5 ms·

Open Source Distilling

83 points by nativeit 1y ago

ghushn3 1y ago
Definitely be careful before embarking on home distilling. In many parts of the world (and many parts of the US) it's pretty strictly illegal.
- landl0rd 1y ago
  A lot of my family has lived in a West Virginia valley since before the Revolutionary War. For most of that time, we have held a generalized contempt for the law and those who would tell others how to live their lives. I think for other people, it's similar, and we either don't care or appreciate the fact that it's a way to rebel.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  Any such law displays a gross disrespect for basic freedoms. The more people that ignore it the better. You'd do as well to outlaw sewing your own clothes.
  - dpacmittal 1y ago
    I mean it's illegal to grow marijuana or synthesize LSD at your home in most of the world.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      Note that I don't take issue with the UAE banning home distillation. If marijuana is fully legalized in a given jurisdiction yet it remains illegal to grow small quantities of it I would feel similarly. Still, I don't think it's quite as culturally ubiquitous throughout history as alcohol is, at least in the west. LSD is an entirely different ballpark. I don't personally think US drug law makes much sense but I will acknowledge that something like LSD lacks the broad historical acceptance that alcohol enjoys in the west. Mushrooms would be a much better example if you want to take the discussion in that direction.
  - ocimbote 1y ago
    Distillation, when done improperly, can result in very toxic substances. It requires care and craft and since alcohol is not only a drug but a transformed product (like LSD or meth), it is perfectly fine that some state-level supervision apply: anything ranging from plain interdiction to controlled production. Note that the level of control usually depends on potential health issues and culture, it is not usually strictly bound to the product itself, since we can observe variations from region to region.
    - jajko 1y ago
      People frequently get blind or just die from home made booze when distilling and not checking for methyl alcohol. Quite common on poor parts of the world but also ie eastern Europe and russia.
      - fc417fc802 1y ago
        Misinformation. Unless you happen to own a GCMS you don't check for methanol. Rather you discard the heads and the tails from a fractioning still because that's where stuff that isn't ethanol comes out. In the modern era you'd use a digital thermometer for this task. Someone suffering methanol poisoning from DIY distillation is equivalent to someone landing in the hospital after failing to cook his chicken all the way through. It's simple incompetence, likely due either to blatant disregard for safety or else to attempting to wing something based on only the most topical of knowledge.
        genewitch 1y ago
        Isn't the remedy for methanol ingestion... Ethanol? Just keep drinking? I have two distillers and I've never distilled alcohol. I do distill water in my eletric one. I turn it on and leave the condenser part off until bubbles form, I blow the steam off to ensure it steams again, place the top on, set the timer for 3 hours and shut it off then. The pre-boil ostensibly let's the petroleum and the like escape, and the stopping before dry prevents anything with a higher phase temp than water from distilling. I use it for coffee machine, kettle, and ice machine, just to cut down on maintenance. Ten years ago I bought 3 copper five gallon distillers, and gave two to my in-laws and kept one for myself. I tried to distill water in it but it was not coming out clean, so I packed it away till I had time to use it outside on a propane burner after purging it with alcohol or some non-copper eating acid.
- yial 1y ago
  I don't agree with "strictly" illegal. 1 - it depends on what you're distilling. https://www.distillate.org/laws/list https://www.distillate.org/laws/list 2 - while federally illegal to just get a still and start churning out spirits, ... https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-alcohol/distilled-spirits/permits https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-alcohol/d... a free permit and some paperwork (okay a lot of paperwork) lets you. Disclaimer: I don't hold any licenses or permits related to alcohol, but as a holder of a half dozen other ones, I believe it would be surmountable to do this legally if you really want to.
  - drob518 1y ago
    You can do it legally, but I think the point is that many people think that home distillation is like home brewing of beer (legal and fairly easy as long as you don’t sell it). It isn’t. The Feds control distillation much more strictly, and as the site you referenced pointed out, even possessing an unlicensed still in some states is illegal.
