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Comment by KPGv2 | Hacker News Reader

the only issue is that if you screw up distilling liquor and you live in a city, now you're blowing up your neighbor's family

https://news.sky.com/story/three-men-charged-over-explosion-...

ethanol is incredibly explosive

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Clandestine operations for most illicit substances tend to be quite dangerous. There are safe ways to distill alcohol, but given that one can't purchase quality distillation equipment in locations where it is illegal, folks often end up making their own.

I think it's perfectly acceptable if these is a reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing process, like for HAM radio or small game hunting, that covers safety. This doesn't eliminate the possibility of accidents, but it does reduce this possibility.

I noticed this item the other day on Amazon. Its a "VEVOR Alcohol Still 8 GAL / 30 L Alcohol Distiller Kit with Thumper Keg"

https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Alcohol-Distiller-Stainless-Ste...

Theres a good summary of the various laws at this site as well:

https://legallyexplained.com/is-it-illegal-to-own-a-still/

The bottom line appears to be:

[federal] You can own a still. You can distill water with it. You can't distill alcohol with it unless you register it and get a permit, which carries all sorts of other location restrictions, fees, paperwork requirements, etc.

[state] depends.

At least for the US.

Looks like it was petrol, and direct criminal attempt at insurance fraud.

Edit: In addition to a successful plan murder during the explosion.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-46865455

> ethanol is incredibly explosive

My friend is a chemist and we both like whiskey so we thought experimented this.

You can speed up the aging of whiskey by increasing the surface area of charred wood. It takes 3 years in a barrel, a couple days (hours? maybe? I'm an engineer not a scientist) if you splinter it into wood chips and char them first and agitate the solution.

What you can't really speed up is the oxidation of the tannins which for all we know (barring experimentation) are a key part of the flavor profile. What you could do is mix in oxidizers like bubbling oxygen through it.

The combination of oxygen and ethanol has a name though: "liquid rocket fuel." The idea of combining heat, ethanol, oxygen, and agitating at bottling volumes sounded kinda scary.

I hope people don't try it at home without knowing what they're doing.

More realistically though, the biggest danger comes from leaky apparatus and an open flame. The horror stories come from home distillation over gas burners. Electric heat is plentiful and home stills would most likely be basically kettles.

I think an ultrasonic cleaner can speed it up, just make sure your vessel with the alcohol in it is sealed first, so no vapors come out. I've tried it before, it isn't perfect, but it works better than you'd expect for maybe an hour or two of time spent.

Methanol poisoning is another risk.

Methanol is a natural fermentation byproduct of pectin breakdown of fruits like plums, cherries, apricots as well as grapes.

Methanol collects in a still easier than ethanol. Methanol boils at approximately 64.7°C (148.5°F), while ethanol boils at 78.4°C (173.1°F). Professional distillers carefully measure and discard the initial fraction (the heads/foreshots) of a distillation run to remove the methanol. Easy for a novice to miss this key safety step.

The heads only contain a slightly higher proportion of methanol than the rest of the distillate. They're discarded because they taste bad, not because of safety. Though it has the result that distilled beverages generally contain slightly less methanol than not-distilled beverages.

It's about as dangerous as eating foraged mushrooms. You know it's a danger before you try it so you go to lengths to avoid it.

Mushroom poisoning is far riskier. The methanol poisoning risk is overstated.

Not a chemist, but isn’t there something about azeotropic solutions and combined boiling points that make ethanol / methanol separation not as simple as basic lab technique?

bollocks. the methanol exists in tiny quantities and has the lowest boiling point of basically anything in your booze.

you don't need "to know how to get rid of it" -- there are no skills needed: just pour it out.

taking care of heads, tails, and "foreshots" -- the methanol -- are one of the most commonly taught, commonly discussed topics in distillation, be it professional or amature.

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