Making Alcohol

Comment by Randy on May 8, 2008 at 10:21pm

Check out the photos of the still! We have secured a feedstock and the yeast needed to brew our own fuel. Freedom from oil, here we come!

Comment by Damon Knutson on June 11, 2008 at 12:53am

Hi Randy - and others. Blume inspired me to import e95 from pacific ethanol a few years ago, and provide it to our local member group in Sebastopol, CA. Now we are buying e98 from parallel products who makes it from waste beverages.

In feb of 07, a few of us got togther and built apollo7 in an attempt to make our own fuel. After a lot of hard work, some trial and error, we now are able to make 180 proof alcohol using waste wine that we get for free from the local wineries.

Comment by Robert Jackman on June 15, 2008 at 11:00am

I am looking forward to making some fuel ethanol late this year. I am encouraged that other people are finding waste sources of feedstock for distillation.

I know excavators and landscapers who clear off excess prickly pear cactus, I feel I can get a few tons a month (dry matter) from them gratis. Perhaps much more.

From that kind of cactus, what kind of initial alcohol content can be brewed up after cooking, malting and using the proper yeast?

Any ideas what the brew would be, % ethanol content wise?

Comment by Randy on June 29, 2008 at 8:02pm

Check out how it's going! We are now brewing 180 proof hooch! Still able to get the proof up as well.

Comment by Randy on July 2, 2008 at 8:31am

Check out this story on MSNBC.

People will not stop driving. Because cars are cool.

If car companies were smart, they would quickly help consumers make the transition by promoting both small scale and large scale alcohol fuel markets to keep America's wheels rolling. We can do it, and I'm just sick and tired of the oil companies getting away with lies about ethanol.

Damnit, this is a clean, real renewable fuel!

We are making our fuel right now, using Dave Blume's book "Alcohol Can Be A Gas" to guide our efforts. Sure, it doesn't give you plans to make your own still or a directory of places to buy a still, but you can buy them. We are going to make our own, now that we know what we are doing.

Our feedstocks so far have been sugar and molasses. But Sorghum is where its at, baby!

Comment by Mr. Kyte on July 9, 2008 at 11:27am

I am hoping to be in production this fall. For now i am doing some calc's and it seems like if castable refractory were to be used the startup cost would skyrocket. Does it make much of a difference? Can anyone comment on this material?

Comment by James on July 9, 2008 at 3:52pm

Randy,

What are you using for your feed stock?

I am looking into finding cheap sources of sugar myself.

I see you have six storage tanks there. Could you do a little You Tube video and give us a little tour?

Thanks,

Jim

Comment by Randy on July 9, 2008 at 5:12pm

We are using molasses and sugar - moving into sorghum. It's up to people to get in contact with farmers and get the contracts to grow various feedstocks OTHER than corn to break people away from that argument.

The media have done a great job of trashing Corn, so just bypass it and get a move onto sweet sorghum! It's got amazing alcohol yields per acre.

You can also call your local soda bottlers and see if you can take waste corn syrup of of their hands. Remeber folks, this is just sugar, yeast, and an alcohol still!

You don't need to use water to cool your system either, there are lots of innovations that take us beyond the hillbilly moonshine stills of yesteryear!

Comment by Randy on July 9, 2008 at 5:13pm

I will be doing a YouTube video for this project soon!

Comment by Mr. Kyte on July 10, 2008 at 10:28am

I live up in New York and would love to use sweet sorghum, unknown how well it will do here and won't know until we try, but i think we could get one grow cycle in. Also on the list is beets and comfrey, my folks are not moved too much by jerusalem artichoke potential. We are definitely looking into all waste sources as well.

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