society.com/)
...there was someone on one of the beekeeping lists who had a custom lid built for a maxant bottling tank (to use it as a heat source) for one of these stills.
deknow
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Thank you for all the replies and information.
I'll have to give this some more thought.
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Just an after thought. Why would you want to take any quantity of good tasting Mead and reduce it down to 10-15% volume for something that would burn your throat and is not as enjoyable. If you want the cheap way to do this just freeze the Mead and drink what didn't freeze.
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Just an after thought. Why would you want to take any quantity of good tasting Mead and reduce it down to 10-15% volume for something that would burn your throat and is not as enjoyable. If you want the cheap way to do this just freeze the Mead and drink what didn't freeze.
I'm not suggesting I want to distill down the mead.
Although I like your freezing idea. This may make some tasty ice treats. :-D
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I looked into building an ethanol still at one time but gave up because it would be too expensive to convert my truck over to pure ethanol. I even have most of the stuff to build one (only lacking the thermostat).
Some sites touted a distillation rate of 10gal/hr and claim that you could make it for as little as $.68 per gal.
Why use it for fuel when the rednecks around here would pay $35-40/gal for it?
Scott
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I read a little about it a while ago...I think it is only legal to distill water.
There were several commercially produced small water distillers that could be modified to handle alcohol.
But it is only illegal if somebody else knows about it, right? ;) :-D
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i read somewhere that only a select few places are actually allowed by the gov. to make it, but it can only be 100 proof. which makes no sense to me because you can buy bacardi 151 and everclear which is 190 proof. my guess is it is similar to why germany passed the beer purity law in 1516. which was an attempt to keep people from starving to death by using all the wheat and rye for beer when they ran out of barley. perhaps the gov doesn't want us using all our corn for making moonshine for similar reasons, but i think mainly it would be too hard for them to get their share of the profits if everyone had a backyard still.
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I think the primary reason was due to the government losing the taxes off of backwoods shine stills. The secondary concerns was probably due to people making a poisonous product for a profit. i.e using lead lined radiators for condensers, placing old car battery's in the mash etc. I come from a long line of moonshiners-I have several uncles that have served Federal time for it back in the day, however it was a way of life here in the south. My one uncle managed to put his 3 daughters through college selling liquid corn. Small amounts can me made using a pressure canner.
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If not careful one can brew a batch of formaldehyde... it takes specific temperatures and time.
Formaldehyde is also where the going blind stories stem from. Copper or glass for the still. Stainless is OK but tempermental and gives a bad taste.
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DANG REVENUERS !
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Some previous discussions -> http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,11348.0.html (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,11348.0.html)
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Dagummit. You fellers gonna get me fired . Now I have a hankering for keeping up with family traditions. ;)
By the way, those Foxfire books I have spoke of in the past, have plans on making the pot type stills.
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Many years back I worked as an Animal Control Officer. One day we got a call from some people about a raccoon in the house. Went to the house, it was a big old three story with a full unfinished basement, The man who owned it was in a nursing home(terminal illness) and his relatives had hired the church he belonged to too sell all the stuff in the house so the house could be torn down and the lot sold. Anyway, While looking around in the basement for raccoon access I went into the "unused" coal bunker/furnace room. I was awestruck, in the room behind the old coal furnace/boiler was an absolutly beautiful 10 gal copper still along with alot of very old mason jars and long rotted away sugar bags. The church people had no idea what it was I made an offer for it and bought it for $20.
I havent tried making anything in it but it sure looks cool in the back of my barn! Maybe someday when I aint feared of revenuers!
BTW never did find the raccoon
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wow all that copper for 20.00 is a steal alone... good find
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Knew a old Tarheel once who kept a legal still (at least it was legal in those days), a teapot still sit on the side of his wood range. The cooling coil dropped into a coffee mug sitting on the counter. He drank it often enough that the cup never ran over. He started it up each morning when he poked the stove into fire for cooking breakfast.
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Knew a old Tarheel once who kept a legal still (at least it was legal in those days), a teapot still sit on the side of his wood range. The cooling coil dropped into a coffee mug sitting on the counter. He drank it often enough that the cup never ran over. He started it up each morning when he poked the stove into fire for cooking breakfast.
Probably lived to a rich old age also....
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When I was a young boy, I knew of a Mennonite man who had a still and distilled alcohol to use in his tractor. Dad told me the man had to add something to the alcohol to poison it to make sure that it couldn't be used for human consumption...or maybe the guy just didn't separate out the poisonous alcohols since it was just used for fuel.
I do not know if it was legal or not. (And back then, the law often turned a blind eye to Amish/Mennonite activities as long as they weren't causing problems, or if the church agreed to correct the problems in the Amish/Mennonite community.)
