Safety Rules Of Distilling : How To Stay Safe : New Distillers 101 

Yeap! Kinda like don't drink at the firing range.

Lol “came with ur still”

I'm not drinking, I'm performing quality control!

can we smoke weed kath? LOL JK DONT YELL AT ME.

@@davefellhoelter1343 HUH? THOSE THRE THINGS GO TOGETHER! ATF!!

And even after watching this and touting the safety lessons herein, I had a still mishap this evening. Using an air still, the still had just produced the heads, and it burped lifting the cap/condenser...My reaction was to shove the condenser back down to seal it...What a mistake, it apparently continued to build pressure and then lifted the condenser again, and covered one kitchen wall in wash containing red wine...it blew out 3/4 of a gallon. It was funny to see and I kept laughing for the next 3.5 hours cleaning the mess up. Still funny, but now I have to paint the kitchen.

@@problemwithauthority did you put at least 3 cap fulls of the boil conditioner in there?

@@dack4545 no, only 1.

Gotta do it!

Yeah they are all over the place. The last one I made had almost 0 heads in it compared to other things I have made. I think I got a really clean ferment on that one.

Awesome man! Glad they are helping. Keep chasing the craft!

Awesome man glad it helped!

@Yuck Foutube some people dont even know that and block it somehow also if your thumper sucks liquid back into your boiler it can and does implode . You clearly have no life , going through RU-vid comments correcting tiny mistakes.

Raki.....I will need to do some research!

My grandfather makes it, interresting to see the process.

it can burn hot and fry your head gasket so careful running it too lean but otherwise this totally works the old honda civics love it

means there needs to be somewhere for the steam to exit so the steam doesn't build up and pop the still pot if you get a buildup of pressure and your still cap pops off during a run the vapors can hit your fire and explode

1- kinda depends on your sanitation practice. Outside of that much after 3-4 weeks on the yeast cake can start to give funky flavours due to the yeast cells bursting. 2- acid bath then vinegar run then sacrificial alcohol run is the full deal.

@@StillIt thank you for your input. Can you tell me?? What does your acid bath consist of? Should I plug and fill any coil that I have to let it soak. Might not have container big enough to soak the whole thing... the inside is what we're concerned about, yes?

@@StillIt I did a good long vinegar running and then did a sacrificial alcohol run with a real quick Mash that came out probably 135-137 proof. I'm curious about the acid wash though I think I would like to do that also.... and then the vinegar and sacrificial alcohol all over again just to be safe. Or do you think I would need to do the sacrificial alcohol? Thanks again, Mark

I know it's been 7 month, but better later than never. Methanol acts the same with ethanol than water, ie it mixes together when evaporating. I don't know how it works in high volumes but, I've done some wine distilling in chemistry class. What we've seen is that the temperature of your vapor will climb very fast until it hits a soft ceiling around 65c where it will still climb, but alot slower. That's when the methanol boils. Then it will gradually climb up to 79 where it will hit another soft ceiling. During that time, you'll be boiling methanol, ethanol and probably even some water. (The higher the temperature, the less methanol is remaining) You can't 100% get rid of methanol, there will always be traces of it in the distilled alcohol if it was present in your original product, the same applies for water. That's why it's impossible to distill to 100% alcohol and hard to distill over 60%. One thing to keep in mind, ethanol is the cure to methanol poisoning. Your body uses the exact same process to metabolise both alcohols and ethanol is picked first, which means you body has more time to get rid of methanol through other means (mostly pee) without metabolising it. So, what he means by "methanol is not a worry" isn't always because there isn't enough methanol to hurt you, it's because there's almost always enough ethanol to counter it. It's true for almost every mash, the only one I'd be weary is cider since apples is one of the fruit that have the highest pectin content, which ferments into methanol. Even then, it may only be a problem if you're doing applejack or not getting rid of the foreshots. Disclaimer: My chemistry project was done with fractionnal distillation (think column still), it may not act the same with a plain old pot still

Dude, haha I'm not saying that you should drink the fores. I'm not saying there is not some methanol in the fores. I'm saying that on hobby scale you just don't have enough volume for methanol to be a issue.

@@StillIt depends what your distilling and how you do cuts and what you store. Absolutly done wrong"at home hobby level" can still go very wrong.

👍

That's one hell of a security mesure ;)

potato make the most by a huge margin...then its fruits then its grain. as for sugar its almost nothing

whish i had known this years ago. decades even. out of curiosity, let's say i wanted methanol, would i just want to keep my "fore" shots to the side, or would i be making alcohol out of something different?

It's quite easy to spot test though. Ethanol burns orange-yellow while methanol burns blue or invisibly.

