Contents
A pressure cooker is a useful pan with a hermetic lid and safety valves. With its help, you can not only cook delicious dishes, but also drive moonshine. We will look at a simple pressure cooker distiller design that is used by many experienced and novice moonshiners.
A moonshine still from a pressure cooker has three important advantages over other models:
- this is a ready-made sealed distillation cube that requires minimal refinement;
- stainless steel pressure cookers are sold everywhere and are inexpensive;
- old containers that are no longer used for cooking are suitable.
There is only one drawback – small capacity. Very rarely there are pressure cookers with a volume of more than 5-6 liters. It turns out a mini moonshine still for distilling small batches of mash, or you have to distill in several passes.
Instructions for making moonshine from a pressure cooker
Item Description:
1 – pressure cooker cover;
2 – thermometer;
3 – tube;
4 – crane;
5 – water cooling;
6 – moonshine receiver;
7 – stock;
8 – water bath.
1. Refinement of the evaporator
All you need to do is modify the lid of the pressure cooker a little, namely, to insert two plumbing feet with a ½ or ¾ inch thread. Fittings can be used, but fittings are preferred as they provide the best seal.
The first hole is required to connect the evaporator to the refrigerator through a tube, a thermometer is inserted into the second, which allows you to control the temperature of the mash.
All connecting tubes and other elements of the apparatus should be metal (ideally copper), since their rubber and plastic counterparts leave an unpleasant aftertaste in the finished moonshine.
2. Choice of condenser (refrigerator)
In most schemes of moonshine stills, the condenser is called a coil; in this module, alcohol vapors turn into a liquid. The ideal option is a quartz glass cooler used in chemical laboratories. The second option is to make a coil from a copper tube, which can be bought at the construction market or at a plumbing store. For normal cooling of a homemade condenser, running water is needed.
For 1-2 hours of distillation, several hundred liters of water may be required. To reduce consumption, craftsmen use a closed cooling system with a volume of only 30-40 liters. Two buckets are set at different heights (difference 50-60 cm). From the upper bucket, water flows by gravity into the coil, from there it flows into the lower bucket. Then, with an aquarium pump or other pump, it is pumped back into the upper bucket. But this scheme is only suitable for experienced moonshiners, as it requires adjustment of the fluid supply rate.
With the correct operation of the moonshine still from the pressure cooker, the moonshine should be cold at the outlet of the coil, but if the distillate is warm, then the device is not working properly and the cooling system needs to be finalized.
3. Connecting elements
At this stage, after assembly, the sealing of all elements, especially the connecting pipes, is checked. Depending on the design, sometimes the joints have to be additionally processed. The easiest way is to close all the holes with the usual test, which is easily removed after distillation.
Dryer construction
The need for a sukhoparnik is still being debated. Some believe that it removes some of the third-party impurities. If you also think so, then you can make a moonshine from a pressure cooker with a steamer. The design of the distiller will remain the same, just add one more element. The scheme is shown in the figure.
As a steamer, you can use an ordinary glass jar with a screw cap with a volume of 750 ml. Two holes are drilled in the lid, into which the tubes are soldered. One of them is connected to a pressure cooker, the other to a refrigeration unit.
Theoretically, with this scheme, the vapors of ethyl alcohol and fusel oils are first condensed in a steamer. Then the alcohol boils again, and the fusel oils remain at the bottom of the jar. But in practice, there can be many nuances related to the temperature regime and the quality of the mash.
PS A moonshine still from a pressure cooker is great not only for making traditional sugar moonshine, it can be used to drive out calvados, whiskey, cognac and other strong drinks that require distillation.