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Many years back I worked as an Animal Control Officer. One day we got a call from some people about a raccoon in the house. Went to the house, it was a big old three story with a full unfinished basement, The man who owned it was in a nursing home(terminal illness) and his relatives had hired the church he belonged to too sell all the stuff in the house so the house could be torn down and the lot sold. Anyway, While looking around in the basement for raccoon access I went into the "unused" coal bunker/furnace room. I was awestruck, in the room behind the old coal furnace/boiler was an absolutly beautiful 10 gal copper still along with alot of very old mason jars and long rotted away sugar bags. The church people had no idea what it was I made an offer for it and bought it for $20.
I havent tried making anything in it but it sure looks cool in the back of my barn! Maybe someday when I aint feared of revenuers!
BTW never did find the raccoon
Found your coon!
(http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/126/racoonj.th.jpg) (http://img688.imageshack.us/i/racoonj.jpg/)
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When I was a young boy, I knew of a Mennonite man who had a still and distilled alcohol to use in his tractor. Dad told me the man had to add something to the alcohol to poison it to make sure that it couldn't be used for human consumption...or maybe the guy just didn't separate out the poisonous alcohols since it was just used for fuel.
I do not know if it was legal or not. (And back then, the law often turned a blind eye to Amish/Mennonite activities as long as they weren't causing problems, or if the church agreed to correct the problems in the Amish/Mennonite community.)
you are supposed to add methanol to the ethanol to make it unfit for human consumption.... why do I know this?
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I think it's legal to distill essential oils. If you look at some of the "essential oil" stills they have a link for people who live in New Zealand. It is instructions on distilling alcohol with this still,while specifying it is illegal to do such things in the US.
http://www.moonshine-still.info/Turbo%20500%20manual.pdf (http://www.moonshine-still.info/Turbo%20500%20manual.pdf)
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you are right, an essential oil extractor is legal, i think we just need a real good definition on essential oils LOL , maybe if we stretch it enough it could include ethanol???? then again maybe not LOL
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recently I saw a still on a TV show,
My questions are....
is it legal to have one? NO!
operate one? NO!
Can you produce moonshine for home use? Not legaly!
Anybody have details they pass along?
Yes, remember that from here on the humble spider is your only friend. When you're going to your still early in the morning if you're not feeling spider webs on your face someone else went down that forest path ahead of you. Likely a FED or a T-man!
I expect that your water will prove to high in iron to use to make good whiskey.
I would like to build my own. Lock yourself up... I mean knock yourself out!
Don't ask me how I know this but it is even illegal to grind sprouted grain without a ATF permit. Try to get a grist mill owner to grind malted or sprouted grain for you if you think I am lying and see how fast they show you the door.
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you are right, an essential oil extractor is legal, i think we just need a real good definition on essential oils LOL , maybe if we stretch it enough it could include ethanol???? then again maybe not LOL
When Socrates was faced with banishment from Athens (the only society he knew) or death - he chose death and drank the hemlock (tea?)
Socrates already proved that a social life can have a very high value, and can be essential to a full life.
Given that...
Social life='essential',
Oil = lubricant;
Alcohol = 'social lubricant':Alcohol = essential oil.
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see that is why I need philosophy for dummies book... lol
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I once got asked to help a friend clean up his father in law's property so it could be rented out. Out in the barn, up in the loft, was the cone off a still that was huge. That thing would have fit over a 55 gallon drum.
I talked myself blue trying to get it, but all he could see was $1 a pound copper.
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The hard part about doing it would be finding a place. Not exactly something you wanna do in the backyard of the subdivision. You need somewhere out in the middle of nowhere as running it gives off a odor. You also need lots of cool water. Today there aren't too many ATF agents out there busting small time folks your more likely to get caught by the local police department (know a feller that let a guy fire his up to run some shine and got caught that way). As for making mead liquor and messing up the taste give me a bottle of Remy Martain any day as to a bottle of Champagne.
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is there any threads on making mead?
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Put "making mead" in the search box. There are quite a few here.
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Word to the wise... When purchasing a still, make sure the solder is not LEAD. Here is a picture of my $300.00 E-Bay mistake.
(http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9158/still001.jpg) (http://img824.imageshack.us/i/still001.jpg/)
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when I was a little guy visiting a uncle. He took us for a ride down a old rail line to cavedin tunnel. we walked up the creek along side the tunnel to a buch of braires. walked Thur to a opening that went into the hill side. it came out inside the tunnel. there stood a old steam engine train that he and his friend turned into the mother of all stills :shock:. the smoke ran Thur a cooling jacket of water then into a off tunnel. they produce allot.(he had every toy that a man would want and never had a job.) I think people knew about it but were reward for silence :-X. homebrewed right is the best medicine for the common cold. (haven't had one in 20+ years :-D.he pasted away in the 80's at the age of 92. never sick a day in his life. die of a fall ( hit his head and had a aneurysm.)
