Moonshine

[Batch]

You can legally make moonshine. You just have to dump it all in you lawn mower or what not.

People in the US have always self reliant. The fermented their own wines. They jacked those by setting them out in the snow when it was cold to freeze off the water. This process is called jacking.

When the Brits put the squeeze on the sugar (West India Trading Company had exclusive rights and it had to go to England first!) Well, people started using different sugars. Back then it was honey and if you were at a sociable and git drunk you were feeling your bees or buzzed!

You can malt grains to convert starches to sugars. You only need to malt 20% of the grains used in the mash. So, you could use 20% malted barley or corn and 80% feed corn. You getter a higher conversion to alcohol with the barley for some reason.

I need to look harder at the parts of corn used for corn syrup. Because there are many plants that have the same starches.

Anyway, a great book on the subject is The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible: Makin' Beer, Wine, Liquers and Moonshine Whiskey

[randyt]

i wish they would legalize distilling. like how it's legal to make wine. i don't want to skirt around any laws. the funny thing is i don't even drink but i like making stuff.

back in the day when i did drink, i would take hard cider and put it on the porch on a cold winter day and go out there and skim the ice off now and then. pretty soon it quit freezing. it was cool.

[Rick]

After 1978 a household of two is allowed to make up to 200 gallons of wine and 200 gallons of beer. As far as I know you can not brew up the hard stuff .... legally .... unless you do pour it in your tank. There may be state laws governing production as well.

[Ken]

After 1978 a household of two is allowed to make up to 200 gallons of wine and 200 gallons of beer.

Each week, right? :blushing:

[Rick]

Uh, yeah. I'm sure ATF wouldn't mind the lost revenue. They are pretty easy going folks.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bEOj2c4el8Y/SfeIqLXqeVI/AAAAAAAABYE/Z3-b0X3xFE8/s400/police+brutality+on+girl.jpg

[your_comforting_company]

If we were allowed to make our own ethanol, how much would we impact the "fuel crisis". There are many plants besides just corn that are viable fuel sources, that would be renewable year after year. Get "drinking" out of your head, and focus on the real matters at hand.
Save the dinosaurs! Run your vehicles on ethanol!!
not only would it be "greener", it would help the economy by driving gas prices down. Of course the legislators with investments in petrol companies would never let a law like this pass because of the profit margin. I'm about to get on my political soapbox again so I'll stop here. If they really had the citizens and taxpayers "best interests" in their hearts, it would already be legal.

[crashdive123]

If we were allowed to make our own ethanol, how much would we impact the "fuel crisis". There are many plants besides just corn that are viable fuel sources, that would be renewable year after year. Get "drinking" out of your head, and focus on the real matters at hand.
Save the dinosaurs! Run your vehicles on ethanol!!
not only would it be "greener", it would help the economy by driving gas prices down. Of course the legislators with investments in petrol companies would never let a law like this pass because of the profit margin. I'm about to get on my political soapbox again so I'll stop here. If they really had the citizens and taxpayers "best interests" in their hearts, it would already be legal.

Actually YCC - the introduction of ethanol additives into gasoline have caused an increase in the use of petroleum products. The decrease in gas mileage because of its use has caused people to consume more, not less. I agree that there are other sources for ethanol. I wish that we would stop using food crops for this purpose. This hurts every body. Food prices go up, because more growers are producing "fuel" and less food, along with the fact that it really is not causing us to use less oil.

[Rick]

And now we've started importing ethanol. No kidding. In 2009 we averaged production of 896,522,000 per month. We also imported 16,149,000 gallons per month on average. That according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Most of the imports come from Brazil who has a long standing (30 year) ethanol production capability. They make about 6.5 billion gallons per year. It's interesting to note that all the light vehicles in Brazil run on ethanol and they have the capability to run on a blend of 22% to 100%.

Here's an interesting side note: David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that "abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning".

[finallyME]

Good points crash and rick. Also, burning ethanol isn't greener. You still have COx and NOx production. Burning strait hydrogen is pretty much the only truly clean fuel.

[your_comforting_company]

Why are we using blends instead of straight ethanol? if the ethanol combined with petrol decreases mileage, do away with the petrol part. So what if ethanol alone is less efficient.. we can grow more. We cannot make more petroleum, period.
I agree 100% that we need to find another source besides our food products. If Hydrogen Fuel Cells ever can be produced to be affordable, I'm getting one. Fill up with H2O, run your car, and the by-product is H2O.. a no brainer.. they are just so darn expensive!!

the science behind it is a little over my head.. forgive this caveman for his ignorance.

[hunter63]

Let's see, walking and drinking......... how many miles to the gal of moon shine would I get?......Oh, you mean all in one stretch?..........Lets see, straight line is the shortest way, right?.......Doesn't look good.........Oh, never mind.

