Permit required to buy 190 proof

Herb & Suds said:

I usually get up to 165 with a thumper
Which is pretty good
The reflux is a one trick pony in my eyes

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My 12L pot still came with a thumper and fittings to hook it up tho I haven't used that yet. Are you talking after a single pass from the mash to hit 165?



The one time I made moonshine using a simple sugar/turbo yeast mash I decanted the 6USG fermentation bottle into 1gal milk jugs, froze them then inverted over a pail to let the alcohol run out so I'd start distilling with something approaching 60% or better. Multiple passes will get it up to much higher proof but I am still hoping to get the column I need to fractionally distill even for ISO. Distilling naphtha just needs one pass to get it as pure as it will get when reclaiming the solvent.

Something I just found out recently was you can remove water from ISO with pickling salt. I had a part bottle of 70% ISO so I put a few Tbsps of salt into a mickey bottle then added the ISO and shook it up for 5min and let it separate. Supposedly a tiny amount of salt will be in the purified ISO so I'll run that through the lab still to get rid of any salt tho it's such a tiny amount that this final step isn't really needed especially if the oil is for edibles. Distilling ISO can be dangerous as it builds up ketones or something that can explode in the still with heat but they get trapped in the salty water layer.

It's hard to see the line of separation but it's there. just have to remove the top layer for cleaned up ISO.

RottyRzr said:

I wanted to try making qwet tincture and the wife went to the liquor store to get some Everclear. She came home with Everclear but its 151 proof. Looking online at the ABC website I see I have to pay $50 and submit the proper paperwork with my reason to purchase to be allowed to buy 190 proof. I guess I haven't been to a liquor store in a long time. Seems like back in the day we bought it to make that horrible purple punch!
Anyway, I looked online and found culinary alcohol. 200 proof so I figured I just order some. Nope! Not shipping to my state. WTF? So I went ahead and used the 151. Anyone else have to use 151 due to this? I guess the 25% water is just left in my finished product. I left it sit 24 hours in front of a fan to evaporate the alcohol off. It reduced by half but I assume the water is in the final product.

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A small still would work if you do it right. The secret is to boil the alcolol without boiling the water.

This is my still:


It started out as just a simple 1 L and I just kept adding to it.

The therommeter isn't in the picture, but it's important to keep the head temp right. If you are running a vacuum pump, which you really need, the temp at the head will depend on the vacumm. As long as the head temp stays the same the alcolol will be 190 proof. Once the head temp starts to raise you are distilling water. What's left in the boiling flask is water with maybe a teast of alcolol.

If you are interested in settin up a still I'd be glad to guide you thru some of the "trials and trublations" of getting set up and a few tricks.

A quarter pound is a big run for me because of the time to distill. If I start with dry budd (only budd) and 190 proof EC I only loose about a half cup of alcolol. That more than pays for my equipment and I get as fine a product as I choose.

Multiple passes thru a simple pot still will get you to 190 as well but just takes a lot longer.

Lots of good ideas at homedistiller.org. Bag of sugar, turbo yeast and a bit of yeast food and you're on your way to being a moonshiner.

RottyRzr said:

No. Im on the other coast. Virginia

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go west 1 state and u can geter at any store

Herb & Suds said:

It’s about flavor per good ole boy logic
Or so I hear

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the still i know of has a 3 in. copper header to a 1 in. copper coil in 55 gal drum, runs real smooth whisky.never used anything but Copper for the boiler, header and coil!

OldMedUser said:

Multiple passes thru a simple pot still will get you to 190 as well but just takes a lot longer.

Lots of good ideas at homedistiller.org. Bag of sugar, turbo yeast and a bit of yeast food and you're on your way to being a moonshiner.

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That sounds like fun but I'm only into making oil. I"m setup for chromatography but haven't had a reason to run it. only a little TLC sometimes if I feel like it.

DancesWithWeeds said:

That sounds like fun but I'm only into making oil. I"m setup for chromatography but haven't had a reason to run it. only a little TLC sometimes if I feel like it.

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90% of the pot I grow gets made into oils for meds. I have bad arthritis in my hands and hate the hell out of trimming so just snip off the bits with no sugar and extract everything.

I got a diploma in chemistry in my 30s, 30 years ago and did some chromatography while at school for that but are you saying you can use that to extract usable amounts of oil?

