How to purify vodka and alcohol at home. Purification of alcohol using auxiliary means
You can purify vodka and alcohol at home. But let us warn you right away: this will not save you from deadly methyl alcohol. And from harmful impurities - easily. Additional purification will improve the quality of vodka and prevent hangover (if you drink in reasonable quantities).
Part 1. Vodka from the store
You bought a bottle at the store and suddenly doubted its proper cleaning. You can play it safe by purifying the vodka yourself. Home cleaning may well remove foreign impurities from the product. There are several ways to purify vodka. They can be used individually or in combination.
Filtration
This is the simplest thing: take a paper towel, fold it into a funnel, put a piece of cotton wool on the bottom, you can add activated or plain charcoal, and put another paper funnel on top. And slowly, in a thin stream, pour vodka through this structure.
You can use a good water filter to filter vodka.Instead of paper towels, it is convenient to use paper coffee filters.
You can take activated charcoal, you can buy charcoal tablets in a specialized store to clean moonshine, or you can take cooled charcoal out of the barbecue at the dacha. It’s best not to buy commercial barbecue coals - they give the product an unpleasant odor.
Infusion
You can add the same coal to vodka and insist on it for several days. Tightly closed containers of vodka should be shaken twice a day. After infusion, it is better to filter the vodka as described above.
Milk and proteins
Ancient folk way. You need to add milk or egg white to the vodka. Shake. The protein or milk will curdle, bind impurities and fusel oils and will precipitate. And you will filter the vodka and drain the sediment.
Potassium permangantsovka
You need to add 2-3 grams of potassium permanganate to vodka. Leave overnight. A sediment should form at the bottom. Then we filter the vodka, leaving sediment in the bottle.Freezing
Vodka is poured into a bag and placed in the freezer. Vodka does not freeze in our freezers; its freezing point is below 20 degrees. But the impurities turn into small pieces of ice. They must be filtered first through a fine sieve, then through a paper filter.
Part 2. Alcohol
The days of Royal spirit are long gone. And you can’t buy food grade alcohol in stores now. But sometimes they still get him. In different ways and for different purposes, but ethyl or medical alcohol reaches consumers. Rare extreme sports enthusiasts drink it pure. Typically, alcohol is diluted to a vodka strength of 40 degrees. This must be done carefully. And the resulting product must be cleaned. Since even pure alcohol is diluted with pure water, impurities are still released.
Step 1. Distinguish from methyl (technical)
It is very important. In general, it is better not to buy alcohol in a dubious place. Although if official sales are prohibited, then all places turn out to be dubious. Sometimes they buy alcohol from distilleries, which is a pretty reliable place. However, if you come into contact with drinking alcohol:
Smell it. Bad alcohol will smell like acetone. But just don’t put your nose close to alcohol - you’ll burn your mucous membrane. You need to bring the container with alcohol to the side of your nose, no closer than 15 centimeters, and wave the alcohol vapor at yourself with your hand. This is how professional tasters evaluate aromas; it is safe. Methanol itself is no different from ethyl alcohol, but its impurities are different.
Set it on fire. Ethyl alcohol burns with a blue flame, while technical alcohol burns with a green flame.
Heat the copper wire. When hot copper wire gets into alcohol, a sharp, unpleasant odor may be released - this means you have methyl alcohol. Edible alcohol will not react to this.
Step 2. Find good water
Not boiled or distilled. It is best to take bottled water and further filter it. Or spring water - and also filter it. Doesn't fit mineral water with added salts.
Step 3. Glucose
You can buy it at the pharmacy or cook it yourself. 1 kg of sugar should be diluted in a liter of water and put on fire. Boil, constantly skimming off the white foam. When the foam stops forming, the syrup is ready.
Step 4. Quantity calculation
Approximate proportion: 2 parts alcohol to 3 parts water. That is, for 100 ml of alcohol you need to take approximately 150 ml of water. You can easily find a calculation table on the Internet, using it you will understand how much water is needed for a certain strength of alcohol and for a certain strength of the drink in the end. The above proportion is for 96% alcohol and obtaining approximately 40 proof vodka.Step 5. Connection
Pour the required amount of water into a container, add a spoonful of glucose and stir. Then pour alcohol into the water.
