DIY Brandy

[charles]

I knew there was a better term.

[Chris Hogg]

Possibly, I don't know, but it would explain why so many varieties of gin have proliferated in recent years, unlike whisky. Gin is just so much simpler to make.

[Chris Hogg]

In the same proportion, perhaps, but in a much higher concentration. Beers and wines contain small amounts of methanol at fairly harmless concentrations, but concentrate it up and you risk trouble.

[newshound]

There's (at least) two factors in play. As TNP said, methanol is more volatile so it comes over in higher proportions in the "first cut", which is why that is discarded by *serious* distillers. Then the fact that you are cooking your original liquor often in a copper boiler means that some of your organic oddments may "crack" into something less benign. At least with freeze "distilling" you don't get the second effect.

[Max Demian]

Is it methylated?

[Paul]

I would take off the fraction from 78C to 79C. If you insist on drinking the output, it should be "pure" :-) I would try to leave a little bit of the ethanol in the distilling flask at the end of the run.

The glass bead column on this one is pretty small. The one on my rig at work was a foot taller, and the chemist who set up the rig, claimed the glass bead column was good for "a hundred thousand theoretical plates", which is a measure of goodness. I had to take my rig all apart at the end of the work day, and lock up the component parts. That's because any decent thief who broke into the lab, the first thing they'd want is my still.

Don't forget to add a boiling chip to the distilling flask. The chip must be discarded from one run to the next, and if the rig is allowed to cool off in the middle of a run, you add *another* chip. Once the gas bubbles collapse in on the chip, you need another to start the process of nucleation again. If the distilling flask is allowed to superheat, it can shoot up the column, blow out the thermometer (mercury spill!), and blow liquid all over the nice white ceiling tiles. This is why we're careful with our boiling chip. I've only seen one stain on a lab ceiling, from that sort of negligence.

The electric mantle heater goes under the distilling flask.

One of the time wasters running a rig like that, is cleaning the distilling flask afterwards. You can burn on deposits on the distilling flask. If allowed to build up a thick layer of deposits, the boiling action in the vessel will be unstable, and even with a boiling chip, the boiling action might not be all that good. If you keep the equipment clean, after you set the control on the mantle, you can relax and just check the thermometer every once in a while. Perhaps a good usage for a webcam with macro capability, as getting up on the bench to check the thermometer is a nuisance.

The distilling flask on mine, might have been two liters, not like the puny thing in the picture. I was recycling hexane for the lab, one of our major consumables.

One cleaner is Alconox. Our lab assistant who did the cleaning, she had a steam-temperature cleaning machine, that was loaded with the Alconox. But for stubborn stains, we'd use "green cleaner" to take care of it. The "green cleaner" is a suspected carcinogen, which is why you might not even find it in a lab today. Generally, the labwork is not intended for human consumption, which is why the green cleaner was used with abandon. You don't throw the green cleaner out, you just throw it back in the bottle. When it changes colour and is no longer green, it is spent, and can be sent to hazardous waste. It rinses off well, but you'd still rinse the living shit out of it.

After a summer of using my still, the distilling flask was as clean as the day I started work there.

A ghetto chemist would have died to have a rig like that. Such beautiful glassware.

Paul

[TimW]

A notorious fake quote. Keep using it so that the world knows you are an idiot. TW

[Dave Plowman (News]

The good thing with Doom is, if he decides to make his own brandy, even the worse wood alcohol can't do any more damage to his brain.

[Cursitor Doom]

We used to use chromic acid back in the day for getting glassware clean. Not sure if that's the same stuff as your 'green cleaner' though. CA's no doubt banned now on elf n safe tea grounds. As a rule of thumb, you can safely assume that anything that actually works effectively is now banned on elf n safe tea grounds. Today's 'green' alternatives don't work and cost at least twice as much. There's another rule of thumb for you. --

"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."

- The Communist Manifesto, Marx & Engels

[Martin Brown]

Chromic acid is carcinogenic so no longer considered a wise choice.

Aerospace has an exemption - semiconductor plants do not.

Piranha solution is considered so much more eco friendly today and is every bit as effective at totally annihilating organic residues. You do have to be very careful how you use it. It takes *NO* prisoners.

It is somewhat dangerous to prepare as well. You need to be in a real laboratory setting these days to get either ingredient. H2O2 at rocket fuel strength is the only chemical I have ever been injured by.

Chromic acid was easier going as a cleaning agent even if it had a tendency to kill off lab technicians prematurely.

[Cursitor Doom]

Can't say I've ever heard of 'Piranha soln.' to be honest. Sounds pretty vicious! As for hydrogen peroxide and nitric acid, I'd imagine trying to source either these days will get your front door kicked in by the anti-terror police. It's such a shame as I still fondly recall the days gone by when you could get all this wonderful stuff and a lot more over the counter at the chemists (*proper* chemists in those days, not 'pharmacists') without being treated like a suspected terrorist. How times have changed. :(

[Fredxx]

The wiki article says, "Piranha solution, also known as piranha etch, is a mixture of sulfuric acid (H2SO4), water (H2O), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)". No mention of Nitric acid.

You're wrong, I can get Sulphuric acid quite easily, for battery strength it costs few £ per litre.

If you're not a Ltd company then for a few £10s gets you a licence.

That is what happens where governments use drones and other forms of indiscriminate killing. It tends to fuel hatred back home.

OOI, if some rag-head bombed your family, would you feel a little hatred to those who sanctioned such an act? Especially from a democratic country where the people are perhaps more culpable?

[Andy Burns]

Err ... it was arson involving 80+ litres of petrol as an insurance job ...

[newshound]

I do recall buying iodine from the local chemist by saying I wanted it to make stains for microscope slides. I didn't, of course (although I

*did* have a microscope).

[Fredxx]

I think buying ammonia at the same time might have raised further concern!

[newshound]

NO! much cheaper for "industrial" grade at the ironmongers.