Using a countertop distillation machine

Aidas · Post by **Aidas** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:24 am

I'm brand new at this.

I'm considering buying a Megahome countertop distiller, but am wondering whether I can use it for home distillation without modifications. Obviously, water and alcohol evaporate at different temperatures, so I'm thinking that if the unit isnt modified, it won't distill the alcohol out of the water, but will distill both and I'll end up with the same level of alchol or lower in the distilled product. Am I correct in this assumption?

thanks for your help.

Post by **golden pond** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:33 am

I have one at my house that belongs to a neighbor of mine, it's called the "Easy Still" holds 4 liters of mash and it works just fine. We found out it was best to preheat the mash first before putting it in the still, it made it start to run much quicker.

Aidas · Post by **Aidas** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:38 am

So it doesn't need to be modified? Easy still advertises here in Europe, but says that they modified it for alcohol distillation. Doing some research on the net, I noticed that it's the same exact thing as the Megahome Countertop Distiller. But the comment that they've modified it raised some concern.

Post by **golden pond** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:00 am

Aidas wrote:So it doesn't need to be modified? Easy still advertises here in Europe, but says that they modified it for alcohol distillation. Doing some research on the net, I noticed that it's the same exact thing as the Megahome Countertop Distiller. But the comment that they've modified it raised some concern.

Yes the one I'm talking about has been factory modified for alcohol distilling and it works just fine, go to
( http://www.brewhaus.com onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow ) that's where this one came from and they have the details on their site.

junkyard dawg · Post by **junkyard dawg** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:41 am

I think you may want to check out the heating element. If its used with water it may be zinc coated. You want to remove that zinc for use with alcohol. Grayson posted a great explanation of how to do this recently...
There may be other parts that aren't compatible with alcohol, so just be sure to check...

Post by **golden pond** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:56 am

junkyard dawg wrote:I think you may want to check out the heating element. If its used with water it may be zinc coated. You want to remove that zinc for use with alcohol. Grayson posted a great explanation of how to do this recently...
There may be other parts that aren't compatible with alcohol, so just be sure to check...

No Dawg, the heating element is not exposed on these units, it's just a SS pot with the element built in underneath the pot.

junkyard dawg · Post by **junkyard dawg** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:31 am

Oh, I see... That thing looks like a real convenient way to go...I guess maybe its a lower wattage element then? It mentions that it will still distill water, but slower. What kind of condensor does it use?

Post by **golden pond** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:48 am

junkyard dawg wrote:Oh, I see... That thing looks like a real convenient way to go...I guess maybe its a lower wattage element then? It mentions that it will still distill water, but slower. What kind of condensor does it use?

The condenser is built into the top or lid, it don't show it in the pictures on their site, but there's a short electric cord that comes out of the condenser that plugs into the bottom part where the heating elements at. Then another plug beside it is the main power source. Its kind of a neat machine.

Aidas · Post by **Aidas** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 12:49 am

So if one buys a machine that's made for distilling water, one needs to modify it for alcohol distillation. Any idea how to do that?

Post by **Tater** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:08 am

If ya needed to do anything at all, Id say it would be to be able to regulate your heat.

Captin Moron · Post by **Captin Moron** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 10:21 am

ive looked into these also, it would be far less suspicious haveing one of these, as well as being able to leave it on the counter without concern with guests etc... Id rather brew in my kitchen rather than the garage... Its less ghetto lol.

They say the mods are to the heater element, cooling fan, and theres is a valve that releses cholorine gases into the air when distilling water that must be removed. If not removed all the alcohol gases would be forced into the air in your kitchen potentially causing an explosion...

I wish i could make these mods myself, because we can get that exact same still without the mods for 99$ or $129 for the SS version. Thats allot better than $300!

http://www.we-beat-prices.com/catalog/i ... b5e787ae7c

This would be a very interesting topic to investigate! It would make a great writeup, and im sure allot of people would go this route instead of building from scratch

It would suit my needs perfectly putting my homebuild rig out of commision. It makes 1 liter in 3-4 hours which is perfect me. and its less than 400watts makeing it extreemly economical! it would cost less than 1.50 in electricity to run it 24 hours! Thats a allot less than what a hotplate cost to run.