  - ghushn3 1y ago
    "In some parts of the world..." The world is bigger than the US, friend.
    - yial 1y ago
      Having lived in both India, Peru, and the USA I agree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country I would argue that it’s either not illegal, or not enforced, on more of the population of the world if taking a wider view approach. Apologies if my initial comment was US centric, I was replying really to the “most U.S. states” section as that was easier to quantify and reply to.
- schwartzworld 1y ago
  I think you’d struggle to find much evidence of home distillers getting busted. If you’re not selling the stuff, you’re probably not the TTBs concern.
  - diggan 1y ago
    > find much evidence of home distillers getting busted Again, depends heavily on the country. Some countries don't care about the theoretical/actual impact of committing a crime, and will chase and charge you regardless if it's for private use or not (which, kind of also makes sense). In my personal experience, Sweden is one of those countries, I'm sure there are more out there.
  - drob518 1y ago
    This falls into the “how would they know about it?” category, but that doesn’t mean it’s not illegal or that you wouldn’t get prosecuted if they happened to find it. Sort of like growing your own personal stash of marijuana.
    - Carrok 1y ago
      We know it’s illegal. We don’t care.
    - schwartzworld 1y ago
      More than that, what are they actually trying to enforce? In the USA it’s excise tax. The TTB cannot possibly go after home distillers making quantities that you’d make with a stovetop still. It’s like $2.70 per gallon for small producers. Obviously in countries that have stricter alcohol laws, the math might be different.
Dusksky 1y ago
[dead]
nicman23 1y ago
[flagged]
- Ringz 1y ago
  You aren’t the only one. I wonder how distillation of LLMs is done, didn’t research it and hoped this might be a solution. Well, it might be a solution but one that come with more hallucinations.
  - qeternity 1y ago
    It's the same process as regular training, but instead of a single token for your cost function, it's top-k logits.
01100011 1y ago
> For example, I think a lot of us don’t want to sit in front of a still for 30 minutes waiting for it to come up to temperature at the beginning of a distilling day. Idk, I find driving a still to be pleasurable. To each their own. Hot ethanol seems to have the refractive index to make it sparkle like a diamond. I recommend trying distilling if you like to brew things. It's a fun hobby.
- Loughla 1y ago
  I have always wanted to set up an old timey whisky still in my woods on the creek. I have no idea how to make a still. Any way you could point me toward a reliable source for how to build and operate one? I don't trust the results from blind googling anymore.
  - hidingfearful 1y ago
    looking for the snarky link between "blind googling" and blindness caused by drinking improperly distilled alcohol.
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      > blindness caused by drinking improperly distilled alcohol. This isn't actually a thing. You will die of normal ethanol poisoning well before consuming enough methanol to cause blindness when drinking alcohol you made from distilling something you fermented. The blindness thing is some nicely placed Prohibition-era propaganda combined with the addition of methanol to alcohol-containing products that managed to make its way into the public psyche.
      - jakubmazanec 1y ago
        Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Czech_Republic_methanol_poisonings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Czech_Republic_methanol...
        1y ago
dylan604 1y ago
I'm really at a loss as to the why distilling needs anything requiring OSS. It's worse than my washer/dryer/dishwasher wanting/requiring WiFi access. You put your mash in a vat to ferment. You bring that mash to boil in the still. You collect the output.
- nativeit 1y ago
  Humans do a lot of things that don't make much sense. Including the act of making and consuming liquor. We do it because we enjoy it.
- dmos62 1y ago
  iSpindel is cheaper than a manual hydrometer and it's automatic (and thus safer for the cultures). If you don't want to track/collect data about the fermentation or whatever, then don't, but many find it practical and pleasurable. https://opensourcedistilling.com/ispindel/ https://opensourcedistilling.com/ispindel/
  - anfractuosity 1y ago
    Are you sure it's cheaper than a glass hydrometer, you can get one for around £3
    - dmos62 1y ago
      I misspoke, the right comparison was between it and a commercial automatic hydrometer. Thank you for the sanity check.

