Home Distiller

Hi there people,

Totally new to the game of possibly brewing and distilling. Did a bit of homebrew beer making at University and have steeped many fruit types in spirits. Rhubarb infused Vodka is a winner by the way.

A friend of mine is a commercial strawberry grower and discards nearly 2 tonnes a day in peak season (wrong shape, wrong colour, slightly bruised etc). Currently it all goes into a neighbouring farmers anaerobic digester. What a waste!!.
I thought I might try mashing it up in a dustbin, letting it ferment and then distilling it using a basic homemade pot still.

Strawberries are low in pectin so I don't think there should any probs with cyanide.

Are there any major pointers I should know about before getting stuck in?

I was thinking of using an old pressure cooker with a thermometer in the top, over a gas burner. connected to a 10/12mm micro-bore copper pipe that runs (coiled) through a bucket of cold water before emerging from the bottom into the collection vessel. I was going to fit a drain valve in the bottom of the bucket so I could change the water if it heats up during the "run".

Any tips or caveats would be hugely welcome as I don't want to poison myself/friends or blow myself up. I am an ex builder, who has fabricated in most materials available. I am happy soldering an making up compression fittings and have a degree in biochemistry but apart from what I have read, have zero practical experience and would love some tips/help before I get started on this most exciting of adventures.
Particular questions would be:
1: Do I have to worry about the early methanol shots using a small (6l) pot still
2: Cyanide from the thousands of tiny seeds in strawberries
3: Temperatures to heat the mash off and draw my distillate
4: Do I have to discard any
5: Will it retain any flavour of the strawberries.
6: Are strawberries suitable for this sort of thing.
7: Should I be worried about there purity of my distillate
8: Do I need to run water/other liquid through first prior to my first genuine "run"
9: Will mixing metals (aluminium pressure vessel, copper pipes, lead free solder) create issues/taste

Thanks in advance for all your help. I am so glad to have found this forum and am very excited about the prospect of having/doing something that no-one around here has done before. Most people here in the UK are so timid and frightened of trying something new in comparison to these in mainland Europe and the US.

Your going to need to do a little more research here before you get started. Start with the parent site. It will give you a good foundation to build on. Have fun and welcome to HD!

Yes, strawberries are suitable. In france this is called "Eau de vie de Fraise". It takes many strawberries to make a small amount of distillate but the flavor of that distillate will be very intense. About a third of a teaspoon makes a glass of hot chocolate into something like you've never had. Don't worry about cyanide.

Just distill it twice and make a good heads cut. Then, leave the distillate under a loose cap to mellow out for several months somewhere. It'll be fantastic.

First off, while the parent site is a good resource it contains a good deal of information that is considered obsolete or even somewhat dangerous including the still you describe wanting to make. The correct place to start is here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=46
here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =35&t=5090
here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=33
and here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=15
Pressure cookers are often aluminum and will corrode and pit and fail quickly. In addition to that the seals are made from materials considered dangerous and unacceptable. A much much better option is a large stock pot that the lid can be held onto with spring type paper clips. There are lots of examples around here. Seal it with an everlasting PTFE gasket. There are lots of ways to attach the takeoff including soldering like this
http://ww.homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36347" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
I think bellybuster also has instructions on soldering a cap to a bowl which works very well for a takeoff connection.
The answers to all the other questions you have can be found somewhere in these forums. Begin looking by using the google search at the top of the page.
or here
https://www.google.com/search?rls=en-us ... 8&oe=UTF-8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
just type in your search without deleting anything in the search box and it will search only HD forums.
People here expect you to do a lot of research and won't spoon feed you through this and the only reason I am is that others may read this and it may help them as well as you, and I don't like when people just say "Read the parent site" and don't add a disclaimer to inform novices that some info on the parent site is outdated and will get you in trouble later on.
As far as strawberries, I have never heard of any cyanide problems from the seeds. I'm certain you can just mash them, ferment them and run them making proper cuts. Lots of info in the fruit section there.
One last thing, rather than a tube in a bucket think about making a liebig, they cost about the same and are much easier to clean, store and deal with.

OK I have a little more time at the moment and am feeling extremely generous so I thought I might take a shot at a little spoon feeding for your benefit and the benefit of everybody who may read this thread. In the future since I will probably just reference them back to this thread when they ask the same redundant questions.