Important! You need to pour alcohol into water, and not vice versa. In the latter case, you will get a whitish liquid that is undrinkable.After you have introduced the alcohol, stir the resulting liquid. Keep in mind that its volume may be less than the combined volume of water and alcohol. Partial volume of liquid is lost during the reaction.
Step 6: Cleaning and Filtration
You need to add charcoal to the alcohol, maybe even a few activated tablets. Leave for 2-3 hours, then filter through a thick cloth or cotton wool. Additionally, you can use any method of purifying vodka from those outlined in the first part of the article.
Step 7. Exposure
Pour the diluted vodka into bottles and let it sit for 2 days. Sometimes it is recommended to stand for a week.
To eliminate the specific odor and improve the taste of vodka, additional home cleaning and flavoring is used, adding a variety of fruits, berries, herbs, and various spices.
So, how do we cleanse?
To clean vodka, add 5 tablets of Karbolene (activated carbon) purchased at the pharmacy, slightly crushed into small pieces with the handle of a knife (but not crushed into powder), onto the floor of a liter bottle.
Then the bottle is closed and vigorously shaken for 2-3 minutes, while the vodka turns black. After 10 minutes, the shaking is repeated. After half an hour, you can shake the bottle again.
After this, the bottle is left completely alone in the dark for 2-3 days.
At the end of the settling, a dense black layer of activated carbon is deposited at the bottom of the bottle, and above it is the purest vodka, which is very carefully siphoned off from the sediment.
Do not try to filter the vodka to speed up the process - the filter will instantly become clogged with carbon and filtration will stop.
You must wait patiently until the coal itself completely precipitates.
The loss of vodka is about 5%, which remains at the bottom in black coal sediment. The more Karbolene you add, the greater the loss of vodka.
Vodka purified in this way is superior in purity and taste to any most expensive one.
More effective and more accessible than other methods is filtration, in which vodka passes through filters made of adsorbent substances; activated carbon is most often used in their role.
You can also strain the vodka through a vessel with charcoal or place the charcoal directly into the vodka at the rate of 50 g of charcoal per 1 liter of vodka. Leave the charcoal for 3 weeks, remembering to shake the container in which you are cleaning every day. After 3 weeks, filter the liquid. Now you can see for yourself by tasting that the vodka has become purer. It is better to use coal left over from the combustion of birch firewood.
You can pass vodka through household filters for purification such as “Springhead”, “Barrier”, etc.
Ancient Russian cleaning method homemade vodka:
You need to pour a little milk or egg white into the prepared vodka. These products bind fusel oils and together with them form sediment at the bottom. Carefully pour the vodka into a clean vessel and distill again. After that, put freshly baked Rye bread. The product obtained as a result of all these operations is almost pure alcohol, devoid of any impurities.
Using the same principle, vodka can be purified using potassium permanganate. Pour 2-3 g of potassium permanganate powder into a 3-liter jar and wait for a precipitate to form. Next, carefully pour the purified vodka into another container, avoiding sediment from getting into it.
Cleansing by freezing.
Place the bottle in freezer refrigerator, defrost after a while and carefully pour into a clean container, and try to prevent ice from the walls of the bottle from getting into the purified drink. The mechanism of the proposed method is not complicated: the water in vodka freezes, creating an ice crust on the inner surface of the bottle and absorbing harmful impurities, including fusel oils. Try defrosted vodka, and you will feel that its taste, and therefore its quality, has improved significantly.
Vodka flavoring
To eliminate the specific odor and improve the taste of vodka, flavoring is used by adding a variety of fruits, berries, herbs, and various spices. They are also added to the finished purified vodka, which is infused for a certain time to obtain the desired effect.
Initially, hops were used to flavor vodka and moonshine. Even in small quantities it can almost completely destroy fusel smell and taste.