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Mile High Distilling has lots of NICE Stills.
www. milehighdistilling. com
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Word to the wise... When purchasing a still, make sure the solder is not LEAD. Here is a picture of my $300.00 E-Bay mistake.
(http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9158/still001.jpg) (http://img824.imageshack.us/i/still001.jpg/)
you could still make some fuel in that still........
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... When purchasing a still, make sure the solder is not LEAD.
Well Slacker361, you asked for it so I will give it to you.
For something as small as what I saw in the photo use a large stainless steel pressure cooker for you still pot. Make a hammered copper capper and thumper combo and fit it down stream, above and not to far from the lid. It may be necessary to drill and tap a larger hole in the lid. Remember we are dealing with spent yeast and maybe grain residue here. You must keep these residues out of the worm if you intend to keep your still trucking. When heat hit’s the mash, the CO2 starts cooking off and bubbling. The yeast residue can heave then and plug the worm. Finally add a long clean pure copper condensing worm.
Set the cooker upstairs and run the worm downward and into one side of your family freezer, then around and around and around and out the bottom or the other side. Or route the worm through a large plastic drink cooler filled with ice. A coffee brew basket, or a stainless steel honey strainer and a cloth coffee filter large enough to hold a hand full of homemade charcoal and you are ready to rock and roll. Don’t forget you need a glass quart jar or two to catch the run, a heat source, and someway to monitor and fine tune the temperature and pressure. You will also need some primary fermenting vessels. You can cut down on pouring or flushing spent mash down the Lou if you make Sour Mash squeezing since you recycle 20% of your spent mash to sweeten (Sour) up your new beer.
The above setup will runoff a fifth or two of 100 proof a day, and more if you work everything just right. If you are able to drink more than that, then you can have my share!
Next week I will teach you how to char or turn ever clear into chartered whiskey while your customer waits.
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... When purchasing a still, make sure the solder is not LEAD.
Well Slacker361, you asked for it so I will give it to you.
For something as small as what I saw in the photo use a large stainless steel pressure cooker for you still pot. Make a hammered copper capper and thumper combo and fit it down stream, above and not to far from the lid. It may be necessary to drill and tap a larger hole in the lid. Remember we are dealing with spent yeast and maybe grain residue here. You must keep these residues out of the worm if you intend to keep your still trucking. When heat hit’s the mash, the CO2 starts cooking off and bubbling. The yeast residue can heave then and plug the worm. Finally add a long clean pure copper condensing worm.
Set the cooker upstairs and run the worm downward and into one side of your family freezer, then around and around and around and out the bottom or the other side. Or route the worm through a large plastic drink cooler filled with ice. A coffee brew basket, or a stainless steel honey strainer and a cloth coffee filter large enough to hold a hand full of homemade charcoal and you are ready to rock and roll. Don’t forget you need a glass quart jar or two to catch the run, a heat source, and someway to monitor and fine tune the temperature and pressure. You will also need some primary fermenting vessels. You can cut down on pouring or flushing spent mash down the Lou if you make Sour Mash squeezing since you recycle 20% of your spent mash to sweeten (Sour) up your new beer.
The above setup will runoff a fifth or two of 100 proof a day, and more if you work everything just right. If you are able to drink more than that, then you can have my share!
Next week I will teach you how to char or turn ever clear into chartered whiskey while your customer waits.
Ummmmmmm.........WHAT????????????????? :roll: :roll:
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:roll: Aren't we speaking here about making a moonshine still? If we are then my previous post tells you how to make a moonshine still that is capable of distilling all the hooch you can drink. Well maybe not all the hooch you can drink since I don't know how much hooch you can put away. :-D
Do be careful with you still's temperature however, because to hot and you will be distilling paint thinner and not moonshine. Also to hot and you may saturate the air around you still with alcohol fumes. In this case you may get your 15 minutes of fame.
With a little luck, a good still hand can make 1.5 gal of shine from 10 gal of beer (mash).
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nah all i said was that the still that was made with lead solder , could still make some fuel....since we should really be drinking lead.....
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Someone mentioned and don't know if it's true or not but you can register your still with the ATF and produce a few gallons a year. Although I'm sure that with fees and what not it would be cheaper to buy the stuff in the store since it requires inspection.
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Her is a good place to read info. about types and laws.
http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/ (http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/)
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Mike. here is a couple of other options.
http://www.milehidistilling.com/ (http://www.milehidistilling.com/)
Still Spirits Turbo 500 Still (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2HBChcwcuU#ws)
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ooooh if i only had 500 bucks laying around that would be my new toy
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$500? This looks like a $25 coffee pot from a garage sale and a few parts from the local hardware store :-D
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$500? This looks like a $25 coffee pot from a garage sale and a few parts from the local hardware store :-D
Yeah but you can't buy the beads for the reflux in the hardware store and unless you buy them in bulk you can't get them and they are expensive. You can sub small copper tube but it's worth 500 for me to not have to spend the time cutting the stuff up into little beads. :evil:
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$500 is steep. You can buy a nice complete setup online for $300.