@@ericray7173 methanol also has a nasty smell, ethanol does not. no idea how that would have worked lol

Hahahahahahahahaha. Does your child know that?

@@StillIt - Not yet, but with the foreverness of the internet, I'm sure she'll one day find out that mommy cant handle methanol and acetone without getting knocked up... ;)

Hah! Yeah . . . . Future generations if for some strange reason you are sifting through these comments.......don't judge too hard!

If I REdistill alcohol through the air still do I need to throw away heads??

There is more methanol in orange juice than in most store bought alcohol. Small amounts of methanol are collected throughout the entire run. It is however highly concentrated at the beginning of the run. But on a hobby scale, there is not enough methanol to kill anyone. Still (sorry pun) DO NOT consume it. I am just pointing out that a 5, 10, 15 even 30 gallon boiler will not concentrate enough methanol to kill someone. Commercial distilleries with huge boilers and continuous stills are another animal. Where gallons or barrels of methanol are collected. Hence the allure of small batch hobby distilling. Drink a good hearts cut and there is NO HANGOVER, none ZERO. In my book keep the yeast happy and they produce an excellent drop.

Well said bigedd. As he pointed out the key here is hobby distilling and the scale that goes along with it.

So my question - I keep seeing people say throw away the head when making brandy from (bottled or store bought wine) - Is it necessary - It would seem the methanol is already gone

I make applejack the traditional way, through freeze distillation, and we know from historic accounts that it is entirely possible to go blind and even die from consuming large amounts of applejack. First, you're using the whole apple, which means lots of pectin and so produces lots of methanol. Second, freeze distillation keeps all of the heads, which makes it particularly dangerous. So I'm always cautious about how much of it I drink in one sitting. One glass won't blind me, but a gallon jug of it might.

@@StillIt you don’t have to die to experience methanol poisoning.

Yeah it didn't effect me directly in any way. But yeah......not cool.

Glad it was helpful!

I sealed of a jar of foreshots right off the still and when I opened it the next afternoon the jar damn near blew up in my hand. The lid actually bruised my palm... yeah I let them air out now lol I know expansion from warming up after being collected but this was a bit more than that.

Never had a issue with stored "fores" in 7 years. I use foreshots to start my pellet stove. They are marked "FS - DO NOT DRINK". I store larger quantities in old Jim Beam bottles, again clearly marked. FS stands for ForeShots or FireStarter. ;)

I'm not collection methanol dude.

​@@BigEdsGuns the first rule in storing chemicals or solvents is " never store in any container other than the original container it came in." so putting a deadly solvent aka methanol, acetone, or what ever in a bottle of Jim Beam has got to be the worst idea on record, no matter how well you think you have them labeled . As a one time teenager i know for a fact we don't make the best decisions, lucky for me none of my bad decisions cost anyone's life.you are playing Russian roulette with those bottles.You alone are probably safe, but that stupid 14 year old kid who wont take the 1 second to read your label you made, he or she will pay dearly thinking they just scored a bottle of booze from their old mans stash. Please reconsider your storage choices.

@@trevorlavergne8975 Correct. For safety alcohol is stored in glass, copper, stainless, or wood. ABV above 40% should never be stored plastic. I have never had deviated from process.

One quick question mate.. Do you think it's safe to run a hose from a vacuum adapter into a bucket of water, to try remove flammable fumes? Like instead of running the fumes into the air?

@@michaelhayward7790 If you have to ask, dont run one.

@@samljer iv already tried the first time it blew up

It’s not dangerous as long as you know what your doing. Ignorance is the danger. Not the system. Fire would be equal dangerous if no one ever told you. Fire…. Hot….

@@hondaxl250k0 thanks boss pressure is also dangerous.....

Mate I wish :)

Indeed

Yeah, it's easy to forget how much time and effort you put into getting started.

Brewing and distilling aren't really "Complicated." They are very, VERY tedious, and NO SHORTCUTS ARE TOLERATED. Not "Not tolerated by us," but NOT TOLERATED BY NATURE! This is the part that seems to throw most people off: There are NO SHORTCUTS ALLOWED when it comes to STERILIZING the equipment and materials. "If it ain't sterile, that ain't right."

My biggest concern there would be ventilation.

@@StillIt that's what i figured, I'd assume the fermentation process wouldn't be too much of an issue. the heating and distillation is what would need a pretty good ventilation system correct?

Perhaps in the spam folder, I can check it when I get back to my computer :)

Lmfao! Em keep em coming . Damn auto correct

@@jackpeated8297 2 years late but that was a seriously funny typo!