Noisebridge Distilled

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Noisebrige Distilled

About

This page gives people some info about the art of building, maintaining, and/or operating a still

The Equipment

Still Components

A pot, and a condenser :). Optionally, a reflux column.

Materials

  • Glass is awesome for teaching and for beginners, but has crappy thermal properties.
  • Copper with integrated heating coils is the choice of many pro distillers, but it is a real bear to keep clean, and reacts very badly to acids and bases.

Resources

  • Graph of Vapor Phase composition vs. Distillate Temperature (EtOH / Water) Distillation t graph.png
  • Graph of Vapor Phase composition vs. Pot Composition to assist in determining efficient reflux ratios when operating a reflux still (EtOH / Water)
  • Proofing table - relates specific gravity of a liquid to its US Proof value.
  • Everything you'd ever possibly want to know about Ethanol (from the Industrial Solvents Handbook...an engineer's bible for anything solvent related).

Legality

Owning and operation of a still is legal in California as given by part 23367 of the ABC code. Full unabridged (read: annoying) text of the 2010 ABC code can be found here: [1]

Note: Still laws vary state to state, so check to make sure you aren't breaking any laws!