Bee honey, which is also an effective aromatic additive, has similar qualities.
Many medicinal herbs can be used for aromatization. This vodka, in addition to its pleasant smell, also acquires medicinal properties.
If the plant infused in the same vodka is replaced from time to time with a fresh one, you will get a concentrated infusion, which can then be used to improve the taste and smell of vodka by simply adding it in small quantities.
It is most practical to infuse the flavoring with vodka in glassware. If you need urgent aromatization (for example, before guests arrive), it is best to place the bottles in a pan of water on wooden blocks and boil for an hour. Then cool in cold water.
When making homemade vodka, flavoring can also be added to the starter. Herbs, lemon and orange peels are very appropriate here. However, the aroma is barely noticeable. To enhance it, it is better to first infuse the water used to make the mash with the flavoring you have chosen (or prepare a decoction), and then dilute the starter in this water.
Here are several recipes for vodka and moonshine with improved taste and smell.
Orange vodka
Ingredients: refined sugar, water - 1 l, vodka - 2 l, peels of 4-5 oranges.
Preparation: Boil syrup from refined sugar and water. Mix with vodka. Pour into the bottle and throw in the orange peels. Place in a place protected from light for 3-4 days. Then filter and bottle.
Varenukha
Ingredients: dried fruits (pears, apples, cherries, plums, figs), vodka, horns, honey, pepper to taste.
Preparation: rinse dried fruits and horns, pour vodka, add honey and pepper to taste. Cover the dish with a piece of bread and coat unleavened dough. Place in a very warm place for 12 hours (in the village - on a hot stove). Drink hot. You can also eat fruits.
Grape vodka
Ingredients: grape juice- 1 l, sugar - 1 kg, tea - 1 tbsp. l., Bay leaf- 5 pcs., black peppercorns - 5 pcs., vanillin - 0.5 tsp., vodka - 1 l.
Preparation: Add the listed ingredients to the vodka. Leave for 5-6 days, stirring regularly. Strain. These flavorings perfectly eliminate the moonshine smell.
Cherry vodka
Ingredients: vodka, cherry fruits.
Preparation: fill the bottle 3/4 full with ripe cherries (half of them should be pitted), fill with vodka and place in the cellar for 1.5 months. After the above time has passed, drain the vodka and squeeze the cherries through the canvas. Let them sit. After a day, mix the juice with vodka, pour into bottles, and seal. It is recommended to try again after a year.
Typically, women prefer drinks that are weaker and sweeter than classic moonshine. Especially for them, we will present several recipes for drinks with a pleasant, mild taste.
Strawberry vodka
Ingredients: strawberries or wild strawberries - 3 kg, sugar - 1.5 kg, vodka - 1 bottle.
Preparation: Grind strawberries or strawberries with sugar, add vodka.
"Cognac"
Ingredients: strong moonshine- 3l, sugar and high quality tea - 1 tbsp each, bay leaf - 3 pcs., black peppercorns - 5 pcs., clove buds - 3-5 pcs., several orange or lemon peels.
Preparation: mix all ingredients thoroughly and let the vodka steep for 10 days.
Robin
Ingredients: raspberries, vodka, sugar syrup taste.
Preparation: Fill the bottle 3/4 full with ripe raspberries. Fill with vodka and keep in the shade for two days. Drain, throw away the raspberries, put them in 1/2 a fresh bottle and fill them again with the same vodka for two days. Drain and strain. Dissolve sugar syrup and add to taste.
Absinthe
Ingredients: vodka, leaves and flowers of wormwood.
Preparation: Dry the top leaves and flowers of wormwood in the shade, then immerse in vodka so that they occupy a quarter of the container. Vodka can be consumed after 1-2 weeks.
Caraway vodka
Ingredients: cumin - 350-400 g, water - 1 l, sugar to taste.
Preparation: Distill the water with cumin through a distillation apparatus. The resulting caraway water can be stored in the refrigerator or cellar for several months. When you need caraway vodka, sweeten the water just a little, pour it into the vodka to taste - and the drink is ready.
