Something my husband wrote...

Distilation Procedure


The Novice Alchemist's Table-Top Distillation Guide

By Sean Loewen

Article 1: An Introduction.

This is the first in a series of articles describing the process of distillation for the hobbyist or aspiring desktop distiller.

Distillation can be fun and rewarding but one must keep in mind that it can be dangerous and possibly illegal in your area. Take the necessary safety precautions such as fire-proofing (a stable setup and a well-ventilated area) and fire-fighting equipment (baking soda works well), expect the unexpected, and check with local law enforcement about the legalities where you are. Also life insurance is a good idea. I am not encouraging anyone to do anything dangerous or illegal, rather I want to highlight these areas so that that no one causes injury or insult to themselves or others. BEWARE! Alcohol is extremely flammable and can be explosive as a vapour. I cannot caution anyone enough about this. You could blow yourself up, in which case you won't be able to post on this forum. So be careful.

OK with that aside, this article is just an introduction really. I'm going to explain what distillation is, outline what the other articles are going to cover, and then I'm going to give you a sneak peak on the next step. Confused? Me too. It's probably the alcohol vapors.

What is distillation? You obviously already have some idea of what it means. Perhaps you even know how it works and what happens on both sides of the equation. Well for everyone else's sake I'm going to give a brief description, because I think this is what makes an introduction, isn't it?

Distillation is the process of using the varying boiling points of two or more liquids to seperate your mixture (such as wine) into the different liquid compounds (e.g. alcohol and rancid grape juice) that it is made from, in as pure a form as possible. (Although why anyone would want pure rancid grape juice is beyond me.)

Sounds simple, right? OK, maybe not to everyone. But basically you're heating a mixture or solution to a temperature high enough that one part of your mixture (in our case, alcohol) evaporates quickly and leaves the boiling container, passes up a column and through some cooling tubes to recondense into another container, while the water and other things drip back down into the boiling container, thereby seperating the alcohol from everything else.

I hope you are all with me so far. If so, read on. If not, reread the above and if you have any questions please post them, I will answer. There are no stupid questions, only stupid TV License Inspectors. (Yes, in Ireland you have to have a license to own a TV. No, I'm not joking.)
Read more