Country alcohol factory

I want to share some of my experiences. I have been practicing bees for five years and every year I take out my small apiary to the country house 40 km from the city. I’m leaving at the end of April and back in October, so I spend almost half a year in nature with my pets. The cottage is located on the outskirts of a small village, there is no light and water, but this does not cause any inconvenience, on the contrary, I enjoy the beauty of nature far from civilization, and there are wonderful meadow melliferous plants there. But there is one problem that all beekeepers face. Throughout the season, especially in spring, there are frames with honey that cannot be downloaded or reserved for bees for the future. This is the framework affected by the wax moth larvae taken from dead families, and simply substandard, there is always a problem with their implementation. So I decided to put this honey from such a framework into the preparation of home-made alcohol, I do it like this. I cut the honeycombs from the frames, together with honey, pollen and even brood, into a large enameled pan or aluminum can, pour hot water and squeeze the softened honeycombs with my hands well. The resulting lumps of wax are also chopped with my hands and left in a bowl, they can be removed immediately, but then they will be sweet from honey and it will be difficult to store them if you do not melt them. Making honey in honeycombs is more difficult than using pure honey or sugar, because it is difficult to keep the proportion by weight, and I cannot taste sweetness. I do this, weigh the honeycomb with honey, subtract the weight of the wax and add 5 liters of water for each kilogram of conditionally pure honey, which I take from the spring. When all the honey has dissolved in water, we make the leaven. I use different types of yeast, dry for drinks or pressed bakeries, I give preference to the latter, but I need to store them in the refrigerator, so I use dry ones more often. For 20 liters of water I take 4 kg of honey, a pack of dry yeast 70 grams or 400 pressed. The sweet water that I got is cooled to 40 degrees, since hotter water can kill the yeast, pour it with it in a separate bowl. Dry do not need to interfere, otherwise lumps will turn out, but the pressed ones should be stretched by hands. Now the leaven should stand for about 30 minutes, when the foam appears, pour it into the mash and put the dishes in the heat, you just need to protect from insects and dust. The mash usually ripens in the heat for no more than 10 days, I check its readiness for taste, it should lose its sweetness, or with a burning match, lowered to the liquid level. If the flame goes out, it means carbon dioxide is released and the product is not yet ready when it burns, then it can be distilled. Here at this stage, complexity arises, since there is no running water. I tried to distill with a conventional apparatus, putting dishes with water above the tank with a degreaser and letting it flow by gravity, it was cumbersome and very uncomfortable. There were thoughts of adapting an electric pump from a car battery or a handheld and other ideas, but I settled on a design that had long been used in villages, upgrading it with modern materials.
For the manufacture of this apparatus, I bought a galvanized bucket of 15 liters, it is possible less, but then I will have to change the water more often. In the store for goods for gas equipment of automobiles, he acquired 2 meters of a copper tube of 8 mm. On a suitable cylinder, I rolled the tube into rings, leaving straight ends for the entry of vapors and the exit of condensate, a coil was obtained.
I drilled a hole under the tube in the wall of the bucket, near the bottom, and led the lower end of the coil into it, and secured the upper one with a clamp and two bolts. To make the outlet of the lower end tight, it can be welded, but I did it easier, coated it with cold welding, thought temporarily, but I have been using it for the second year.
The device itself is ready, now we need a distillation cube and its connection with the device. It is best to take an aluminum can for the cube, but I have all of them under honey and there are no free ones. I had to be wise. He took an enameled large pan with a lid. I inserted a fitting with a 1/2 inch thread into the lid and, using two nuts and a gasket, secured it, the silicone gasket, since it is impossible to put the rubber, when it is heated, it will transfer its smell to the vapor, and that to the final product.
Now you need to seal the lid, the rubber here is also not suitable. You can try to make a silicone gasket, but again I did it easier, filled the inner recess on the lid with a cool dough of flour and water. Now you need to press the lid, any rod that fits into the lid ear is suitable, its ends and pan handles are connected by wire twisting, it will create a pressure. Here you can use screw or rubber ties, in general, complete freedom for imagination. Now it’s the turn of connecting the apparatus and the pan. It is better to do this with a gas bellows, it does not have a rubber hose inside. I connected it to the distillation cube through a silicone gasket, and to the apparatus through a fitting, the latter fits tightly onto the tube.
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That's the whole design, minimum costs, is going to quickly and simply work with it conveniently. Braga is poured into a distillation cube, put on the fire of a gas stove, gas comes from a cylinder of propane. It is only necessary to take into account that the mash on honey is very foaming and can get into the coil, so it is not filled in an entire cube, you can add a little butter or milk, this prevents the formation of foam. The apparatus is installed lower in level than the cube, and preferably with a slight slope towards the condensate drain pipe, so that a liquid plug does not form in the coil. Gas at the beginning of the process should be kept to a minimum, water is poured into the bucket, preferably cold and it remains to wait until the mash is heated, its vapor will begin to condense in the coil. The first outlet of moonshine contains many not very good impurities that have a pronounced smell of solvent, they are called heads. This part must be poured or used for household needs, its amount is determined empirically, I cut off about a tenth of the share. After that, the gas pressure can be increased, the process will go faster. Gradually, the pairs in the coil heat the water in a bucket, it collects in the upper layers, it is drained with a ladle and refilled with cold. With increasing temperature, heavy fractions, including fusel oils, start to evaporate from the mash, which give the moonshine an unpleasant odor, so the process must be completed on time. I determine this moment by the burning of moonshine, if it stops flashing with a blue flame on paper, then enough. In the end result, out of ten liters of mash, I get about two liters of moonshine, with a strength of about 50%. I also want to say that it is better to do distillation in cool weather, and if it is hot in the afternoon, then do it early in the morning, then less often you will have to change the water in the bucket. The resulting product, in principle, is ready for use, but it can be done better, of course, well overtaken again, but you can do it by passing through a household filter, or through a plastic bottle filled with charcoal for barbecue grills. You can also give it a pleasant taste and color with various additives, it is easiest to melt sugar in a spoon in a fire and add hot to the drink, it will acquire a noble cognac color. Good and fragrance tinctures on herbs and berries. I use the collection of thyme, St. John's wort and oregano. Of the berries, I prefer chokeberry and cherry. Here everyone can find their favorite composition, there are a lot of options. I hope that my advice will be useful not only to beekeepers, but also to simple summer residents. If you replace honey with sugar, then everyone can use them. Good luck and enjoy the next summer season.

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