I used to do some home distilling just for personal use years ago (mostly as a challenge/hobby) with a little stainless and copper stove-top still I built with plans I found online. It was a reflux still and turned out some pretty potent stuff. Up to 190 proof. The "Going Blind" hype is ... mostly hype. According to what still you go with, (Go with a Reflux) and the rate of flow, you throw away the "heads" which is a small amount of the first amount of your batch, and it eliminates all of the hazardous chemicals. Remember that when moonshine was being produced way back, they were adding all sorts of bad stuff to it to increase yields for sale, and cooking in lead lined or soldered equipment, etc. People were dying because they were drinking formaldehyde and other garbage.
As long as you're not selling it to your buddies or telling your neighbors what you're doing, having a small (easily broken down and easy to hide the parts) still isn't a huge deal. Yes it's illegal, just don't run your mouth and don't be dumb. It's like growing pot, if you have 1 or 2 plants for your use, you'll probably get away with it. If you have your entire attic filled with plants and a $3k electric bill.... another story.
Everything you need as far as thermometers, filters, etc. are on brewhaus.com. I recommend reading a lot and understanding the entire process. It's mostly simple math, but everything you could ever want to know can be found on forums and online literature.
It was a lot of fun for tinkerers such as myself.
And for legal purposes; I have no stills or even the parts to them anymore. It was a fun hobby.
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$500? This looks like a $25 coffee pot from a garage sale and a few parts from the local hardware store :-D
Yeah but you can't buy the beads for the reflux in the hardware store and unless you buy them in bulk you can't get them and they are expensive. You can sub small copper tube but it's worth 500 for me to not have to spend the time cutting the stuff up into little beads. :evil:
stainless wool....... that will work too......
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If you want the cheap way to do this just freeze the Mead and drink what didn't freeze.
freezing (aka jacking) is also distillation, also illegal.
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Hey guys, in a past life :roll: I did a bit of stilling. You will find plenty of good information on this forum: http://homedistiller.org/forum/ (http://homedistiller.org/forum/)
I started off with one of those stills you buy from the home brew shops etc and it was ok, but it was expensive and didn't work as good as a cheaper home made kit. When I started learning more I built a new still from a beer keg and some copper pipe. For the packing in the column the best material is copper mesh as the more copper in your still the better the outcome.
Anyway, if you are interesting in stilling, check that forum above.
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moved to:
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,35359.new.html#new (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,35359.new.html#new)
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k9
Post this recipe here too if you don't mind.
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,25520.0.html (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,25520.0.html)
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Good plans at monshine-stills.com with answers about most of your objections and cost concerns. You can also buy a re-jiggered water distiller for a couple hundred bucks for extracting your essential oils or water of life in small quantities. I have 12 gallons of mead and many gallons of homemade wine that I just don't get drunk. Appears like I should at least reduce the volume of what I have sitting around not getting drunk. As far as breaking the law, we the people have allowed government to pile so many on us that we are all guilty of something and jailable anytime they want our property.
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i read in past entries about stills though not legal also need to worry about heavy metal poisoning. i had a glass still with a stainless steel temp. gauge. that poisoned output
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I make my own wines from our blueberries and scuppernongs. This year we had excess pears so I made pear wine but I don't care for the flavor. So it would be nice to distill it down to some homemade brandy instead of throwing it out. The wine doesn't taste bad there just isn't much flavor to it and we like to be able to taste the fruit. I am going to try again next year but let the pears soften a bit first. they were ripe but a bit firm. I just hate to see five gallons of any wine go to waste!
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WitsEnd,
Letting wine age a bit will often allow the flavors to come to the front.
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WitsEnd,
Letting wine age a bit will often allow the flavors to come to the front.
Or turn to Vineger lol
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moonshine-stil.com has a fine set of blue prints and a tutorial. ethanol production is not exactly rocket science. You just throw away the first cup full of the run and that is about the end of the bad stuff if you are a competent brewer. If you make wine and beer that doesn't hurt you, it is not much of a step up. On the other hand the fool killer is always available and actively seeking fools. Some of these folks that worry so much must have a whole lot more to live for than I do! You just can't worry about everything.
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$500? This looks like a $25 coffee pot from a garage sale and a few parts from the local hardware store :-D
Yeah but you can't buy the beads for the reflux in the hardware store and unless you buy them in bulk you can't get them and they are expensive. You can sub small copper tube but it's worth 500 for me to not have to spend the time cutting the stuff up into little beads. :evil:
stainless wool....... that will work too......