Stuck in the House with some Homebrew and James Cameron Films ~

[skippy311]

I did not get my still from Amazon but it looks just like this one.

Amazon Still

Amazon Yeast


Just follow the directions on the package. I heat the water so that the sugar will completely dissolve, it will remain in a super saturated condition when it cools, that is there will be more dissolved sugar in the water than if you had tried to dissolve the sugar in water at the room temperature.

I use a glass 20 l carboy, like the plastic water cooler bottles but glass.

You need a CO2 release valve. You can get one for a few bucks at any wine making supply store but I have taken a rubber surgical glove taped it over the bottle and ran a plastic tube from one finger into a bottle of water. As the gas pressure builds up it can bubble put through the water but no outside air can enter which can contain contaminating yeast spores. You can see the pressure because the glove will expand. Tape it to the bottle

The mix will start to bubble and out gas in a few minutes after adding the yeast. This will continue until the yeast dies. It will die due to one of 3 reasons.

They eat all the sugar and have pissed it all out as alcohol, they have died from alcohol poisoning or they have killed themselves off by generating too much heat.

The desired outcome is that they die of alcohol poisoning, make sure that they have enough sugar and the bottle is kept relatively cool. Cooler will take longer to work but unless really cold will not kill the yeast. Room temperature is OK as the bottle will be a few degrees hotter than ambient. Keep bottle temp less than about 28 C or so, slightly warm to the touch.

In case the yeast dies from overheating, I always save a spoonful or so of the yeast mixture and add it once it stops bubbling. If bubbles resume then let it run, if no bubbles then you are done with that batch.

Run it through the still according to the instructions, throw out the first 30 to 50 ml of product. I use a tea strainer type of funnel full of activated charcoal to run the second distill through to improve taste. Run it through a second time. If you can get the yeast to produce 20% in a 20 l bottle that will give you 4 l of mostly pure ethanol, enough for all hand sanitizing needs.

For tradition I use mason jars for the final product. Avoid plastic in the process as it can dissolve or impart tastes to the product.

Use like a regular hand sanitizer. For sanitizing hands from the inside you can drink it direct, mix with fruit juices or you can get additives that will make it taste like regular spirits. Just be careful, one shot is equal to at least 2 shots regular spirits.

Thank you very much!

 

[hsinhai]

I've got about 20g of brown ale and 5 gal of cider in the fermenter currently.

nice brew bucket..

 

[Rickk]

Thank you very much!

A word on the law of home brew as I understand it. I am not a lawyer so this is only my understanding of the law.

In Canada the law on distilling your own spirits revolves around the tax law. That is it is not illegal to produce it, just illegal to not pay the tax on it.

However there is a look hole in the law. In order to get a tax payment account set up the application process requires that you produce a sample of the spirits that you intend to sale. You can easily argue that this gives de facto license for someone, who can say with a straight face, that they wewe simply producing to test out their recipes in anticipation for an tax license application.

There are no recorded instances of someone in Canada being prosecuted for producing home spirits for personal consumption, gifts as long as the quantities are reasonable. Since you can produce 4 l, equal to 10 bottles or so of normal spirits a week with the set up I describe, not many people would use more than that for personal use so I would think you are safe.

In the US, I am not familiar but in all the old gangster movies where they were chasing the hill-billies it was always the revenueers not the police so I would think that the same logic would apply.

Keep it small for personal consumption, a few gifts and never sell any and you should be OK.

 

[greeniguana]

nice brew bucket..

Those brewbuckets are awesome. I do 10g batches, primary ferment in brewbuckets, then secondary in 5gal ball lock corny kegs. I cut about an inch off the dip tube to leave yeast behind after cold crashing. Freezer is thermostat controlled.