I’m sure those of ya’ll whom have purchased high purity Ethanol have noticed that it isn’t cheap with all the taxes heaped upon it, so here is how we recover and continue to use the alcohol in our process that we’ve already paid over $20 a liter for.
As we are working with small volumes, what we use , is a simple pot still made out of an All Clad stainless asparagus steamer pot, a Quisinart electric fondue pot, and a stainless mixing bowl, in which I have inserted 12 1/2 feet of 3/16″ ID copper tubing.
The salad bowl condenser rests on a modified cat liter bucket, over an empty 1.75 liter Clear Springs bottle for final collection.
The only modification to the Quisinart was to bend the ears of the top fork ring down, to permit the insertion of the asparagus pot, and placed canning jar lid rings in the bottom, to suspend the asparagus pot above the bottom, so as to eliminate hot spots.
The Quisinart is a good choice, because of its sensitive controls for alchemy, but for distillation application, its controls are wide open, until we throttle it back to 250F for finishing off the oil or alchemy. We paid $60 for the first one and found our second one at Goodwill for $15, so do shop about.
We also have a couple of Rivals, that don’t have quite as sensitive controls in finishing and alchemy temperature range, but are accurate enough to do the job and cost about half as much.
If you don’t do the final cook off in the still, a fry cooker will also work, but the controls on most fry cookers are not sensitive enough at lower temperatures for finishing in the still, or any fine alchemy.
We don’t recommend sitting a pot of hot Canola oil on the an electric stove and using the surface element to heat the oil, because you can add too much heat and over pressure the still, if you are not paying close attention to details.
Careful with an open burner or any open flames, because even hot oil is flammable, as are any alcohol fumes that might leak out somewhere, should you not get the lid on straight, or hose clamped, or etc, something go wrong.
We like the portable pot, because some of the things that I use it for, are best done outdoors, even if I have to use a portable generator. It also can’t put in enough heat at 1.5kw to blow the lid o-ring seal on the pot, or a hose off, which are the weakest links in the system.
We modified the All Clad asparagus steamer pot by drilling a hole in each pot handle, through which I slip two 4″ X 1/4=20 round head bolts, that pass though an 3/4″ X 2″ x 8″ Oak board holding down the lid and be secured with washers and wing nuts.
We modified the pot lid, by drilling a pilot hole using Canola oil as a cutting lubricant for the stainless, and using a step drill to open the hole to 5/8″ to accept a 1/8″ NPT brass bulkhead fitting. I roll a 5/8″ X 1.125″ over the fitting outer diameter, so that it seals with only hand tightening.
Attached is a parts list below for the above and the rest of the parts, but the use of a neoprene or Viton fuel hose for the application. Many plastics and rubber hoses leach badly in the alcohols passing through.
Operation of the still is simple. The alcohol is sealed up inside the pot, which is set into the pot of oil, which has its controls set wide open, or about 375F. I wrap a towel around the pot and 1.5 kw fondue cooker, to conserve heat and speed up the process.
A 1/4″ fuel hose conveys the alcohol vapors boiled off, to the condenser, which is sitting atop an inverted cat litter bucket, with reliefs cut out. The bowl is filled with ice water, and after the alcohol fumes pass through its coils and reach the 1.75 liter bottle below, it is ice cold. Recovery is greater than 99% during this step of recovery.
We keep track of how much has been boiled off by how much accumulates in the bottle of approximately the same diameter as the asparagus, and mark on it where I wish to stop distilling.
We usually stop before all the alcohol is gone, and pour it into a smaller container to boil the last bit off to atmosphere where I can watch.
Here is the parts list, and some pictures:
1 All Clad stainless asparagus steamer 1 10″ Stainless steel mixing bowl 2 1/8″ NPT brass bulkhead fitting 1 Neoprene O rings for lid 5.375″ X .125″ 2 Neoprene O ring for bulkhead fittings 5/8” X .125 1 1/8” MNPT elbow to 3/16” compression 1 1/8″ MNPT to 3/16″ compression 1 5 gallon plastic bucket 2 1/4″ 20 X 4″ Plated carriage bolts 2 1/4″ Plated washer 2 1/4″ Stainless or chrome wingnut 1 3/4″ X 8 1/2″ X 2″ Oak block 4′ 3/16″ ID Neoprene fuel hose 2 3/8″ Hose screw clamps 12.5′ 3/16″ ID copper refrigeration tubing
Attached thumbnail(s)
Posted by Tres on March 31, 2013 at 12:20 PM
Hi Gray Wolf
I have an asparagus steamer, now I need the big seal
Neoprene seals in the UK seem to be a bit rare.
I can get nitrile or viton?
Are any of the above acceptable?