I mainly use ISO for extractions using the QWISO method then recover it in one of my stills then remove most of any water with non-iodized salt then will be fractionally distilling to purify it further and remove any ketones. The salting out trick won't work with ethanol tho and as a non-practising alcoholic I don't want large quantities of booze lying around to tempt me.

I have a lot of pot that was frozen fresh off the plants so will be experimenting with using naphtha to do my extracts without first drying the pot. After the extraction gentle heating the used cannabis in my pot still should allow me to recover the naphtha easily and it won't need further purification to be ready to use again.

Just need to clear out some space to set everything up and get to cooking!

oldsilvertip55 said:

go west 1 state and u can geter at any store

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Here in Alberta we can buy EverClear at any of the gov't run liquor stores for around $40 for 750ml but next door in BC it used to be you needed a note from your doctor to get it but I haven't lived there for over 20 years so not sure of the situation these days.

When pot was 'legalized' here in Oct of 2018 some of the other laws around pot got changed too. You can now get 14 years max in the can for making concentrates using organic solvents. That covers pretty much everything but CO2 extractions and that's not cheap to get into.

Gotta catch me first.

OldMedUser said:

90% of the pot I grow gets made into oils for meds. I have bad arthritis in my hands and hate the hell out of trimming so just snip off the bits with no sugar and extract everything.

I got a diploma in chemistry in my 30s, 30 years ago and did some chromatography while at school for that but are you saying you can use that to extract usable amounts of oil?

I mainly use ISO for extractions using the QWISO method then recover it in one of my stills then remove most of any water with non-iodized salt then will be fractionally distilling to purify it further and remove any ketones. The salting out trick won't work with ethanol tho and as a non-practising alcoholic I don't want large quantities of booze lying around to tempt me.

I have a lot of pot that was frozen fresh off the plants so will be experimenting with using naphtha to do my extracts without first drying the pot. After the extraction gentle heating the used cannabis in my pot still should allow me to recover the naphtha easily and it won't need further purification to be ready to use again.

Just need to clear out some space to set everything up and get to cooking!

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I never got trained in chenistry at all. I just started doing it to get the best oil. Then I started getting a little deeper into it. It's a learn as you go thing but after a few years messing with it it works for me.

I like to do quick wash with EC. and filter it thru a #1 filter and C-Lite and a fretted glass filter. Been thinking about adding activatited charcoalto the filter. Then distill down to something I can pour from the flask. Then dry any alcolol and water. Decarb and mix some lecithin. That;s what goes on my cookies.

I haven't done the chromatogtaphy yet, but I have studied it enough, and done dry runs, that I could jump in and do it. It's mainly a "just in case" tool. The TLC is something else. It can save a lot of gesswork.

I only use stuff that I grow myself. When you condence the oils you also condence whatever chemicals that might be in the budd. I know you know this, but it;s for other people that might read this.

DancesWithWeeds said:

I never got trained in chenistry at all. I just started doing it to get the best oil. Then I started getting a little deeper into it. It's a learn as you go thing but after a few years messing with it it works for me.

I like to do quick wash with EC. and filter it thru a #1 filter and C-Lite and a fretted glass filter. Been thinking about adding activatited charcoalto the filter. Then distill down to something I can pour from the flask. Then dry any alcolol and water. Decarb and mix some lecithin. That;s what goes on my cookies.

I haven't done the chromatogtaphy yet, but I have studied it enough, and done dry runs, that I could jump in and do it. It's mainly a "just in case" tool. The TLC is something else. It can save a lot of gesswork.

I only use stuff that I grow myself. When you condence the oils you also condence whatever chemicals that might be in the budd. I know you know this, but it;s for other people that might read this.

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Activated charcoal is fun to work with. I always mixed up a DE pad to protect my buchner from getting dirty. Fun stuff

xtsho said:

They OP was talking about 190 proof.

"A new Virginia law will permit the sale of grain alcohol up to 151 proof"

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Last time I bought some the salesperson asked if I wanted the generic brand for a few bucks cheaper.

natureboygrower said:

Activated charcoal is fun to work with. I always mixed up a DE pad to protect my buchner from getting dirty. Fun stuff

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DE and C-Lite are the same things. I buy my C-Lite from chem companys to make sure it's pure.

Can you tell me a little about your process? Do you mix it or layer it?
I really don't know because I haven't tried it. I heard that it's black after the charcoal but clears when it run thru DE.