Bazaine wrote: Particular questions would be:
1: Do I have to worry about the early methanol shots using a small (6l) pot still

Yes even though you will only get a tiny amount of alcohol. In fact since you have build experience find a pot or keg, 5 U.S gallons, I think that's roughly 18 Liters is considered the bare minimum for a proper still although some do use smaller it is a real big pain in the ass and cuts are nearly impossible.

2: Cyanide from the thousands of tiny seeds in strawberries

Nothing to worry about here

3: Temperatures to heat the mash off and draw my distillate

since what you are describing is a pot still forget the thermometer entirely, it doesn't matter what temps you reach your wash will boil when it boils and be done when it is done. A lot of people get hung up here. don't worry about temps.

4: Do I have to discard any

Yes foreshots need discarded. heads cause headaches so you might discard them too. tails should be saved for other runs. some add both heads and tails back into the next run but eventually there is a buildup of something that causes the distillate to have a bad burn.

5: Will it retain any flavour of the strawberries.

Yes, but without the sweetness since the yeast ate all that. It will be more like essence of strawberry.

6: Are strawberries suitable for this sort of thing.

Absolutely. I don't think you could ask for a better fruit and since you have access to a potentially huge supply you won't need to add sugar to boost it to get enough alcohol, but seriously get something a lot bigger than that 6L pot.

7: Should I be worried about there purity of my distillate

I'm not sure I get the question, I believe the answer is yes and no. You should be concerned about contaminates which is why we do a vintage/water followed by a water, followed by a sacrificial alcohol cleaning runs. Only after all this is a still ready to make drinking likker. Now if you are asking if you need to worry about the proof being too high? Absolutely! It is dangerous to drink high proof alcohol straight and you need to cut it to a suitable proof before drinking. Often people age likker at a higher proof then after aging they cut it to 100 or 80 proof or whatever they like. It all boils down to personal preference.

8: Do I need to run water/other liquid through first prior to my first genuine "run"

There is no way to adequately stress the importance of proper cleaning runs, see answer to 7

9: Will mixing metals (aluminium pressure vessel, copper pipes, lead free solder) create issues/taste

Stainless steel, copper and lead free solder are the only acceptable metals and the only acceptable synthetic if PTFE (AKA Teflon ) That's it nothing else, no aluminum, no rubber, no synthetics.

Nice to see some more of us UK folk showing an interest!

Welcome! The previous posts are all good advice. Let us know how you get on

Welcome friend read read read! Now get a minimum 5 gal stock pot you really should go bigger like a beer keg look around for still designs.If I was you I would get a couple 55 gal food grade barrels and get to makin brandy and wine.If you do your reading in a month you will be ready to get to work.Forget the pressure cooker bad idea read the rules we live by.

I started with the pressure cooker and can go along with everyone else. Not a good idea. Its way too small and the seal HAS to be replaced. The problem is with what? I couldent find a safe gasket for it. I up graded to a 10 gallon ss stock pot boiler and a 5 gallon ss stock pot thumper. MUCH MUCH happier!!!!

I'll add my 2p here - I started with a pressure cooker as a learning experience. If nothing else it will help you get some practical experience to help you understand the theory.

having said all that, the aluminium WILL corrode (my pressure cooker has a white pitted surface now) and the rubber gasket is not safe for our purposes and will also contaminate anything that is vaporised inside the boiling vessel (and I suppose the vapour may well contain aluminium particles as well).

However, as a learning tool ONLY, it is a low cost way of getting some experience. However, as stated before, even if everything was made of the right materials, the size of the boiler is too small to be very useful - consider an 8% wash - in 4 litres you're going to have at best 320ml of alcohol (4 litres as I wouldn't run a vessel more than 2/3 full) so with cuts you might get 150ml or so of hearts. Added to this is that you'll need to do sooo many stripping runs if you have a decent amount of strawberry mash to go through you'll get frustrated very quickly indeed.

I upgraded to an old 30l tea urn, and this is a much more useful size as a 20-22l wash volume gives a much more meaningful base to work from. It also will take a standard (UK) fermenters 5 or so gallons in one go. I have since moved to a bigger unit since (50l) but I still occasionally use the old one although rarely these days.