Or something else?
On the subject of materials are brass fittings used in the
plumbing trade acceptable to join steamer to copper pipe?
Thanks in advance
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on March 31, 2013 at 4:47 PM
Viton will work well.
Yes, brass fittings are fine. I use a brass 1/8″ NPT bulkhead fitting with an o-ring, and brass compression fittings to run the copper coil through it.
Posted by Sppete13 on March 12, 2013 at 10:03 AM
Hey I have another question
If I was to make this still…. could it be operated at lower temperatures…. (with the understanding that the recovery times would be significantly longer) My question is, what is the lowest temperature that you could use, and still reclaim your alcohol… it appears that it must be 173 in order for the alcohol to burn off, yet i was trying to keep my temps below 130…. is this possible?
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on March 14, 2013 at 3:37 PM
You can cold boil alcohol at ambient temperatures under vacuum, but without vacuum, the temperature would be about 173F at sea level.
Posted by Sppete13 on March 16, 2013 at 5:13 PM
Is there a way to cold vacuum AND reclaim your everclear?
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on March 17, 2013 at 7:11 AM
Yes, with an effective cold trap. It is tougher under vacuum, and we’ve yet to achieve the same percentage of reclaim as using our simple pot still, but we are continuing to work on it.
Posted by rocky on February 6, 2013 at 11:54 AM
Hey Greywolf,
I am building this still but cant find the 5.375 x .125 neoprene o rings. Hoping you would share your source for acquiring a few of them.
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on February 6, 2013 at 12:50 PM
Most likely Seals Unlimited http://www.sealsunlimited.com/ or Gasket Specialties http://www.gasketspecialties.com/ here in Portland.
GW
Posted by cedar on November 29, 2012 at 12:19 PM
hi greywolf –
what is the capacity (volume of ethanol/oil solution) of your still as described? how difficult/expensive is it to add a vacuum pump to the still? what is the typical ratio of ethanol to dry material in your QWET extraction?
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on November 30, 2012 at 7:03 AM
Hi Cedar!
I will take some actual measurements and correct the following estimate, following my next visit to the lab. As I recall, the asparagus steamer is about a 6″ X 10″ pot, with a capacity to the brim of about 293 cubic inches, so functionally would process about 75% of that, or around .91 gallons.
That still wouldn’t gracefully accept a vacuum pump, but the Enabler will.
It’s column is ostensibly capable of refluxing up to 2Kw, so the pot size attached to the bottom is up to the builder, based on their local laws and circumstances.
The pot in our prototype test sled holds about 182 cubic inches to the brim, or functionally about 136 cubic inches, or about 0.59 gallons.
Here is the link! It has been on back burner, but is 90% complete and in the queue.
http://skunkpharmresearch.com/enabler-alcohol-fractionating-still/
I like to fill my jars about 3/4 full of material loosely packed, and fill about 2″ of ethanol above that. As it shares the same space as the plant material, less alcohol is required, but dry material will also soak up and hold a lot of alcohol.
Depending on packing, the jar will hold maybe 80/90% of it’s empty capacity, and lose around 10/20% when decanted and filtered, that is soaked into the material.
Posted by johnny quest on October 28, 2012 at 10:52 AM
i’m confused, you say thc boils at 315, but your instructions say to heat it to 375? so we are supposed to scrape the hash oil from this asparagus steamer after the reclaim? seems like something with all those curves would be a pain to scrape…how do you do it? the instructions are thorough for making the still, but very vague about how to actually use it…
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on October 28, 2012 at 1:51 PM
Even though the oil bath may be at 375F, the alcohol mixture inside the pot will not rise above its boiling point. Ethanol boils at 173F at atmospheric pressure and not much higher in the still, until most of the alcohol is gone, at which time the temperature elevates to the next lowest boiling point.
Because we like to watch our oil during the final stages of purging, we don’t remove all of the alcohol in the still. We distill it down about 90%, and decant the rest from the still for purging by other means. Usually by boiling off in a hot oil bath at 250F, or at low temperature under vacuum. In both cases, we judge completion by watching bubble formation.
Posted by Franklin on August 2, 2012 at 8:26 PM
Won’t the THC vaporize off at that high of temp?
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on August 3, 2012 at 5:16 AM
No, THC boils at about 157C/315F, and ethanol boils at around 78C/173F.
GW
Posted by know1edge7 on May 2, 2012 at 2:21 AM
how long does a liter of ethanol take to evap out of the oil?
Posted by Skunk Pharm Research,LLC on May 2, 2012 at 4:05 AM
~30/45 min.
Posted by teddyshead on March 11, 2012 at 9:11 AM
on me to do list soon ,,,,,thanks peeps