practical side of Smartstills (etc)

[Steve Firth]

Scott Dorsey wrote: [snip]

That doesn't apply in other parts of the world.

[The Natural Philosopher]

mostly by loss of overall alcohol content and gain of various barrel flavours.

Pure distilled grain alcohol is almost pure ethanol.

It takes lots of added stuff to make it taste palatable as in gin or vodka.

[Huge]

Jesus, do you ever post *anything* correct?

Google the "angels share".

[Huge]

That'll be "not", then.

[usenet2012]

In message , Carl D writes

A fellow allotmenteer has assured me that as long as you don't sell the produce distilling is fine & legal. Is he already blind or correct?

[Huge]

In which country?

It is illegal to manufacture spirits in the UK without a distiller's licence which is required under the provisions of section 12 of the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979 and this includes manufacture for "own/domestic use".

Public Notice 39 - "Spirits production in the UK" dated July 2006 provides further information about HM Revenue & Customs' requirements;

[polygonum]

Although rather a lot of years ago, my school had its own still simply for distilled water in the science block. We were told that the revenue had to know of it and could descend at any time to check its contents. I hardly think they are going to turn a blind eye to distilling now.

[Jethro_uk]

The problem AIUI is that HMRC simply never expected people to start distilling en masse. At least that is what a rep from Still Spirits told me when my local brew shop had an open evening to demonstrate the kit and explain the process.

Home distilling really took off in the 90s in New Zealand, when the government there accidentally legalised it. Having let the genie out of the bottle, they decided not to try and re-enact the previous ban. And so a whole country became experts in distilling and making spirits. And exporting the technology.

Here, having been blindsided by events, HMRC appear to have decided the Streisland effect is real, and that (ironically) a blind eye should be turned. Certainly there are shops openly selling stills, and the ancillary kit needed to turn out quite a decent hooch.

[Jethro_uk]

Incidentally, the open evening demo was 2007 ;)

[Nick Odell]

Just out of idle curiosity, do the fusil oils etc pre-exist in the original wine or beer or are they created by the process of distillation?

Nick

[Huge]

The latter. They are by-products of alcoholic fermentation, principally amyl alcohol, propanol and butanol.

[Andy Champ]

Andy

[Nick Odell]

Now I'm confused: I would have presumed that making the original beer or wine would have been a process of alcoholic fermentation. I was wondering if heavy drinkers of beer and wine have more to worry about than their livers.

Nick

[Huge]

It is. I suspect that you misunderstand the word "alcohol" - it doesn't just mean ethyl alcohol (ethanol), it means an organic compound in which an -OH (hydroxyl) functional group is bound to a saturated carbon atom. The metabolic processes in yeast which make the ethanol we want also makes other alcohols; amyl alcohol, propyl alcohol (propanol) and butyl alcohol (butanol) and likely others ICBA to look up. These "higher alcohols" are toxic to a greater or lesser extent (than ethanol*) and in combination in fermentation/distillation are referred to as "fusel oil/alcohol".

When you distil a fermented liquid, these higher alcohols come off at different temperatures and can be separated and discarded.

(* Amyl alcohol has an oral LD50 of 200 mg/kg (mouse), suggesting that the chemical is significantly more toxic than ethanol.)

Well, most mammalian metabolism takes place in the liver, so higher alcohols are processed there, along with the ethanol. I would imagine the enhanced toxicity of the higher alcohols contributes to alcoholic cirrhocis. It's just that in beer and wine there's less of them - concentrating them by distillation is potentially dangerous.

[Nick Odell]

Thanks!

Nick

[Adam Funk]

The way I heard it was that the NZ customs officers asked the government to legalize it because they said enforcing the ban was a waste of their time.

[Jethro_uk]

Something like that ... from what I recall, there used to be a $100NZ license required to own a still which was costing more than that to collect. So C&E asked the government to review it, and somehow without realising the implications they just removed it. When the realised it meant anyone could run a still, everybody was ;)

Incidentally, irrespective of it's legality in the UK or otherwise, I have never heard, read, or known of any police action at all - it all seems to be on HMRC.

[Scott Dorsey]

They exist in the feedstock as a byproduct of fermentation.

What is really cool is that sometimes the distillation process can turn the long-chain alcohols that make up fusel oils into esters that can add pleasant fruity flavours, just as a side effect of boiling and reflux in the presence of an acid.

--scott

[Scott Dorsey]

Ironically, this morning I went to youtube and searched on "isoamyl alcohol" and the first video that came up on the list was a paid ad from Smirnoff.

--scott

[Huge]

LOL, nice one.

(* This should, of course, have said "former". Sigh.)