TWO LOW-COST BACKYARD STILLS
(Page 2 of 3)
July/August 1980
By the Mother Earth News editors
A SLIGHTLY LARGER UNIT, TOO
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The second design—a four-inch column model—is capable of producing about two gallons per hour of 90% pure ethanol fuel. Naturally, because this model is larger and somewhat more sophisticated than the two-inch column still, its cost is greater . . . but the entire assembly can probably be built for under $200 in about 30 hours of spare time tinkering in your shop.
Although the illustration is largely self-explanatory, there are a few fine points that should be mentioned. The 40- to 80-gallon tank should, of course, be leak-free and preferably nongalvanized, and all its unused fittings must be plugged. Since the column will have to be filled with pall rings (or some other loose material), it will also be necessary to insert a drilled packing support plate in the pipe—at its bottom flange—to prevent the packing from falling into the mash vat.
Both the internal heat exchanger and the condenser are simply lengths of 1/4" O.D. copper tubing, wound into 2"-diameter coils and held in place—within their respective columns—by compression-to-pipe adapters ... which are themselves fastened to pipe couplers welded to the tube's walls. (The coils can be formed by wrapping the soft tube around a 1-1/2"-thick section of pipe or wooden dowel.) Since the amount of water flow controls the critical temperature within the packed tower, the rush of cooling liquid—to the column, at least—should be regulated by a needle valve on the supply side .. . al though separate controls and lines to the heat exchanger and condenser (using a tee and a single water return hose) may be more practical. Remember, too, that you may want to install a thermometer well at the top of the column, in order to keep vapor temperatures within the desirable 175-180°F range.
Though neither of these two stills will—by itself—be capable of producing all the fuel an average American family consumes, either one certainly would be able to supply a motorcycle, home-generating unit, garden tractor, or any of countless other normally gasoline-powered pieces of equipment that are in use on homesteads and in communities across the country today . . . and that's certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially when there may eventually be no gasoline available in this nation for long periods of time!
