Using stills to make RSO and brewing alcohol to make EverClear from scratch

Check out that thread, I’m pretty sure he uses a paint bucket and some silk screen instead of the bags. There are charts online that convert “mesh screen” to “microns”.

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yeah but that doesn’t mean anything to a point

Micron denotes the opening size between the fabric/material threads

Mesh just denotes how many threads per inch their are with no consideration of the opening size.

So you could have a 200 mesh screen, with literally no openings in between the threads because of the thread diameter.

Learnt this the hard way.

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It not perfect, but will work for the purposes of making dry ice hash. :wink:

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If you aren’t worried about grading yr hash, the 5 gallon mesh bags for painting work well. 2 for 3 bucks or so. I watched a video on how to make " gumby" hash on you tube or icmag. Cant remember which. The method requires no bags, but i found the mesh bag ( for paint)is similar to the work bag you get from bubble bag kits, and helps speed the process up. I had excellent results. Much of the hash i made was very melty, and is responsible for any stupid posts i may have made here at overgrow lol. If you are interested in this method i have some tips for you… that are not in the video.

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Sure! The more info, and the more options, and different ways to do it, the better :slight_smile:

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So, I have another wild idea. I have a little over 1 liter of alcohol left over from distilling. Its about 67% ABV.

I decided to see if it could be freeze distilled. Turns out my freezer doesnt get cold enough. That % ABV has a freezing point of about -55C, and my freezer only get down to about -18C.

But - dry ice is about -78C. So, Im thinking I will try to use the left over dry ice after I do the sawzall dry ice hash thing.

I am thinking about putting the alcohol in a plastic bottle, then put the bottle in a one gallon bucket, and fill the bucket up with dry ice. I can wrap the whole mess in some blankets and stuff it in an ice chest and see what happens.

Depending on how quickly it freezes, and how much dry ice I have left over, I might even be able to do two runs.

In theory, I should be able to get to a little over 80% ABV with dry ice.

I think this will be relatively fast and not too expensive a way to freeze distill cheap booze or even wash. The wash you can start in your freezer until it get to maybe 30% ABV.

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I’d recommend GLASS, the dry ice might make the plastic brittle at those temps…

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well at this stage id just go back to making normal washes and distilling them, also not sure why you previously mentioned they were expensive as mine were about $5cnd a batch for me, and yielded 1-1.3 liters of high proof alcohol , or 3-4 bottles once diluted, and that was taking energy costs into consideration.

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Good point, but the glass would need to be pyrex or the temperature change would be at least as likely to break it. Have to think about that some more. Thanks for the tip!

No, I didnt mean the wash was expensive - thats dirt cheap unless you are buying lots of $$ yeast and nutes for the yeast. Even thats not all that bad. Doing a wash/mash and then distilling it just takes too much time, and in my case too much floor space :slight_smile:

It was talking about the cost of buying cheep booze to distill vrs the cost of buying new bubble bags and dry ice.

If I use the dry ice hash method to process my harvest, the dry ice wold be essentially free as far as trying the freezer distillation technique.

Plus, if you freeze distill your sugar wash, thats pretty low cost too :slight_smile:

By the way, when I was reading up on freeze distillation, I ran across several discussions about methanol in the final product. Freeze distillation does NOT remove methanol, so you need to be very aware of that.

I also read that pure sugar washes dont produce much if any methanol. Its mostly fruits and to a lesser degree grains that result in methanol in the final wash.

pectin specifically, and no one does freeze distillation unless they have industrial freezers or are trying to get around loop holes legal sales wise.

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Well, unless you’re into making hard cider, fortified wine, or ice beer like by brothers. :slight_smile: It was remembering some silly stuff my bros tried years ago that got me started on this.

Or - if you’re like me and are cheap and have a pathological tendency to try wild things just because. :wink:

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I thought about starting a new thread, but this one is so good, why bother?!

So I finally did it. I’ve been storing all my trim, cast-off buds and scissor hash for the past year or more. I had about 188 grams (6.7 oz’s) of buds and scissor hash, and about 821 grams (29.3 oz’s) of very high quality trim. Today was the day that I made my first batch of RSO since 2015.

After using Rick’s traditional method (with a few tweaks) many times in the past, I decided to go with a Megahome distiller and a magnetic stirrer / hot plate. I also threw in some ceramic raschig rings during the distilling process.

One of the tweaks that I added to Rick’s method and carried over to this run was the addition of a reusable 25 micron 5 gallon bucket filter like one of these:
bucketfiltersA

Inside that, I put a gigantic commercial coffee filter like this:
41qCsDPmEKL.SX466

That might look like a normal coffee filter, but it’s made for a 10 gallon urn coffee maker. It fits perfectly inside that bucket filter.

