/diy/ - Do It Yourself

[Anonymous No.271101]

Anyone have experience with moonshine?

[Anonymous No.271103]

Yes.

[Anonymous No.271107]

Yes. Most of it is pretty shitty, but once in a while you come over some better stuff, still shit though. Just buy some proper alcohol.

[Anonymous No.271114]

some kids I'm friends with did some charity work in ghana, long story short the ghanian locals gave them moonshine in return for their work, shit was strong.

[Anonymous No.271187]

>>271107
>I refute your statement.
I know a guy in Tennessee who only makes his own moonshine with local, organically-grown blue corn, and it's pretty damn good, for spirits that haven't been aged in a white oak cask.

I also have a doctor buddy who went to Burma on vacation and he bought some Burmese white-lightning. He managed to smuggle some back through customs and gave some to my brother, who doesn't drink. My bro said that shit was strong.

>what exactly is your question?

[Anonymous No.271198]

I've always kept a mason jar of it for medicinal purposes. It'll numb your mouth twice as quick as vodka.
But I'm more of a wine drinker.

[Anonymous No.271209]

what do you want to know op?

there are a lot of misconceptions but you can make a product thats much better than the cheap shit and even the great shit if you learn the craft well

moonshine is whiskey that has not been aged in a oak cask

[Anonymous No.271378]

Not op, but I've always heard the first batch of moonshine is deadly/blinds you. Is this true?

Also, had some apple pie moonshine a friend of mine made in his backyard. It tasted 100% like apple pie, and 0% like alcohol. I shit you not.

[Anonymous No.271390]

I make moonshine out of fermented fruits, mostly plums. But pear is my favorite.

[Anonymous No.271410]

>>271378
some methanol may be present and is discarded with the heads. some people used to cut with cheaper methanol and this larger dose was what was causing people to go blind. typically fermentation does not produce enough methanol to adversely affect people.

[Anonymous No.271453]

>>271410
>>271410
This and also using lead solder and metals with lead in it.

[Anonymous No.271482]

Id like to know how to build a very cheap and descreet still, and how to create a decent tasting recipe for mash.

[Anonymous No.271580]

partman.se used to have links to a great plastic home made still - using immersion heaters. The temp never got above 50c and it used foodsafe/alcohol safe plastic. He seems to have removed the links now though.

Basically it was a smaller bucker you filled with mash and placed an electronic liquid heater in. This bucket and heater was then placed in a larger bucket, with a sealed lid. Leave for a few days the the alcohol has slowly evaporated off and collected on the sides/bottom of the larger bucket.

I made one a few years back (to convert some AWEFUL wine into something stronger) and it worked well but slowly. Good cos can be left alone to run, and can run in a closet, and has no smell at all. You still need to filter the spirit, and can double distil to make it stronger if needed. Wish could find the plans for you!

[Anonymous No.271581]

Ah ha, found the link: http://amazingstill.com/the-parts/ you don't need to order the parts from him (maybe the heater, I got mine from him as couldn't get one that went to 50c locally) but all the plastics you can get pretty cheaply. Good luck!

[Anonymous No.271586]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNW7j4Shi9c this is a really simple and effective still to make ive never tried proper sour mash moonshine and its much easier to make a sugar mash, dissolve 5kg sugar in 21L of water, add high strength distillers yeast, should be about 12% in 4 days, tastes and smells like balls but once youve distilled it for the 1st run it should be about 90%, then redistill taking off heads and tails, this is the part where you cant be too sparing, the 1st 50ml are likely to contain methanol the taills contain fusel oils which will fuck you up in all kinds of ways and also taste and smell like balls, the second run should yeild about 2.5l of 95% then cut that up to what ever % you want

[Anonymous No.272250]

Don't bother with the plastic stills. They are garbage.

It's easy enough to build a lyne arm and condenser from copper tube.

The tricky bit is a boiler. I used an aluminum pressure cooker. The aluminum held up for a while, but it's pitted and its only a matter of time before it fails. Also, there is some galvanic corrosion where the flange is bolted to the top of the pressure cooker. I used a zinc coated steel flange. This is also a poor choice, because there is potential for zinc to leech into the wash.

The trick is that any moonshine should still be safe to drink provided that you keep the boil low, or use a thump keg. You absolutely do not want anything but vapor to get into your condenser.

