Driving is expensive. Gasoline costs are constantly rising. You can reduce your expenses by making your own fuel from kitchen and yard scraps bound for the landfill. Oil is merely million-year old liquified compost.
Conventional gas engines can run on a mix of 10% ethyl or methyl alcohol and 90% unleaded gasoline. This mix is also known as E10. Increasing the alcohol to render E25 will require some modification to an engine.
SOME POINTS TO REMEMBER
The distillation of alcoholic spirits is highly regulated by governments – check the rules in your country. It is not legal to make any home-distilled drinking alcohol in the US. However, a free permit is available from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade bureau for those producing less than 10,000 gallons of alcohol fuel annually.
Ethanol absorbs water and other impurities in the tank, and is itself corrosive to aluminum. It is not recommended for infrequently used engines.
THE FERMENTATION PROCESS
Starches are converted into fermentable sugar by ‘malting’. The bearded grain kernels are soaked in warm water, heaped and turned on a malting floor until they have sprouted, and then dried in a kiln. This germination process produces diastase, a natural chemical. 20% malt added to a batch of mash will convert the entire amount of starches to sugars. Prepared malt is available at brewing supply stores.
Add brewers yeast to the mashed grains and water mixture to make a wash. It is possible to allow yeasts present in the air to innoculate the wash instead, but it is time consuming to wait for these natural yeasts to multiply sufficiently to work.
Fermentation is accomplished by yeast digesting sugars disolved in liquid, to produce equal amounts of alcohol and carbon dioxide by volume. Keep the ratio of sugars-to-water between 0.2 and 0.25 kg per liter for good action by the yeasts. Allow the wash to ferment for 5 to 7 days, or until the airlock stops bubbling. A hydrometer floating in the wash will accurately indicate the sugar ratio remaining. Yeast cannot survive in a wash with an alcohol content above 15% or so.
THE DISTILLATION PROCESS
Carefully filter out all the solids in the finished wash, to prevent its burning inside the still. Moonshiners would pour it through a pillowcase.
Boil the wash through a still. Different alcohols present in the wash will vaporize at various temperatures. Collect the desired alcohol type by running the still at a selected temperature. Ethanol is produced between 173° F and 204° F.
The poisonous alcohols, principally methanol, are produced first, while the still is heating up to full operating temperature. If you even think someone might taste your moonshine fuel, collect and discard the first one-quarter cup of ‘foreshots’ per 5 gallons of wash being distilled.
Fusel oils and alcohols which condense back at higher temperatures are known as ‘tails’, and impart nasty flavors or disagreeable odors to your product. Should you take a run too far, merely combine them, or add them to a later batch, and run them again. It may take two or three runs through the still to remove all of the impurities, flavors or odors, leaving only the clean-burning ethanol.
The two major types of distillation equipment are:
- The reflux, or refractory still – A tower sits on top of a sealed boiling-pot. Vapors heat and rise, or cool and fall in the tower until the unit has reached operating temperature. By controlling the temperature, the various alcohol vapors are caused to pour over into the cooling tube to be condensed and saved in collection jugs.
- The pot still – Vapors from a sealed boiling-pot are collected and funneled through a ‘thumper keg’, so named for the sound of settling solids that can get carried that far. The vapors continue through a cooling ‘worm’, a condensing coil immersed in chilled water, to flow into collection jugs.
Free plans for building your own distillation apparatus are available on the internet. Complete stills are also available for purchase.
THE YIELD FROM A BATCH
The yield of desirable alcohol will be about one-seventh of the wash, after discarding the foreshots. This clear, odorless, flavorless fluid is about 150 proof, or 75% pure ethanol alcohol. For comparison, drinking-moonshine is diluted with water to 80 to 90 proof, or 40% to 45% pure ethanol.
It can be further dried by mixing it with Zeolite, an aluminum-silica product that removes toxins and water, to produce 200 proof, or pure alcohol. Use your hydrometer to confirm its purity.
ALTERNATE FUEL
Dilute one gallon of your alcohol with nine gallons of unleaded gasoline, to produce ten gallons of your biofuel. Any excess water will settle to the bottom of your container when the gasoline is added. Carefully pour the fuel off the top of the water into your gasoline tank.
You should not notice any difference in the functioning of the engine as you drive away powered by
your modern, home-made gasoline additive.
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