Colored vodka
Vodka can be given a very beautiful color without using any artificial colors.
For her to buy:
- Blue colour- insist on cornflowers;
- green - mint;
- red - on blueberries;
- purple - on sunflower seeds;
- yellow - on saffron.
The invention relates to the alcohol industry, in particular to a method for purifying ethyl alcohol from impurities. The method consists of passing ethyl alcohol through a porous sorbent selected from the range: silicon oxide, aluminum oxide, synthetic zeolite and natural zeolite, activated by an air flow at 350-460 o C, followed by cooling in an atmosphere of inert gas, an inert gas is passed through the resulting alcohol , then dilute it with water and subject to rectification to remove isopropyl alcohol impurities. As a rule, the porous sorbent is subjected to regeneration in a flow of inert gas at an elevated temperature, and nitrogen, argon, helium, carbon dioxide or any mixture thereof is used as an inert gas. The method allows you to obtain a high quality commercial product. 2 salary f-ly.
The invention relates to the alcohol industry, in particular to the development of methods for purifying ethyl alcohol to obtain a high-quality commercial product. Ethyl alcohol is an important product in the production of alcoholic beverages. For food purposes it is usually obtained by distilling fermented sugar-containing material such as beet molasses, sugarcane molasses or starchy substances such as potatoes and different kinds cereals: rye, wheat, barley, rice, maize. The result is raw alcohol containing significant impurities of fusel oils. The most important by-products of alcoholic fermentation are acetaldehyde, acetal, glycerin, succinic acid and the so-called fusel oil, which is a mixture of butyl and amyl alcohols and their higher homologues. Succinic acid and fusel oils are formed not from sugar, but as a result of a special fermentation process of amino acids, which are obtained from the proteins of the nutrient substrate. The most common methods for purifying ethanol from impurities are azeotropic, extractive, salt rectification and membrane purification methods [V.I. Zvereva. Production of high-purity ethanol. Journal Appl. Chemistry, 1997, v. 70, issue. 7, pp. 1154-1158]. Most of the research on ethanol purification concerns the removal of a certain group of impurities, in particular methanol, aldehydes, fusel oils, etc. To remove these impurities, rectification purification of ethanol at atmospheric pressure is most often used. As a result, rectified alcohol is obtained with a significantly reduced amount of impurities. There are the following types of rectified alcohol: 1st grade, highest purification, extra, luxury, which are subject to GOST 5962-67. The alcohol must be transparent, colorless, without foreign inclusions, have the taste and smell characteristic of each of its types, produced from the appropriate raw materials, without the taste and smell of foreign substances. To make vodka, a water-alcohol mixture is used, composed of ethyl alcohol of a certain degree of purification and purified water, with the addition of various ingredients to enhance the smell and increase the range of taste qualities. In the production of vodka, various types of alcohol are used, including low quality ones. Currently, the ethanol purification process aims to use a simpler and cheaper method while maintaining high quality of the target product. The most common means for cleaning fusel oil has always been fresh charcoal. The latter acts mainly chemically, oxidizing alcohols with the help of oxygen concentrated in its pores; Alcohols are thus converted into acids (also aldehydes), which form esters. Some of these esters are retained by charcoal, while some remain in purified alcohol, so that filtration through charcoal, while refining the taste and smell of alcohol, does not actually remove fusel oils. The patent [US 2946687, 1960] describes the use of modified and partially activated carbon from heavy woods. The water-alcohol mixture is processed for cleaning purposes. activated carbon. However, the purpose of cleaning is not achieved, since the oxygen contained in the pores of activated carbon oxidizes methanol, propyl, butyl and amyl alcohols (fusel oil) to harmful aldehydes and esters, which remain in finished product . Despite the reduction of various impurities present in the water-alcohol mixture, bottled vodka may have a cloudy sediment through this process. The source of this precipitate is the activated carbon used, which contains polyvalent cations of calcium and magnesium. There is a known method for purifying ethyl alcohol by pre-treating concentrated ethyl alcohol with sodium borohydride, passing