I've been wanting to try freeze distillation forever, but the concentrated methanol and fusel alcohols always kind of scared me away. Does anyone have any tips for removing these from the finished product? I was gonna warm the liquor on the stove to evaporate off the methanol but I'm wondering how one would get rid of the heavier alcohols.
Yeah, you can't get rid of the methanol and other compounds through freeze distillation. You need to boil it the traditional way. Realistically you can probably get away with just distilling the first couple hundred milliliters and what remains in the vessel will be significantly safer. If you aren't trying to get the proof significantly higher that would work. For the love of God though do not try to evaporate it on a stove, you'll light your kitchen on fire
Oh yeah, would definitely do a double boil system, but the stove is basically the only place I can secure good ventillation. Im only planning on doing very small volumes
Do not take this as advice, but with Google and some spitballing, it looks like the boiling point of ethanol is about 170 F while the boiling point of methanol is about 150 F. So if you were to construct a double boiler system with two pots/bowls, you could add boiling water to some water in the bottom bowl to maintain ~160 F in order to slowly heat the top bowl to 160 F without a heat source being directly applied. Would recommend this be done in a well ventilated area. Won't touch fusels though, but afaik those are less adverse to your health and more unpleasant in taste.
Not sure yet, ideally I'd do some sort of homebrew fruit wine or cider but I don't have anything fermented at the moment
Thanks, this is super helpful! I think right now im interested in just fortifying, but if I can up my volumes I might try to upgrade my still a bit. I actually use an RB flask and a sand bath so the fractional heating in my boiling container is a little bit less pronounced
Hadnt heard of this, had to look it up. Seems like this just pulls the water out thus concentrating the remainder, but without any actual fractionation happening.
I think your best bet is to unfortunately distill using heat to drive off the nasties. It's likely simpler than using a vacuum chamber to do it at lower temps.
Can you make/attain a still? Jerry rig a fractionating column, condenser & two vessels?
I actually do have a small still but I don't think could get the temperature finesse to fractionate ethanol from isopropyl