Last order of business. People say that the flexible silicone bung that seals the pressure cooker is dangerous as it could leech volatile nasties into the wash which will end up in your moonshine. Not sure if this is true, but it's possible.

[Anonymous No.272251]

The ultimate boiler would be an old stainless steel pressure cooker. The kind that has 5+ clamps instead of bung.

[Anonymous No.272259]

>>271580
i call bullshit because ethanol boils at 79 dg C or 172 F

op your getting a lot of shit advice here but i'll tell you the basics .

>methanol or the bad alcohol boils at 64C so it is common practice to throw out the first 50ml or 1 once out of every 5 gallon batch it is important to note though if it was mixed in with the ethanol or fun alcohol it wouldn't kill or blind you it would just give you a really bad hang over isolating it and drinking it by itself would though this is because ethanol counter acts methenal poisioning

>NEVER EVER use plastic/aluminum lead etc they will poison and kill you the only safe thing to use is copper or stainless steel i can not stress this enough and if you make your own make sure your solder is lead free

> the most dangerous part of distilling besides making it out of retarded shit like stated above is fire or explosion these can also be easily avoided by common sense

do not try to distill while drunk its a terrible idea wait till your squeezings are done if you have a specific question ask away

[Anonymous No.272261]

>>272259
no it does work , by evaporation and condensation , i mean water doesn't have to be 100c to evaporate from a dish left in the sun , but i agree its a bad idea.

and the best boiler is a beer keg with a 2 inch tri-clover cap and 2 inch tri-clover clamp and a ptfe gasket.

[Anonymous No.272264]

ok here's the deal. Go look up boka still designs. They're easy to build vapor management/liquid management stills that can make up 95.6% alcohol in a single run. This is with careful management of your still and this type of still allows for easy separation of foreshots/heads/hearts and tails because it has a thermometer at the top of the column in order to make cuts at different temperature ranges. Also as for as methanol goes (the stuff that makes you go blind) it's only produced when yeast metaboloze pecting a type of fruit sugar. If you're running a wash made of sucrose(table sugar) there will be no foreshots present. It's still worth collecting the "foreshots" as they taste like shit and it's a good habit to get into for when you start fermenting other thing. Generally speaking though most things you ferment will not have enough methanol to actually harm you. In fact they treat methanol poisoning by administering ethanol.

[Anonymous No.272267]

They give you ethanol (drinking alcohol) because the liver has a higher affinity for ethanol so it keeps the liver occupied while you urinate out the methanol. If the methanol is metabolized bt the liver it turns into formeldahyde(embalming fluid) and from there is further metabolized into forming acid(the stuff that makes bee stings sting). Kind of got off the subject but I hate all the ignorance surrounding the subject. Back to the design. Never use plastic or aluminum both break down in the presence of alcohol and heat.

[Anonymous No.272273]

Especially stay away from using aluminum. The ethanol molecules are small enough that they fit inside of aluminum's crystaline structure and cause it to break down. That's why the above poster had his lid become pitted. The resulting aluminum compounds are toxic and may be linked to Ahlzeimers Disease. Stick to copper and lead free solder or if you know how to weld then you can use stainless steel. Don't use carbon or galvanized steel and don't mix steel and copper for parts that are in permanent contant as galvinic corrosion will occur. Basically the copper will rob electrons from the steel and return the steel to it's base compunds I.e. Rust at an accelerated rate. Using rubber gaskets and fitting is also looked down upon as many will break down in the presence of alcohol and heat and may add petroleum compounds to your alcohol which is bad for you and adds a funny flavor to the alcohol. Also read up on how to make a good sugar wash. White sugar is nutritionally dead so it requires yeast nutrients and diammonium phosphate (urea) in order for the yeast to metabolize the sugar. It's important to learn about specific gravity as well. That's basically the amount of sugar dissolved in your wash
that'll give you an idea of what percent alcohol your wash will ferment to. Enough sugar to ferment up to about 14% is ideal much more and the osmotic effect on the yeast cells will cause them to rupture and die. You can add more sugar to obtain up to 18 or even 22% alcohol but you must wait for the yeast to eat some of the sugar. To ferment your wash use either a turbo yeast(expensive option but pretty idiot proof and adds rough taste to the alcohol) or use a good champagne yeast such as premier cuvee. Never use beer yeast or bakers yeast as they have a mucher lower tolerance for alcohol and will die off from alcohol poisoning before they finish the ferment.

[Anonymous No.272275]

never built one but I did save the pic . . .