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Distillation apparatus for ethanol with plastic bottles
I am attempting to make distillation apparatus for ethanol made from sugar and yeast from plastic bottles. I tried making a hole in the bottle cap and
putting a straw through it. Then I did the same on the other bottle. After that I put ethanol solution with yeast in one bottle and I tried heating it
in hot water bath. I put the water bath on the stove and heated it, but the solution didn't seem to boil a lot. I didn't get any distillate, so what
did I do wrong? Also does anyone know some distillation apparatus that are easy to make from plastic bottles?
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peach
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No condensation? Not hot enough?
Alcoholics are way ahead of you. They buy a big plastic roll-away container with a lid. Then put a bucket in that containing the raw alcohol, with a
heater. They gentle heat the raw mix, the ethanol azeotrope vapourizes and then condenses on the sides of the outer bucket and flows down under the
bucket. Instant high proof alcohol.
If you want pure ethanol, it needs vacuum distilling below 75mBar or drying with a strong dehydrating agent.
[Edited on 24-7-2010 by peach]
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bbartlog
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First you should identify the kinds of plastic these items are made of so that you can be sure that none of them soften below 110 deg C or so. I would
be suspicious of the straws.
I don't know what seal you made between the straw and the bottle cap, but as a test you should blow into the straw after it's inserted into the cap;
if you can force air out between straw and cap, the seal is likely not good enough for what you're trying to do.
It would be useful to have an estimate of the alcohol content of your fermented stuff; if it's not a high percentage then the solution will boil
around the same temperature as water, so heat transfer from the bath will be slow, maybe too slow to overcome heat losses before the vapor reaches the
condenser. In that case you might want to increase the temperature of the bath, maybe by making it more of a brine (add CaCl2 or something). You could
also switch to an oil bath, which is what I first used when doing stovetop ethanol distillation; but in that case I think you will really need glass
bottles rather than plastic, and if you have open flame you might want to rethink the whole project.
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peach
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If you're only distilling it to drink it, NAUGHTY! NO PRESENTS FOR ANYONE!
But you can do that with the plastic box method I mentioned above. I tried to find a link to the description on how to do it, but Turbo Yeast seem to
have removed it from their site.
You can easily, and safely, yield high purity alcohol that way for your home fun.
Just remember, alcohol becomes remarkably more flammable and explosive once it becomes concentrated. And the authorities will have a go at you for
risking torching the neighbours and dodging tax if you're making lots of it or selling it; which is what they care about.
I've drunk some near pure alcohol. It's absolutely insane. Firstly, it rips the living shit out my throat, as it chemically dehydrates all the cells.
I also feel drunk fairly quickly, then it cleanly wears off quite quickly.
I have read about bars that vapourise pure alcohol and blow it through face masks using pure O2, which will make the customer almost instantly drunk
and hyperventilated. For what I can gather, they were closed before anyone knew they existed.
If it's strong but not pure alcohol you're after, use the bucket method. If it's pure, it needs vacuum distillation and alkaline earth metal drying.
I have 10l of ~14% fermenting right now. I'm going to distill and dry it up to 100% for solvent use. I'll be posting a photo essay once it's done and
I have my glass sorted. I plan to catalytically convert it to more complex structures and thought it'd be fun to start from a biochemical point.
I would HIGHLY recommend you google 'turbo yeast' and the distiller's yeast from that guy. I've bought it before and it's insane stuff. It digests the
sugar so violently the fermentation looks like a freshly opened bottle of coke. And it'll be done in a days or a week. I've fermented 210l of water
with 50kg of sugar in it with one pack of that, in a week or two, to ~21%. All I did to sterilize the container was rinse it out and loosely put a lid
over it. When I took the lid off, I could hear and see it vigorously fizzing. Far, far, far better than normal wine yeast.
I had to throw that alcohol down the drain when I moved house. Between two guys we couldn't pick up the barrel to move it.
[Edited on 24-7-2010 by peach]
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gsd
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http://homedistiller.org/
gsd
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aonomus
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Words of warning when using Turbo Yeast
- Keep the temperature low so you generate fewer furfuryl alcohols, aldehydes, and ketones
- Keep the temperature low on the fermenter especially during the induction period, it helps slow down the yeast so they don't go out of control,
overheating and over-fermenting in the first few hours, spraying mash all over the place.
- Keep oxygen OUT using a bubbler or airlock, oxygen in the fermenter yields acetic acid
- Use a bigger fermenter than you expect to need
I did a 25L batch of 23% using turbo power yeast and saturating it with just a little under 20kg of D-glucose, yielding about 5.5L of 95% (a little
loss due to a geyser coming out the airlock). I would strongly recommend you *build* a still made with copper piping in the vapour phase at the very
least, since the initial 'stripping' runs may contain sulfurous volatiles which smell nasty. Copper helps remove that from your ethanol (copper wool
helps if you can find it, and it acts like extra plates in a fractional distillation column).
- Also, after fermentation is done, use a clarifying agent to settle out all the yeast cells. After you have used the clarifying agent, build a *big*
Buchner funnel, loaded with celite or diatomaceous earth, and use a vacuum pump to filter the bucket. Do not pour the bucket into the filter, siphon
it slowly so you don't disturb the sludge at the bottom of the fermenter. This step removes the yeast cells and clarifies the 'wash' so that heat
won't release any furfuryl alcohols or other species (aldehydes/ketones).
- Finally once you have the wash prepared in a separate clean bucket, start distilling it. Its hard to heat such a large container evenly, oil baths
preferred if you can use them (keep in mind the flash point of your oil and don't overheat till it smokes!)
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Contrabasso
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Have you considered that "plastic" as you call it means that it will become plastic in properties as you heat it, are your plastic bottles going to
survive the heat of a distillation process, I think not.
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Random
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I am going to use that alcohol as solvent or fuel, I am no way going to drink that stuff  Brine bath sounds good, but I am not sure if those bottles actually will work. Is it easy to make distillation apparatus from tin can?
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peach
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ALCOHOLICS ARE LIGHT YEARS AHEAD ON BUDGET HIGH PROOF ALCOHOL PRODUCTION
That turbo distillers yeast is crazy shit, for sure.
[Edited on 25-7-2010 by peach]
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