it through activated carbon and isolating the purified alcohol by rectification [RF Patent 2046787, C 07 C 31/08, 10.27.95]. The use of this method increases the efficiency of using activated carbon, reduces losses of the target product and makes it possible to obtain high-purity ethyl alcohol, suitable for optical measurements. There is a known method for purifying a water-ethanol mixture on activated carbon using ultra-low temperatures from -45 to -22 o C at the first stage of processing and from -22 to 5 o C at the second stage in order to minimize the content of unpleasant-tasting substances in vodka due to the formation so-called clathrate compounds. It is assumed that clathrate compounds formed when ethyl alcohol is mixed with water at high temperatures also capture unpalatable compounds such as acetals and hemiacetals. Once captured in the cavity of the clathrates, these unwanted compounds are no longer removed or are poorly removed by activated carbon [RF Patent 2107679, C 07 C 31/08, 03/27/98]. The closest to the claimed method is a method using activated carbon as an adsorbent [US Patent 5370891, C 12 C 3/08, 1990]. According to this method, the purification process is carried out by passing a water-alcohol mixture through three layers of activated carbon at 5-20 o C. The disadvantage of this method is the low purification efficiency and the high cost of the process, since high selectivity for the target product is achieved by the fact that Low-quality types of alcohol are used as raw materials, containing significant amounts of isopropyl alcohol, which causes a harsh taste according to organoleptic indicators. In addition, the regeneration of activated carbon in such quantities becomes economically unprofitable. All known methods do not completely eliminate the specific taste of vodka, and therefore even high-quality vodka is recommended to be consumed very chilled. Patent GB 2127011, 04.04.1984 describes a method for isolating ethyl alcohol from a mixture with organic substances, including higher branched alcohols, branched or cyclic alkanes, aromatic hydrocarbons or ethers by passing the mixture through molecular sieves. The mixture to be separated contains up to 20 wt.% ethyl alcohol. This means that all of the listed compounds are larger in size than the ethyl alcohol molecule. This is the principle of separating the mixture. Ethyl alcohol molecules are retained by a molecular sieve, while larger molecules pass through the column and are collected in a receiver. Ethyl alcohol is then removed from the molecular sieve by displacing the alcohol vapor with an inert gas when heated. This method cannot be used in the food or medical industries, since the product extracted from the molecular sieve by displacement with an inert gas during heating will be contaminated with impurities and must be subjected to a complex additional purification procedure. Foreign substances can also appear as a result of catalytic transformations of chemical compounds that occur at elevated temperatures when the molecular sieve is heated during the extraction of ethyl alcohol. The invention solves the problem of developing a method for purifying ethyl alcohol, characterized by high quality indicators of a commercial product. The problem is solved by the following method of purifying ethyl alcohol. A sorbent with a specific surface of at least 150 m 2 /g, selected from the range: silicon oxide, aluminum oxide, synthetic zeolite, natural mineral, is loaded into the reaction column, the sorbent is activated with an air flow for 2-3 hours at 420-460 o C, cooled to room temperature temperature in the flow of inert carrier gas (nitrogen, argon, helium or CO 2). A mixture of ethyl alcohol and fusel oils is passed through a column with a sorbent in an atmosphere of inert gas. After separating the initial alcohol fraction, enriched with part of the impurities (methyl alcohol, acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate), the pure ethyl alcohol fraction is collected until another part of the impurities (butyl and amyl alcohols) appears at the outlet of the adsorber. Monitoring the absence of impurities in the collected liquid is carried out chromatographically. Ethyl alcohol is collected in a container through which an inert gas is bubbled to displace traces of dissolved oxygen. The other part of the impurities (butyl and amyl alcohols and ethers) remaining on the sorbent is removed from the sorbent by displacing them with an inert gas when heated. The sorbent in the adsorption column is subjected to regeneration by heating in a flow of inert gas at elevated temperatures. The purified part of the alcohol is separated, diluted with water and subjected to