DancesWithWeeds said:

I never got trained in chenistry at all. I just started doing it to get the best oil. Then I started getting a little deeper into it. It's a learn as you go thing but after a few years messing with it it works for me.

I like to do quick wash with EC. and filter it thru a #1 filter and C-Lite and a fretted glass filter. Been thinking about adding activatited charcoalto the filter. Then distill down to something I can pour from the flask. Then dry any alcolol and water. Decarb and mix some lecithin. That;s what goes on my cookies.

I haven't done the chromatogtaphy yet, but I have studied it enough, and done dry runs, that I could jump in and do it. It's mainly a "just in case" tool. The TLC is something else. It can save a lot of gesswork.

I only use stuff that I grow myself. When you condence the oils you also condence whatever chemicals that might be in the budd. I know you know this, but it;s for other people that might read this.

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I do my decarb at the end so 30 min or so until the decarb bubbles stop is plenty to cook out any remaining traces of solvent.

I only make an RSO type oil for use in edibles and not for toking tho I do have about 10 cans of 9x filtered butane for some BHO one of these days. I can distill butane using 2 - 1L boiling balls and a 25' coil of 3/16" copper tubing so I can reuse the butane right away to process a lot more pot than letting each batch evaporate. With no pressure vessel I can't keep it for later use so may try converting a propane torch bottle for that use.

There's a gov't approved testing lab in Vancouver that charges $60/sample and will give me a cut rate as a senior and med patient so once I get all this pot processed I'll send in two samples to get real numbers on it's potency for more accurate med dosage. One will be regular RSO made with many strains of pot and the other will be the same but made with a few strains of hi-CBD pot.

I bought some gummie molds about a year ago and all the stuff I need to make gummies from different flavours of Jello. 2kg of bulk jello for about $18 from amazon . ca so got 3 flavours and all the guar gum, pot. sorbate and flavourings from all over. Made some chocolate CBD gummies in the CBD mold and those worked good. Haven't tried the gummie mix yet and need some oil for that.

Each makes 192 - 4ml candies so about 768ml to load it up. Ordered from the states so cost me $150Can for both delivered. You can get ones with various states markings as well. PJbold .com





I tried some PAM spray on the first 3 rows but that was messy and not needed at all.



No real chemistry involved in oil making as it's just a simple extract so if you can follow a recipe to cook then anyone can do this stuff. It's knowing how to handle the solvents safely that's the real concern and I worked in a hazardous waste disposal plant as a chemist not long after graduating where we got lots of serious safety training.

OP, you're in Virginia? You need help with grain alcohol? Isn't Franklin County, Virginia, the moonshine capital of the world?

DancesWithWeeds said:

DE and C-Lite are the same things. I buy my C-Lite from chem companys to make sure it's pure.

Can you tell me a little about your process? Do you mix it or layer it?
I really don't know because I haven't tried it. I heard that it's black after the charcoal but clears when it run thru DE.

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Oh you're right, Celite. I just looked thru my stuff, that's what I used as well.

Sure, full disclosure though, I am by no means a chemist , just like to challenge myself from time to time. And at the time I was working with charcoal, I was doing soxhlet extraction. Really got me interested in organic chemistry. I got all my gear out a couple xmas' ago and made some perfume with the kids for momma.

I always laid a 7cm lab nerd filter in my buchner first. Then I'd mix up a slurry of the celite and ethanol, pour it into the funnel then pull it with a sink aspirator. After that pad was fully dried by the aspirator, I'd mix my charcoal with ethanol then pour and pull like before. Making the pads was always the trickiest part of the whole oil making process, but was also one the funnest parts.
If you vac too fast, you'll crack the charcoal pad and compromise your filtering. Both the celite and charcoal pads were about a 1/2" thick apiece. Here's a couple before and after pics of my extraction.

I couldn't find any pics on my phone of the pads, but there may be some on here if you do a search.
Edit
Found one

I do have all my notes for mixing ratios if that would be helpful. Reach out anytime. Hope this helps

OldMedUser said:

I do my decarb at the end so 30 min or so until the decarb bubbles stop is plenty to cook out any remaining traces of solvent.

