Still

[Mad_Professor]

1) REALLY Pure water

2) Fuel, disinfectant, beverage

3) Vinegar

4) What else have I missed??? ad on. I can think of less important needs.....

Anybody thought about it?

Stainless steel with adjustable column would be best, but a glass large capacity clean/unused chemistry set up would also work fine

[NCLee]

Professor, I'm not sure that I understand the purpose of your post. Are you asking advice on making/using a still? Or, are you trying to learn how many ways they can be useful on a homestead? Or, maybe a combination?

Since I'm not sure of your train of thought, here's a couple of comments that may or may not apply.

1) Distilled water may not be really pure. Water contaminated with chemicals that vaporize at or below the temperature of boiling water can still be in the condensation. Also, total reliance on distilled water for drinking for long periods of time may have negative health affects if the lost minerals aren't supplemented in some manner.

2) How does "disinfectant" into play? Are you talking about making alcohol to be used as a disinfectant? Asking for a recipe to make a disinfectant?

3) Vinegar - this aroused my curosity as to the type of vinegar you have in mind. White "distilled" vinegar?

As to stills, themselves, add solar stills to your list of possibilities. A simple still can be rigged up using a pressure canner. As long as you can find a way to fabricate a cap, a moonshiner's still is a good larger scale option, whether just distilling water or something a little stronger. :wink:

Sorry, if I've completely missed your objective with your post. I may need to get another cup of coffee this morning, as I may still be 1/2 :lazy:

Lee

[Mad_Professor]

Hi Lee,

Just a general post here and wonder if anybody has setups in their arsenal?

Lots of food that does not get processed can be turned into something useful (ethanol/vinegar)

1) Water. If you cut fractions using a good thermometer you can remove a lot of volatiles , besides all nonvolatile , contaminants, also totally removes microbes. Also comes in handy for the battery bank for the solar charger.

2) "Grain" 95 % ethanol (pure as you can get using a still as it forms an azeotrope) has lots of uses: solvent, preservative, disinfectant, fuel, beverage, pain reliever/sleep aid ......watch out for BATF goons

3) Vinegar. Another commodity needed for self sufficient life. A by-product of fermentation processes of #2 above. Cooking canning pickling are some applications. With a still can make a very strong concentrate (glacial acetic acid) and dilute as needed

A solar still is a part of the general topic. Everybody's BOB should have some clear plastic sheet, food grade tubing, and a container (can fabricate w/plastic sheet). Large scale permanent could provide drinking needs. Yes no minerals, but that should be planned into diet anyway....

Pressure canner idea is interesting/promising! But as most are aluminum won't work for vinegar.

[Sarah]

Hmmm... Punching 'still' into the search engine here gave me 28 results. Perhaps if you visit here and play with the search engine it will give you some ideas. The index searching is free. http://www.librum.us. Our main benefactor had a doctorate in chemistry, and loved the older receipt books. The ones you will see here on our site came from his library.

I remember him always working with vacuum and pressure stills to extract essential oils. We women kept him busy, and he always had something 'brewing' for us.

Also stearine (used in candle making).

I remember him making lactic acid, and refining reagents.

I remember him making many restoration inks, like oak gall.

He also used to concentrate stevia extract for us.

He used a combination of vacuum and pressure stills to produce activated carbon slurry, when pressed and dried into blocks, or 'cups', were used for water purification, and for making thermite/cadwell moulds.

Try some google searches.

Sarah