WINEWORKS
Home Brew Specialists

Did you ever think that you could do your own alcohol distillation at home? Well yes now you can and with some super light and portable machinery which is really safe to us. In some countries we have to be careful as it is not legal to do home alcohol distillation for drinking purposes. To do this you will need to be producing at least 1,800 litres of alcohol and you will nee a liquor licence.

Alcohol Distillation is very simple to do and whether it is for ethanol or for drinking the process is the same, however, with home distillation the ingredients may change considerably. Basically we ferment a wash to make alcohol. This is usually grain or sugar using yeast and nutrient depending on what we are making. We will then end up with a base of alcohol which we can distil. The distillation involves boiling this wash so that the alcohol will evaporate. This is then quickly cooled and the vapour will then turn back into liquid which is collected and this is the distillate. Depending on what we are doing with the distillate will determine what happens next. If we are drinking this then the chances are this will be cut with water and then feed through a filter of some sort. The filter will be filled with carbon which will remove flavours and give it a really clean taste. In most cases this would be called Vodka or a neutral spirit which can have flavours added to it. A lot of the Europe countries would make Gin and Whisky this way. The flavourings nowadays are so good it is in their opinion not necessary to use grain and juniper berries as we do here in the UK. This way it really keeps costs down.

If we are doing alcohol distillation for other purposes than drinking it really is not necessary to filter it through carbon. It might however be necessary to increase the alcohol content. For example the distillate that is produced might be 60-80% ABV and we are looking for 96% plus then we will have to re distil the product. Running it through the still again will increase the alcohol strength as there is less water present and therefore we will extract more alcohol out this time. The alcohol distillation process is simple and the machine to do the job will vary in price from £150 up to many millions of pounds depending on the volume, strength and quality you are looking for.