I love this place

[SolarStiller]

Hello,
(Please forgive me if I've double posted...)
I got turned on to this site by a friend from a peak oil/doomer site where we're trying to learn self-sufficiency. Brewing and distilling is certainly that, and I'm very excited about the great topics and knowledge presented here.
I will always be polite, and the first to admit that I am a newbie, and don't know a lot.
I'm pretty new to brewing (but love it), and so far have made several 5 gallon batches of grape-juice wine, some number of gallon batches of raisin wine (I like it), and a few batches of Absinthe. And I bake a lot of bread. I think yeast is cool.
Haven't made any beer yet or other stuff.
I keep adding to my brewing/distilling library when I can afford it, and have a lot to read, including Blume's book on "Alcohol Can Be a Gas", which I have barely touched so far. Reading all the good stuff on this site, however, is going to be taking up a lot of my time.
I'm with a group here in Nevada, and we're applying for a permit to make transportation fuel, and hope to soon get the permit sent back so that we can start on that. We've already got a good sized still built, but can not use it until we get legal.... Of course, we need to think about feedstock for that, too.

Since it is illegal to distill here for consumption purposes, I have a friend in New Zealand who is doing some work with me on a solar still to that end.
I've made a simple square foot solar cooker, which will not only cook foods and disinfect water, but will distill out several ounces a day of brandy, and also kick up vodka to a higher level for experimental purposes. It also will clean up the bitterness from homemade absinthe, and make it much more drinkable.
The cooker uses a very simple pot still, from mostly recycled materials, and will operate entirely by the sun. We point it toward near where the sun will set, and by the time the sun goes down there is anywhere from 3 to 5 ounces of 'fuel' in the collector jar. That's not a lot, obviously, but the cost of the cooker was less than $10, and to ramp up the output, one needs to only build more of them. So, in theory, 10 cookers for $100 would be able to distill from 30 to 50 ounces a day. Of course, if one wanted more production, all you have to do is move the cooker a few times a day to follow the sun. Right now it operates as a 'point it and forget it' device, and at day's end you just go out and get your batch. But enough of that, I tend to run on at the mouth sometimes.

Anyway, I am delighted at finding this site, and look forward to many many hours of reading and learning from you all. What a great source of information you are....
And I'll try hard to not ask a lot of dumb questions.

Thank you,
SolarStiller.

[azeo]

Welcome! well, you certainly got much to keep you busy there looking at both uses! David Blumes' book is a pretty good reference, and is a good follow-on from the "Mother Earth News" efforts from previous decades. We have a fuel section which is usually fairly quiet so it would be good to see any further news and ideas there, even though we're mainly a beverage site! Post some pics of that good sized still!
There is plenty of good reading here in the parent site and forums, and a number links in the fuel section which might be of interest if not seen before.
Using the "power of the sun", that's interesting, keep us informed! Enjoy your time here and good luck with the plans and projects!
Az

[Ayay]

Hi SolarStiller. Here's just the beginning along a better path in the stillin of drinkin alc where fuel is a byeproduct. I'm sure you'll fit in with the stillin basics. Solar power is an old favorite of mine as one of the survival skills.

[condensificator]

COOL. i'd love to see some pics of your square foot, 3-5 oz, solar still. sounds like a really neat project.

too bad the law has to be involved. if a feller were looking to make fuel as well as likker, it would make it a lot easier to take only the purest of pure, centerest of center cuts to put into bottles.

welcome...good luck!

[Bushman]

Welcome to the forum and dido on the pictures. It is interesting that with solar power you can get enough heat to run the boiler

[SolarStiller]

Hi all,
Thanks for making me feel welcome, and thank you Azeo for pointing me to the alcohol as fuel section here. I've been reading it all morning, and it's great.
@condensificator and Bushman, if I was literate enough using computers, I'd post some pix of the cooker/still, but I'm not, so if you'd like to see it go to:

http://www.doomers.biz/forum2/index.php ... 836.0.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This is an old doomer site that is no longer active, but still up (thanks to the host).
If there is interest (and anyone willing to help me post pix) I'll gladly rewrite the article on the cooker, and put it up on this site.
It is obviously not a REAL still like some of the beautiful copper wonders I've seen here so far, but as a very very simple pot still it does work. And it does other things too, like melt wax for sealing bottle corks, and cooking foods, etc.
I'm not sure what a single run through will give, but I seem to recall measuring 140 proof after doing a batch of vodka. That is using an alcometer, which I'm not that familiar with (due to lack of practice LOL).
But then again maybe it was after 2 runs, I don't recall -- the mind is going.
PS, picture #5 on the above site is incorrect. Imagine using the bottles as shown in pix #4 incorporated into pix #5.

Anyway, I'm back to reading more great stuff here, and thanks to you all for putting up this wonderful collection of knowledge. This is great, and I hope to hang out here for a goodly while.

[Samohon]

Welcome to HD SolarStiller...

Have fun and stay Safe my friend...

[SolarStiller]

Hi there.
Thanks for welcomes and comments.
Going to try to post a pix of the solar still. Just learning how.



The darned thing has a myriad of uses, and I keep finding more.



Hope they come up sized ok....