Gonna be a big problem no matter what, and you can't believe every thing you read on the news or inter-web.

[Rick]

University of Minnesota researchers report that if all corn grown in the U.S. were used to make ethanol it would displace 12% of current U.S. gasoline consumption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel

Hunter may have been a taste tester on that panel.

[Batch]

I don't think that alternative fuels need be better than or worse than our current fuels. Only that they be viable alternatives when the other becomes unavailable!

[Rick]

IMO, the best alternative at the moment is bio diesel. It works and works well and takes a post use commodity (cooking oil) and makes it useful. If they can ever use the silage from corn or something else like switch grass to make ethanol then it would make a great fuel but I sure can't see turning food into fuel with so many hungry folks in this country.

[canid]

in order to distill your own ethanol, for fuel purposes, you have to obtain a federal permit (http://www.fueldistillation.com/alcoholpermit.pdf). it is my understanding that the BATF then owns your still if you do so.

to do so without obtaining the permit, even for fuel production is a felony.

for fuel production, another [unrestricted] substance of interest is eucalyptol. where i live, eucalyptus trees are both common and invasive.

the science of distillation [as with most of the separation sciences] is not complicated. it can be dangerous, and i recommend anybody wishing to distill any volotile substance read this book (http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Chem-Lab-Survival-Manual/dp/0471387320).

[finallyME]

Why are we using blends instead of straight ethanol? if the ethanol combined with petrol decreases mileage, do away with the petrol part. So what if ethanol alone is less efficient.. we can grow more. We cannot make more petroleum, period.
I agree 100% that we need to find another source besides our food products. If Hydrogen Fuel Cells ever can be produced to be affordable, I'm getting one. Fill up with H2O, run your car, and the by-product is H2O.. a no brainer.. they are just so darn expensive!!

the science behind it is a little over my head.. forgive this caveman for his ignorance.

You have to mix ethanol with gasoline because of the ignition temperatures. With current emission laws, ethanol would fail miserably by itself. Most of this is related to cold starts. I could go on, but my memory aint that great. I would have to look it all up.

[crashdive123]

Everybody does realize of course that when Ole WV Coot reads the title of this thread and then reads the posts - he's going to give us a huge what fo'.

[Mountaintrekker]

Sure you can grow more corn or sugar cane or whatever, but do you know how much petroleum goes into making an acre? I'm sure Rick has a handy dandy figure at his fingertips for us.
You have to till the field (diesel tractor, grease, hydro fluid etc.) Plant the crop (another tractor) fertilize the crop (natural gas turned into urea, usually), pesticides and hebicides need to be applied (more tractor time) cultivation if you are not using herbicides (more tractor time) harvesting (more tractor time). Storage (grain silos and elevators don't run on rainbows), delivery of the crop (tractor trailer, barge, commercial shipping liner etc.) processing the crop into ethanol (again, the plants require lots of energy and fuel for the workers to get there). Delivery of the ethanol to the storage facility, and finally from the storage facility (tank farm) to your local fuel station. Yeah, ethanol is the answer! NOT!
On a small local scale to run a modest ammount of machinery where you remove 3/4 of the above process maybe it has some merit, but to run a nation off of it like we do, no way.

[Rick]

Here are some more numbers from David Pimental that I quoted in Post 8 above. These numbers include the numbers Mountaintrekker asked about. They are also for 2001 so costs have risen since then.

An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol. But planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre, according to Pimentel’s analysis. Thus, even before corn is converted to ethanol, the feedstock costs $1.05 per gallon of ethanol.

The energy economics get worse at the processing plants, where the grain is crushed and fermented. As many as three distillation steps are needed to separate the 8 percent ethanol from the 92 percent water. Additional treatment and energy are required to produce the 99.8 percent pure ethanol for mixing with gasoline.

Ethanol from corn costs about $1.74 per gallon to produce, compared with about 95 cents to produce a gallon of gasoline. "That helps explain why fossil fuels-not ethanol-are used to produce ethanol", Pimentel says. "The growers and processors can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. U.S. drivers couldn’t afford it, either, if it weren’t for government subsidies to artificially lower the price".

Most economic analyses of corn-to-ethanol production overlook the costs of environmental damages, which Pimentel says should add another 23 cents per gallon. "Corn production in the U.S. erodes soil about 12 times faster than the soil can be reformed, and irrigating corn mines groundwater 25 percent faster than the natural recharge rate of ground water. The environmental system in which corn is being produced is being rapidly degraded. Corn should not be considered a renewable resource for ethanol energy production, especially when human food is being converted into ethanol".

The approximately $1 billion a year in current federal and state subsidies (mainly to large corporations) for ethanol production are not the only costs to consumers, the Cornell scientist observes. Subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace".

If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.