rectification to remove isopropyl alcohol. The alcohols of fusel oils isolated during regeneration can be used as flavoring agents in the confectionery industry. The resulting rectified alcohol has high performance degree of purification and can be used for medical purposes, as well as for the preparation of vodkas of the highest quality. The difference between the proposed method and the method described in patent GB 2127011 is the use of a fundamentally different method for separating ethyl alcohol, based on the different ability of substances to be retained by a solid porous sorbent when passing a flow of liquid substances through the sorbent. The essence of the invention is illustrated by the following examples. Example 1. 33.32 g of Al 2 (SO 4) 3 9H 2 O are dissolved in 150 ml of water and added with stirring to a solution of 8.0 g of SiO 2 powder in 40.2 ml of 17.4 M NaOH solution. The resulting gel is subjected to crystallization at a temperature of 180 o C for 3 days. The resulting precipitate is filtered off, washed with distilled water, dried at 120 o C. The resulting powder with a molar ratio of SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 = 2.3 and a specific surface area of 150 m 2 /g is tableted and loaded into an adsorption column. Then activate with a stream of air at a temperature of 350 o C for 2 hours. Cool in a stream of inert nitrogen gas. Raw alcohol containing fusel oil impurities of 5 wt.%, supplied at a volumetric speed of 1.0 hour -1, is passed through the sorbent at room temperature. After separating the initial alcohol fraction, enriched with part of the impurities (methyl alcohol, acetaldehyde, ethyl acetate), the pure ethyl alcohol fraction is collected until another part of the impurities (butyl and amyl alcohols) appears at the outlet of the adsorber. Monitoring the absence of impurities in the collected liquid is carried out chromatographically. Ethyl alcohol is collected in a container through which nitrogen is bubbled. The sorbent in the adsorption column is subjected to regeneration by heating in a nitrogen stream at a temperature of 200 o C. After separating the purified part of the alcohol, it is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:1 and subjected to rectification. The resulting rectified alcohol complies with the requirements of GOST 5964-82. The yield of the pure fraction is 45 wt.% of the passed volume of raw alcohol. Example 2. Synthetic NaA zeolite with a molar ratio of SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 = 2.0 and a specific surface area of 150 m 2 /g is used as a sorbent. The process conditions are the same as in example 1, but argon is used as an inert gas. The yield of the pure fraction is 35 wt.% of the passed volume of raw alcohol containing 10 wt.% impurities. Example 3. A synthetic zeolite of the pentasil type with a molar ratio of SiO 2 /Al 2 O 3 = 42.0 and a specific surface area of 500 m 2 /g is used as an adsorbent. The process conditions are the same as in example 1, but helium is used as an inert gas. The yield of the pure fraction is 65% of the passed volume of raw alcohol containing 5 wt.% impurities. Example 4. -Al 2 O 3 with a specific surface area of 180 m 2 /g is used as an adsorbent. The process conditions are the same as in example 1, but CO 2 is used as an inert gas. The yield of the pure fraction is 15% of the passed volume of raw alcohol containing 10 wt.% impurities. Example 5. SiO 2 with a specific surface area of 200 m 2 /g is used as an adsorbent. The process conditions are as in example 1. The yield of the pure fraction is 55% of the passed volume of raw alcohol containing 7 wt.% impurities. Example 6. A natural mineral, clinoptilolite, with a specific surface area of 150 m 2 /g is used as an adsorbent. The process conditions are the same as in example 1, but a mixture containing 50 vol.% nitrogen and 50 vol.% is used as an inert gas. % CO 2 . The yield of the pure fraction is 25% of the passed volume of raw alcohol containing 20 wt.% impurities. As can be seen from the examples, the proposed method makes it possible to obtain a commercial product (ethyl alcohol) with high quality indicators and high yield.
It is no secret that low-quality alcohol causes many illnesses and even deaths of people. But alcohol is quite often used in medicinal purposes, including oral administration in the form of pepper and various tinctures is recommended. In addition, alcohol is used for external use (disinfecting wounds, cauterization, etc.), so harmful substances contained in low-quality alcohol can penetrate the human body through the skin. Therefore, it is very important that the alcohol used is free of toxic substances and harmful impurities.
