Stuck in the House with some Homebrew and James Cameron Films ~

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I wish I had my still with me. I could make a fortune here manufacturing 160+ proof er, hand sanitizer.

Use about 10 kgs sugar, heat it so it dissolves completely in 20 l water. After cooling the sugar will remain in suspension in a super saturated condition. Add in turbo or quick yeast. Let sit for 5 days in a carboy with a one way gas seal on it to let out the CO2 produced but preventing outside air from coming in. You should get about 17 % alcohol.

I would double distill it running the last output through a activated charcoal filter. This would produce around 4 l finished product at 80% or so alcohol by volume. ( Theoretical maximum is about 93% from a still).

On each run I throw out the first 50 ml produce, this will get rid of any wood alcohol in the produce. It is a myth that you can be poisoned from home brew, the amount produced in a batch will be less than the legal allowable amount in commercial spirits. Ethanol is the antidote for methanol any way.

Put some in a mason jar with lemons and limes, place in freezer and drink it with a lick of salt, much like tequila shots but no need to add lime, and after 6 or 8 of those you hands will be completely sanitized from the inside. ( Or you will not care about that.)
 
...I would double distill it running the last output through a activated charcoal filter. This would produce around 4 l finished product at 80% or so alcohol by volume. ( Theoretical maximum is about 93% from a still)...

Low boiling azeotrope, perfectly acceptable, theoretical concentration of 95.6% :) I'm a physician, I took organic chemistry and organic chemistry lab as an undergraduate, what can I say. Some things, you don't forget.
 
I stand corrected, as a practical mater, I have triple distilled the product and only been in the high 80s.

What would it take to get to the 95.6%? Would it ever be worth the additional effort?
 
I stand corrected, as a practical mater, I have triple distilled the product and only been in the high 80s.

What would it take to get to the 95.6%? Would it ever be worth the additional effort?

Not quite, but I get pretty close.
 

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I've got about 20g of brown ale and 5 gal of cider in the fermenter currently. Luckily I bought a 55lb of 2-row before SHTF. I've been racking wort on top of existing yeast cakes to conserve resources.

My grocery store has a 2-bag limit on sugar. I need 3 bags per batch, so my hand sanitizer production is staggered.
 

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I wish I had my still with me. I could make a fortune here manufacturing 160+ proof er, hand sanitizer.

Use about 10 kgs sugar, heat it so it dissolves completely in 20 l water. After cooling the sugar will remain in suspension in a super saturated condition. Add in turbo or quick yeast. Let sit for 5 days in a carboy with a one way gas seal on it to let out the CO2 produced but preventing outside air from coming in. You should get about 17 % alcohol.

I would double distill it running the last output through a activated charcoal filter. This would produce around 4 l finished product at 80% or so alcohol by volume. ( Theoretical maximum is about 93% from a still).

On each run I throw out the first 50 ml produce, this will get rid of any wood alcohol in the produce. It is a myth that you can be poisoned from home brew, the amount produced in a batch will be less than the legal allowable amount in commercial spirits. Ethanol is the antidote for methanol any way.

Put some in a mason jar with lemons and limes, place in freezer and drink it with a lick of salt, much like tequila shots but no need to add lime, and after 6 or 8 of those you hands will be completely sanitized from the inside. ( Or you will not care about that.)

Pretty tempting!

I brew a traditional Korean rice wine called makgeolli. It's made from rice and a special grain mix produced by buddhist monks no less. Takes about 1 week to make and the end result is about 12 ~ 14 percent give or take.
I'm much too scared to distill. However, perhaps some day I'll try my hand at some Poitean!
 
I did not get my still from Amazon but it looks just like this one.

Amazon Still

Amazon Yeast


Just follow the directions on the package. I heat the water so that the sugar will completely dissolve, it will remain in a super saturated condition when it cools, that is there will be more dissolved sugar in the water than if you had tried to dissolve the sugar in water at the room temperature.

I use a glass 20 l carboy, like the plastic water cooler bottles but glass.

You need a CO2 release valve. You can get one for a few bucks at any wine making supply store but I have taken a rubber surgical glove taped it over the bottle and ran a plastic tube from one finger into a bottle of water. As the gas pressure builds up it can bubble put through the water but no outside air can enter which can contain contaminating yeast spores. You can see the pressure because the glove will expand. Tape it to the bottle

The mix will start to bubble and out gas in a few minutes after adding the yeast. This will continue until the yeast dies. It will die due to one of 3 reasons.

They eat all the sugar and have pissed it all out as alcohol, they have died from alcohol poisoning or they have killed themselves off by generating too much heat.

The desired outcome is that they die of alcohol poisoning, make sure that they have enough sugar and the bottle is kept relatively cool. Cooler will take longer to work but unless really cold will not kill the yeast. Room temperature is OK as the bottle will be a few degrees hotter than ambient. Keep bottle temp less than about 28 C or so, slightly warm to the touch.

In case the yeast dies from overheating, I always save a spoonful or so of the yeast mixture and add it once it stops bubbling. If bubbles resume then let it run, if no bubbles then you are done with that batch.

Run it through the still according to the instructions, throw out the first 30 to 50 ml of product. I use a tea strainer type of funnel full of activated charcoal to run the second distill through to improve taste. Run it through a second time. If you can get the yeast to produce 20% in a 20 l bottle that will give you 4 l of mostly pure ethanol, enough for all hand sanitizing needs.

For tradition I use mason jars for the final product. Avoid plastic in the process as it can dissolve or impart tastes to the product.

Use like a regular hand sanitizer. For sanitizing hands from the inside you can drink it direct, mix with fruit juices or you can get additives that will make it taste like regular spirits. Just be careful, one shot is equal to at least 2 shots regular spirits.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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