Moonshine

I've bought lots of reduced grapes at Morrison's, you'll need about a pack per 5 litre of brew.
Wait till some mould starts showing on the grapes.
Then crashed every single grape using pestle and mortal. And put all crashed grapes in a 5 litre plastic bottle.
Now dissolve about 1/3 of a sugar pack in warm water... Boil the water first in a kettle to remove chlorinating agents as microbes that do produce ethanol don't like it, that's why you get a decent yield of moonshine only from the second distillation on the same solution. I've using the same solution about 5 times and then I'm leaving it for Vinegar production.
Now leave it somewhere outside in your garden, making sure lid is not closed, otherwise it will explode.
You will notice a fizzing and bubbling on the second day.
Wait a week and then distil the ethanol off. First 300ml of distillate is pure ethanol, if you distil longer your moonshine will be diluted with water.
How I do it. When brewing is finished and brew is ready to be distilled, I put a massive plastic sieve on 5 litre beaker, and pour the brew through it, catch all the crashed grapes on sieve, leaving clean solution to be distilled.
Then wearing gloves I put all the crashed grapes back in to the plastic bottle, and pour about 300ml - 500ml of the brew back to the bottle. Then I'm distilling off the ethanol, when that's done. I add more sugar to the solution used and leaving to ferment sugar for another week. Like that 5 times easily not changing the solution. Saves tons of water that way.


[Edited on 24-7-2022 by Romix]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GOqF2wyaqA
Also bought this Buchner funnel with 5 litre flask, for the money that I won on slots.
Found a great seller, he sold me a reactor that I use in my moonshine distillation, large Buchner funnel and 5 litre flask also a dropping funnel that sits perfectly on a reactor with the same joint size, and another lid for the reactor with multi outlets... All went very cheap.
What I need now is to buy a gas out adapter for the joints that I have to drip acid using a dropping funnel and pump out the gas out of the reactor.
In this video I use cheap hand vacuum pump from China, it's ok on a small scale Buchner funnel, but on a big one you need to pump it non stop otherwise filter coming off when you pour, and you need a second person to pour while you pump. you can't do it alone, unfortunately. But it could be a doggy filters, first I've received unbranded filters and I used them in the video. Then I reported it to the seller and he sent me more filters, branded this time, made by Whatman, completely free of charge.
Also I have one massive Buchner funnel that I can't find filter papers for, contacted Merk directly asking, been few months since, they didn't reply to me. On Ebay you can get a set of bungs that suits every Buncher funnel exists, got one set for like 10 quid, very happy with the purchase, suits all the funnels that I have.


[Edited on 24-7-2022 by Romix]

Quote: Originally posted by unionised

How are you measuring the purity of your product?

Hydrometer

Be advised that some methanol IS produced in a fermentation, especially from a fruit "mash". Toss your first ten percent of distillate. Seriously. And watch your thermometer.

I have some experience in this area

Experience

Quote: Originally posted by Romix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GOqF2wyaqA Also bought this Buchner funnel with 5 litre flask, for the money that I won on slots. Found a great seller, he sold me a reactor that I use in my moonshine distillation, large Buchner funnel and 5 litre flask also a dropping funnel that sits perfectly on a reactor with the same joint size, and another lid for the reactor with multi outlets... All went very cheap. What I need now is to buy a gas out adapter for the joints that I have to drip acid using a dropping funnel and pump out the gas out of the reactor. In this video I use cheap hand vacuum pump from China, it's ok on a small scale Buchner funnel, but on a big one you need to pump it non stop otherwise filter coming off when you pour, and you need a second person to pour while you pump. you can't do it alone, unfortunately. But it could be a doggy filters, first I've received unbranded filters and I used them in the video. Then I reported it to the seller and he sent me more filters, branded this time, made by Whatman, completely free of charge. Also I have one massive Buchner funnel that I can't find filter papers for, contacted Merk directly asking, been few months since, they didn't reply to me. On Ebay you can get a set of bungs that suits every Buncher funnel exists, got one set for like 10 quid, very happy with the purchase, suits all the funnels that I have. [Edited on 24-7-2022 by Romix]