For anyone that has already made RSO the traditional Rick Simpson way, you know there’s a bottleneck in the steps between mixing up your material and solvent and getting the liquid into the container you’re using to heat it up and remove the solvent. These big filters will remove everything AND speed up the process. Once you get everything into the 5 gallon, you can easily pour it into your heating container, which might be a rice cooker, a pan, or in my case, a distiller.

Here’s what I ended up with (and a few of the tools I used):

So after processing the 184 grams and decarbing the oil, I ended up with 29.5 grams, which is 15.69%. I’m happy with this :sunglasses:

What I’m NOT happy with is my Megahome distiller. The gasket that keeps the heated liquid from seeping out the top where the lid sits on the container did not perform well. It expanded when it got hot and allowed quite a bit of seepage. As a result, I was only able to recapture 1 of the 3 quarts of IPA that I used. That’s a big improvement from losing it all by heating up the solvent in a rice cooker or pot, but not what I expected. Unfortunately, Megahome is out of stock of these gaskets, so it’ll be a while before I can process the rest of my material.

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If you have ever taken that seal off to clean it, did you put it back on the right way, the seal on mine will not seal properly if it goes on upside down although I can not tell the difference between each side.

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@Shadey, when I saw the seepage, I turned off the machine to let it cool down a bit, then removed the top portion. The gasket immediately fell part way down into the distiller because it was so loose. When I tried to put it back on, it was about an inch bigger in circumference than the part of the lid where it sits and it was impossible to get it back into place properly.

So after pulling the gasket off, I hopped online to confirm how it should be installed. This time away allowed the gasket to tighten back up enough to install. And though I think it was installed correctly when it was seeping, I know I installed it correctly after the issue.

The distiller was almost done doing what it does when I noticed the seeping. So after I started it back up, it had already turned itself off before I checked on it again. I didn’t notice any seepage, but it evaporates pretty quickly.

I’ll distill a gallon of tap water to see if the problem persists, but perhaps distilling IPA has a different effect on the gasket?

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It could be the affect of the alcohol. Was it designed for water and alcohol or just water.

Some water distillers have a small hole in the condenser tube, as a safety measure in case it gets blocked, which leaks alcohol vapours, which is not a problem with water, but not good with alcohol.

Sounds like it may have got pinched and stretched out of shape, when putting the lid on the first time. Mine will sit at a 45 degree angle, inside edge level with the lid flange and the outside edge at a 45 degree lift, if I put it on the other way up the inside edge sits away from the flange and the outer edge down by the flange corner, this way around causes a pinch and stretch, and then a leak of fumes, I have found.

My seal will drop off the top of the still when I remove it sometimes, when the still is hot, but doesn’t stretch that much.

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My distiller is a “Megahome”, which is a good quality and fairly common brand that has been known to be used for making RSO without issue. However, I don’t think it was designed for anything other than water.

My gasket sits similarly to what you’re describing. I don’t know how it would have gotten pinched or stretched when I put the lid on the first time, but that’s only because I placed the lid straight down and don’t see where I could have done it wrong. Who knows, though?

I don’t know if my condenser tube has small hole in it, but the seepage was coming from around the rim of the lid where it sits on the distilling chamber, but the distiller was still creating a good stream going into the glass container.

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Sounds like you didn’t have that problem, its difficult to describe, my buddies one would have the seal drop on one side and as it went in the bottom part, the seal would get pushed back up but pinched further round so maybe a 2 inch section would get stretched out of shape.

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As I write this, I’m 2 hours in on distilling a gallon of tap water. To make triple sure the gasket was installed correctly, I went back to the user’s manual to verify. It was installed correctly when I removed and reinstalled it after noticing the seepage, but I can’t be sure about it being correctly installed prior to that. Either way, 2 hours in and there is no seepage. Fingers crossed it was just an issue with the initial installation (I bought it used).

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Brother Shade
Does your distiller have the small release in it’s coil, Mine does?
I also worry about using it because it is made in China and has plastic parts inside under lid above heat chamber, as well as the tube where it drips into a plastic collection jar.
I wanted to make oil with it but have been afraid it may be a carcinogen when finished.
Who knows what the hell the Chinese used to make them.
I would post a picture but you know

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No is doesn’t have a release, mine has all stainless internals, it also has adjustable temps as it’s designed for water and alcohol.

I don’t think the plastic would get damaged alcohol vaporizes at lower temps to water so if it was releasing BPA when running alcohol, it would probably be doing the same with water.

I don’t know if alcohol reacts with the plastic in other ways though, maybe just put some high proof in it and let it sit switched off for a bit make sure nothing melts or feels sticky after contact. I would have thought it was made with food grade plastics.

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