83 points by nativeit 1y ago

Definitely be careful before embarking on home distilling. In many parts of the world (and many parts of the US) it's pretty strictly illegal.

landl0rd 1y ago
A lot of my family has lived in a West Virginia valley since before the Revolutionary War. For most of that time, we have held a generalized contempt for the law and those who would tell others how to live their lives. I think for other people, it's similar, and we either don't care or appreciate the fact that it's a way to rebel.
fc417fc802 1y ago
Any such law displays a gross disrespect for basic freedoms. The more people that ignore it the better. You'd do as well to outlaw sewing your own clothes.
- dpacmittal 1y ago
  I mean it's illegal to grow marijuana or synthesize LSD at your home in most of the world.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    Note that I don't take issue with the UAE banning home distillation. If marijuana is fully legalized in a given jurisdiction yet it remains illegal to grow small quantities of it I would feel similarly. Still, I don't think it's quite as culturally ubiquitous throughout history as alcohol is, at least in the west. LSD is an entirely different ballpark. I don't personally think US drug law makes much sense but I will acknowledge that something like LSD lacks the broad historical acceptance that alcohol enjoys in the west. Mushrooms would be a much better example if you want to take the discussion in that direction.
- ocimbote 1y ago
  Distillation, when done improperly, can result in very toxic substances. It requires care and craft and since alcohol is not only a drug but a transformed product (like LSD or meth), it is perfectly fine that some state-level supervision apply: anything ranging from plain interdiction to controlled production. Note that the level of control usually depends on potential health issues and culture, it is not usually strictly bound to the product itself, since we can observe variations from region to region.
  - jajko 1y ago
    People frequently get blind or just die from home made booze when distilling and not checking for methyl alcohol. Quite common on poor parts of the world but also ie eastern Europe and russia.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      Misinformation. Unless you happen to own a GCMS you don't check for methanol. Rather you discard the heads and the tails from a fractioning still because that's where stuff that isn't ethanol comes out. In the modern era you'd use a digital thermometer for this task. Someone suffering methanol poisoning from DIY distillation is equivalent to someone landing in the hospital after failing to cook his chicken all the way through. It's simple incompetence, likely due either to blatant disregard for safety or else to attempting to wing something based on only the most topical of knowledge.
      - genewitch 1y ago
        Isn't the remedy for methanol ingestion... Ethanol? Just keep drinking? I have two distillers and I've never distilled alcohol. I do distill water in my eletric one. I turn it on and leave the condenser part off until bubbles form, I blow the steam off to ensure it steams again, place the top on, set the timer for 3 hours and shut it off then. The pre-boil ostensibly let's the petroleum and the like escape, and the stopping before dry prevents anything with a higher phase temp than water from distilling. I use it for coffee machine, kettle, and ice machine, just to cut down on maintenance. Ten years ago I bought 3 copper five gallon distillers, and gave two to my in-laws and kept one for myself. I tried to distill water in it but it was not coming out clean, so I packed it away till I had time to use it outside on a propane burner after purging it with alcohol or some non-copper eating acid.
yial 1y ago
I don't agree with "strictly" illegal. 1 - it depends on what you're distilling. https://www.distillate.org/laws/list https://www.distillate.org/laws/list 2 - while federally illegal to just get a still and start churning out spirits, ... https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-alcohol/distilled-spirits/permits https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-alcohol/d... a free permit and some paperwork (okay a lot of paperwork) lets you. Disclaimer: I don't hold any licenses or permits related to alcohol, but as a holder of a half dozen other ones, I believe it would be surmountable to do this legally if you really want to.
- drob518 1y ago
  You can do it legally, but I think the point is that many people think that home distillation is like home brewing of beer (legal and fairly easy as long as you don’t sell it). It isn’t. The Feds control distillation much more strictly, and as the site you referenced pointed out, even possessing an unlicensed still in some states is illegal.
- ghushn3 1y ago
  "In some parts of the world..." The world is bigger than the US, friend.
  - yial 1y ago
    Having lived in both India, Peru, and the USA I agree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_by_country I would argue that it’s either not illegal, or not enforced, on more of the population of the world if taking a wider view approach. Apologies if my initial comment was US centric, I was replying really to the “most U.S. states” section as that was easier to quantify and reply to.
schwartzworld 1y ago
I think you’d struggle to find much evidence of home distillers getting busted. If you’re not selling the stuff, you’re probably not the TTBs concern.
- diggan 1y ago
  > find much evidence of home distillers getting busted Again, depends heavily on the country. Some countries don't care about the theoretical/actual impact of committing a crime, and will chase and charge you regardless if it's for private use or not (which, kind of also makes sense). In my personal experience, Sweden is one of those countries, I'm sure there are more out there.
- drob518 1y ago
  This falls into the “how would they know about it?” category, but that doesn’t mean it’s not illegal or that you wouldn’t get prosecuted if they happened to find it. Sort of like growing your own personal stash of marijuana.
  - Carrok 1y ago
    We know it’s illegal. We don’t care.
  - schwartzworld 1y ago
    More than that, what are they actually trying to enforce? In the USA it’s excise tax. The TTB cannot possibly go after home distillers making quantities that you’d make with a stovetop still. It’s like $2.70 per gallon for small producers. Obviously in countries that have stricter alcohol laws, the math might be different.