However, despite all the measures taken to purify alcohol during production (during the preparation of the mash, during fermentation and during distillation), it is still impossible to obtain pure product. This also applies to wine.
To purify alcoholic beverages, it is recommended to use filters containing activated carbon. It not only cleans the drink, but also eliminates unpleasant odors and improves taste. In addition, the wine brightens, getting rid of color absorbed from outside.
In Russian distillation, coal for filtration began to be used a long time ago. In 1785, the St. Petersburg pharmacist T. E. Lovitz, who later became an academician, was the first to discover the purifying ability of coal during the distillation of alcohol. In his experiments, Lovitz distilled alcohol over coal powder and at the same time obtained a purer product than with conventional distillation. The same scientist discovered that simply shaking wine without heating or rectification improves the taste and color of the drink and eliminates unpleasant odors.
In addition, the following discovery was made: filtration through carbon can be effectively carried out by first diluting the alcohol with cold boiled water to 40% or after the first distillation, when the proportion of alcohol contained does not exceed 45%. Good results are justified by the fact that the higher the concentration of alcohol, the more it retains impurities and, accordingly, it is more difficult to purify. During this process, it is important to keep the temperature of the alcohol as low as possible. Soon this discovery began to be applied in wineries. As a result, the quality of the wines has improved significantly.
As mentioned above, you can make an activated carbon filter yourself. In this case, you can use either activated carbon, purchased directly from a pharmacy, or homemade carbon, made from wood.
In the latter case, when selecting certain tree species, it is possible to obtain alcohol with different taste qualities, which no other manufacturer has.
To make a filter at home, you need to take a pan of a suitable size with a hole made in the bottom. Place a thin layer of cotton wool and a piece of gauze on the bottom of the pan. Activated carbon is poured on top of the gauze at the rate of 50 g per 1 liter of alcohol intended for filtration. The coal is covered with the edges of gauze so that it does not float to the surface. After this, you can pour alcohol into the prepared container.
To clean the alcohol as best as possible, it is recommended to pass it through a similar filter 2-3 times. The finer the powder, the denser the filter will be and the filtration process itself will be slower, but the alcohol passed through the filter will be better cleaned.
Another way to purify alcohol is to pour activated carbon into a container with alcohol at the rate of 50 g per 1 liter and shake the resulting mixture well. It is recommended to do this shaking several times during the day. After this, the alcohol together with activated carbon is infused for about 1 week, after which it is filtered through gauze or filter paper.
Purifying alcohol at home gives very good results.
It should be remembered that different varieties Woods have different adsorbing properties, that is, the composition of the substances they absorb varies to some extent. This is the reason for the taste and quality differences between wines purified with different filters.
Practical publication “Treatment with activated carbon”
At distilleries, fusel oils and ketones were destroyed chemically. The amount of impurities was determined and purification was carried out quite simply. Almost all ketones (acetones) found in alcohol are oxidized by the action of potassium permanganate (ordinary potassium permanganate), and the remaining fusel oils are easily saponified with caustic soda and ammonia.
How they did it in industry: the laboratory selected 10 test tubes with the raw alcohol being tested and added a little potassium permanganate solution to each.
Only a 10% aqueous solution of potassium permanganate, the so-called “Chameleon”, was used, because if potassium permanganate is added in the form of crystals, the oxidation of alcohol occurs with the formation of acetaldehyde. The alcohol acquires a sour taste and can only be purified from acetaldehyde by distillation.
One drop was added to the first test tube, two to the second, three to the third, and so on. All this was shaken up and settled. Let us assume that in the first test tubes the alcohol was transparent, in the fifth it was pinkish, and then the color of each test tube intensified. This indicated that four drops of “chameleon” were enough to purify alcohol in one test tube. The extra “chameleon” only oxidizes the alcohol, turning it into acetaldehyde!
Similarly, using the sampling method, the amount of caustic soda or ammonia required for saponification of fusel oils (lye) was determined.