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One thing I found out about going by the bubbles decarbing is that if you use a hotplate with a stir bar you can get faked out by bubbles the the bar makes. That's great for CBN. I boiled 15 or 20 grams of oil to death waiting for the bubbles to stop. Now I run it a few minutes and stop to watch them.

One thing about decarbing I like to do is to use an oil bath (double boiler) to heat it in. Minerial oil works the best. It's a lot cleaner and nicer to work with than veg oil.

natureboygrower said:

Oh you're right, Celite. I just looked thru my stuff, that's what I used as well.

Sure, full disclosure though, I am by no means a chemist , just like to challenge myself from time to time. And at the time I was working with charcoal, I was doing soxhlet extraction. Really got me interested in organic chemistry. I got all my gear out a couple xmas' ago and made some perfume with the kids for momma.

I always laid a 7cm lab nerd filter in my buchner first. Then I'd mix up a slurry of the celite and ethanol, pour it into the funnel then pull it with a sink aspirator. After that pad was fully dried by the aspirator, I'd mix my charcoal with ethanol then pour and pull like before. Making the pads was always the trickiest part of the whole oil making process, but was also one the funnest parts.
If you vac too fast, you'll crack the charcoal pad and compromise your filtering. Both the celite and charcoal pads were about a 1/2" thick apiece. Here's a couple before and after pics of my extraction.
View attachment 5260392View attachment 5260393
I couldn't find any pics on my phone of the pads, but there may be some on here if you do a search.
Edit
Found one
View attachment 5260394
I do have all my notes for mixing ratios if that would be helpful. Reach out anytime. Hope this helps

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Yeah, thanks, you're doing it the way I thought. That is exactly what I want to try. Your oil looks like pure gold.

Bruh https://shopbvv.com/collections/alcohols/products/bvv-lab-grade-ethanol-200-proof-1-gallon

Greengrouch said:

Bruh https://shopbvv.com/collections/alcohols/products/bvv-lab-grade-ethanol-200-proof-1-gallon

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That looks a little pricey. Besides, the first time you run it it will probably be about 190. I check mine every time I run it. If it gets wet, like 185 proof, I'll still use it but stop the still when the head temp starts to go up. I' emty the recieving flask, then continue to distil. The "wet" alcolol goes into the "wet" bottle to be cleaned latter.

DancesWithWeeds said:

One thing I found out about going by the bubbles decarbing is that if you use a hotplate with a stir bar you can get faked out by bubbles the the bar makes. That's great for CBN. I boiled 15 or 20 grams of oil to death waiting for the bubbles to stop. Now I run it a few minutes and stop to watch them.

One thing about decarbing I like to do is to use an oil bath (double boiler) to heat it in. Minerial oil works the best. It's a lot cleaner and nicer to work with than veg oil.

Click to expand...

I do my decarb in a big toaster oven that holds the temp pretty close and just observe the bubbles from outside. I have a multimeter with a temp probe to keep a closer eye on the temp too. @Fadedawg had mentioned that if you wait until there's no bubbles at all it's past peak THC so I was stirring gently then heating longer than I should have so once bubbles stop without stirring I'll turn off the heat next time. Sometimes on a hotplate controlled with my variac, infrared thermometer with a steel screen on the hotplate element.

My view thru the window.



Hot plate decarb.



The last time I decarbed pot in the oven. Double wrapped and sealed an oz with heavy duty tinfoil with the temp probe in the centre.

OldMedUser said:

I do my decarb in a big toaster oven that holds the temp pretty close and just observe the bubbles from outside. I have a multimeter with a temp probe to keep a closer eye on the temp too. @Fadedawg had mentioned that if you wait until there's no bubbles at all it's past peak THC so I was stirring gently then heating longer than I should have so once bubbles stop without stirring I'll turn off the heat next time. Sometimes on a hotplate controlled with my variac, infrared thermometer with a steel screen on the hotplate element.

My view thru the window.

View attachment 5260433

Hot plate decarb.

View attachment 5260434

The last time I decarbed pot in the oven. Double wrapped and sealed an oz with heavy duty tinfoil with the temp probe in the centre.

View attachment 5260432

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I really need to get back with @Fadedawg . We were talking about a project I was working on. I got stopped at the gate when I sent the wrong sample to the lab. I statred to make more but couldn't pull enough vacuum. Got too meny other things going but may get back on it before planting time.

When I found the right sample I ran a TLC on it. It appeared to be about 1/4 decarbed.