Dusksky 1y ago

[dead]

nicman23 1y ago

[flagged]

Ringz 1y ago
You aren’t the only one. I wonder how distillation of LLMs is done, didn’t research it and hoped this might be a solution. Well, it might be a solution but one that come with more hallucinations.
- qeternity 1y ago
  It's the same process as regular training, but instead of a single token for your cost function, it's top-k logits.

01100011 1y ago

> For example, I think a lot of us don’t want to sit in front of a still for 30 minutes waiting for it to come up to temperature at the beginning of a distilling day. Idk, I find driving a still to be pleasurable. To each their own. Hot ethanol seems to have the refractive index to make it sparkle like a diamond. I recommend trying distilling if you like to brew things. It's a fun hobby.

Loughla 1y ago
I have always wanted to set up an old timey whisky still in my woods on the creek. I have no idea how to make a still. Any way you could point me toward a reliable source for how to build and operate one? I don't trust the results from blind googling anymore.
- hidingfearful 1y ago
  looking for the snarky link between "blind googling" and blindness caused by drinking improperly distilled alcohol.
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    > blindness caused by drinking improperly distilled alcohol. This isn't actually a thing. You will die of normal ethanol poisoning well before consuming enough methanol to cause blindness when drinking alcohol you made from distilling something you fermented. The blindness thing is some nicely placed Prohibition-era propaganda combined with the addition of methanol to alcohol-containing products that managed to make its way into the public psyche.
    - jakubmazanec 1y ago
      Related: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Czech_Republic_methanol_poisonings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Czech_Republic_methanol...
      - 1y ago

dylan604 1y ago

I'm really at a loss as to the why distilling needs anything requiring OSS. It's worse than my washer/dryer/dishwasher wanting/requiring WiFi access. You put your mash in a vat to ferment. You bring that mash to boil in the still. You collect the output.

nativeit 1y ago
Humans do a lot of things that don't make much sense. Including the act of making and consuming liquor. We do it because we enjoy it.
dmos62 1y ago
iSpindel is cheaper than a manual hydrometer and it's automatic (and thus safer for the cultures). If you don't want to track/collect data about the fermentation or whatever, then don't, but many find it practical and pleasurable. https://opensourcedistilling.com/ispindel/ https://opensourcedistilling.com/ispindel/
- anfractuosity 1y ago
  Are you sure it's cheaper than a glass hydrometer, you can get one for around £3
  - dmos62 1y ago
    I misspoke, the right comparison was between it and a commercial automatic hydrometer. Thank you for the sanity check.