anybody got good details/principles on how to make a still.

always have loads of apples left in the autumn and thought i might try my hand to making a form of calvados.

any ideas and help appreciated

http://www.moonshine-still.com/

Be sure not to use lead in any form. Solder, for instance.

You can try and it's pretty easy...sort of. I remember when I was a kid, my father always used the left over mash from wine making, and ran it through his still.

All it was, was a pressure cooker, but instead of that pressure weight on top, he drilled and tapped the lid, and used copper tubing, kept it in a coil, ran it through a 5 gallon pail with ice, and the end was in a bottle on the ground.

I remember watching a hockey game in the garage with my dad and grandfather when he was running some through. He thought it odd that the stove had been on for some time and nothing condensing into the bottle yet. When he opened the pressure relief valve, the steam escaped for about 40 minutes. We could have blown ourselves up. It turned out that the wine mash had plugged the copper tubing!

I was going to try myself a few years back with my wine mash, and the research I found out, along with speeking to a pharmacist friend was that the alcohol you drink, and the one you can run in vehicles only boil off 3 degrees apart from each other. Unless your set up is extremely controlled, you run the risk of death/or serious illness. If you're lucky, you'll boil it too fast and dilute your spirit with water as well. Our pharmacist friend suggested to buy some cheap vodka instead and all you'd have is a hangover!

But if you do try, here's a recipe we had for grand marnier. We use to buy a very large orange or two. You poke 40 holes in the orange and insert 40 coffee beans. Take the orange and submerse it in the moonshine in a sealed mason jar for 40 days. You essentially had 100% grand marnier.

Good luck,

While I claim no expertise, except on the drinking end, this article indicates that with a minimal amount of care in the distillation, methanol is not a problem.

http://www.homedistiller.org/methanol.htm

good link, and good info. I'll pass that by our family friend and see what he has to say. that sight makes it look harmless.

hard to believe you'd have to drink that much, that would be one hell of a night!

worse the next day!