The required amount of “chameleons” and alkali to clean the entire batch of alcohol was already easy to calculate. The procedure for purifying alcohol was as follows: first, half the amount of “chameleon” was poured in and the alcohol was mixed, after half an hour the calculated amount of alkali and after an hour the remaining amount of “chameleon”.
After 2 hours of settling, the pre-purified alcohol must be distilled once again through distillation column. Design and principle of operation distillation column exactly the same as distillation, which means the alcohol is distilled again at least 25 times.
When using certain types of raw materials, only after the rectified alcohol has passed through a filter column filled with activated carbon. It is made of stainless steel, diameter 0.6 m, and height about five meters. The entire internal space is filled with activated carbon of the MBA-4 brand (fine-porous, birch, activated, fraction size 4 mm).
There are two or four filter columns, depending on the quality of alcohol needed to be obtained.
The next operation for purifying alcohol (which used to be necessary) is reforming (thermal shock).
The rectified alcohol was kept hermetically closed container at a temperature of 70° throughout the day. As a result of this procedure, the alcohol was artificially aged, resulting in a reduction in the amount of toxic substances and an improvement in taste. During reforming, some substances precipitate, some evaporate, and the remaining fusel oils float, forming a film on the surface of the alcohol that is easy to remove.
And only after such repeated cleaning is the purest 96° ethyl alcohol mixed with water in a special container. If you look closely at the label, you will see that vodka is 40%, and wine is -16°. Both of them indicate the alcohol content, but vodka contains 40 percent rectified alcohol by volume with a strength of 96°. That is, the actual strength of vodka is 38.4° - if measured with an accurate alcohol meter, and the strength of wine is really 16°.
Until the twentieth century, distilleries produced vodka (bread wine), hence the name “distilleries.” But later, with an increase in the quantity and quality of alcoholic beverages and an increase in the technical level of production, they switched to the production of wheat alcohol, and vodka was obtained by dissolving ethyl alcohol with water. The main reason for using this particular technology was to improve the quality and purity of vodka. Because it is much easier to dilute strong alcohol with good water than to purify the stinking water in moonshine.
The quality of the water used for diluting wheat alcohol is of great importance. It is water that determines the taste of the finished vodka, because it contains 60% water and only 40% alcohol.
In some countries (Poland, USA), alcohol when preparing vodka is diluted only with distilled water. This is chemically pure water, but deaerated (dissolved air removed) and tasteless. Such water is practically dead - it is impossible to get drunk (aquarium fish die in it instantly).
In Russia and Ukraine, ethyl alcohol has traditionally been diluted and is diluted only raw water; and the best one for this purpose is spring water. Naturally, it should be clean, transparent, tasty and high in salts. It is a small amount of salts that determines the taste of water. There are always hardness salts in drinking water and there should be when diluting alcohol, but within acceptable limits!
If it is too hard, a ring forms on the neck of the bottle, sediment forms and the taste of the vodka deteriorates. Products are losing marketable condition and sent for processing.
If the water is too hard, it is purified and softened in multi-stage filters. Sequentially, water passes through quartz sand, sulfonated coal (this is coal treated with sulfuric acid) and a cation exchange filter filled with ion exchange resin granules. (In exactly the same way, boiler houses prepare feedwater for steam boilers). Only such purified and softened water is suitable for diluting alcohol when preparing vodka.
And the final procedure before bottling vodka is the addition of dissolved refined sugar. In small quantities, sugar is not noticeable, but it softens the taste, as if lubricating the throat. " Vodka flows like clockwork».
Any alcoholic drink It tastes better with added sugar, and if you drink liqueur of the same strength as vodka, you can get drunk much faster.
That's why there are so many different recipes strong cocktails. And any ordinary domestic beer, if sweetened, will taste just as good as imported beer. Try it!
Sugar is added in accordance with the recipe: for “Vodka” and “Extra” - 0.5%, and for various “special” ones up to 2%. (5-20 grams of sugar per liter of vodka).