We need somone to analyse their easy still. Find out what fan is being used, whats tweaked in the element, and how they bypassed the exhaust valve! Maybe its just some resistors and a replacement high output fan, and a screw to plug the exhaust valve

agl · Post by **agl** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 5:32 pm

I have a water purifiying still "ecowater" is the name on it.
I actually came across it at a scrapyard - it had a fried thermal cutoff which was easilly repaired. This one had only a 4L capacity and a 400w element. It used a several turns of ~8mm dia. stainless tubing with aluminum fins crimped on. This condensor is cooled by built in fan. It had no exhaust valve and required no other modifications needed. I had no problems with it for the most part, but distilling wash that is above 50%abv I found that the distillate comes out pretty hot. I tried to do some calculations on why this would happen, but I got some rather messy differential equations and decided to give up- I only use this still for making my gin flavor concentrate now anyway. For a couple of years though until I built my first reflux column, this was my only still, and it worked out fine for me.

Captin Moron · Post by **Captin Moron** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:37 pm

agl wrote:I have a water purifiying still "ecowater" is the name on it.
I actually came across it at a scrapyard - it had a fried thermal cutoff which was easilly repaired. This one had only a 4L capacity and a 400w element. It used a several turns of ~8mm dia. stainless tubing with aluminum fins crimped on. This condensor is cooled by built in fan. It had no exhaust valve and required no other modifications needed. I had no problems with it for the most part, but distilling wash that is above 50%abv I found that the distillate comes out pretty hot. I tried to do some calculations on why this would happen, but I got some rather messy differential equations and decided to give up- I only use this still for making my gin flavor concentrate now anyway. For a couple of years though until I built my first reflux column, this was my only still, and it worked out fine for me.

simply needs more cooling! bigger fan or make it spin faster... im sure theres some computer case fans that would do the job, the problem being is finding the one that fits! Thats why im saying it would rock if somone with an easy still was to open up the shroud on top and read the brand/ modle and wattage of the fan they used to increase the cooling.

agl · Post by **agl** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:34 am

Sure,
more cooling would fix the hot distillate issue- what I was trying to calculate was why the distillate was hotter while the input wattage stays the same. I figured in the end that it must have to do with the mass flow rate you end up getting with alcohol. the heat of vaporization of ethanol is 1/2.6 that of water, so, with equivalent heat input you should get more than double the mass flow of ethanol per unit time. That coupled with the lower viscosity of high ethanol content solutions must reduce the resident time in the condenser. Looking back at the question about the fan wattage/model
I will check mine and report back. The wattage alone though won't really provide all the info, the best number would be the cfm output of the fan, which is rather tricky to measure directly. In my unit the fan is a small shaded pole ac motor type, much like the one you would find in a microwave oven.

WhiteLightning · Post by **WhiteLightning** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 5:33 pm

i made a counter top distillation unit using a 2L labratory glass beaker, and I build a copper worm condenser using 1/2" copper tubing and a large coffee can. Works great, but i need to upgrade to a 4L beaker.

Captin Moron · Post by **Captin Moron** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:00 pm

so how about an adjustable thermostat, higer cfm fan, and have somone with an easy still tell us how the chlorine exhaust valve was bypassed.

agl wrote:Sure,
more cooling would fix the hot distillate issue- what I was trying to calculate was why the distillate was hotter while the input wattage stays the same. I figured in the end that it must have to do with the mass flow rate you end up getting with alcohol. the heat of vaporization of ethanol is 1/2.6 that of water, so, with equivalent heat input you should get more than double the mass flow of ethanol per unit time. That coupled with the lower viscosity of high ethanol content solutions must reduce the resident time in the condenser. Looking back at the question about the fan wattage/model
I will check mine and report back. The wattage alone though won't really provide all the info, the best number would be the cfm output of the fan, which is rather tricky to measure directly. In my unit the fan is a small shaded pole ac motor type, much like the one you would find in a microwave oven.