How to Make Alcohol - Discussion

Would you like to exchange your experiences with other schnapps distillers? Everything in this forum revolves around distilling spirits at home - how to make alcohol. Please observe our forum rules (see Helpful tips for use).

June 2018:

It has now been an unbelievable 16 years (!) since the last major change to the website and forums. When you think that two to three years are an eternity for the Internet sector, that is really something. In any case, there has been so much going on in terms of technology that it has become urgently necessary to completely redesign not only the forums, but also the entire website, from scratch and bring the programming up to date. Naturally, along with this we also introduced various new features; for example it was high time we allowed pictures to be uploaded with a forum post too or enabled users to subscribe to the forums via RSS feeds. And of course we have subsequently included pictures that are saved on external websites and were then integrated here using an img tag, so that no valuable information is lost. In any case, we hope you continue to have fun swapping experiences and trying things out.

Juni 2002:

At this point, we would first like to extend a big thank-you to all the users of our specialist questions for their lively involvement. Without you, we could never have developed such an informative and high-quality reference guide in such a short time (the first post dates from April 8, 1999). The large number of posts and high numbers of visitors made it necessary for us to develop the specialist questions ourselves using PHP and MySQL (at last no more annoying advertising banners!). During the course of this, we have hopefully introduced several improvements.

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So, that’s it. We hope you have a lot of fun swapping experiences, reading, posting and naturally also trying things out afterwards. Dr Malle & Dr Schmickl Dr. Malle & Dr. Schmickl

Material for still

Udo am 03.07.2003 14:56:00 | Region: Austria
I heard that a copper still would be the best to distill schnapps. Would it be possible to get also good results with a still made of other materials? I.g. steel, glass

RE: Material for still

Mark am 16.07.2003 13:07:02 | Region: Spain
Yes of course! You could use also steel, glass and other materials you can use also for cooking. In same books you will find that copper has a good impact on the flavour of tha schnapps. But this seems to be s story.

RE: Material for still

Sigi am 04.08.2004 17:47:50 | Region: Austria
As far as I know, is steel the best material to build stills.

RE: Material for still

Sigi am 04.08.2004 17:57:57 | Region: Austria
Aluminium is also possible..

RE: Material for still

KH am 17.06.2019 00:45:58 | Region: DK
NO..!
Aluminium WILL corrode.
The only suitable materials for a still is stainless steel, copper, or glass (Pyrex or similar).

RE: Material for still

Bernard Deham am 16.02.2005 03:25:44 | Region: Thailand
The best material is copper because it binds several undesirable fusel in chemical reactions during the process. The second best material is stainless steel (inox), glass is also OK but quite inconvenient. I would avoid aluminium wich oxidises very easily.

RE: Material for still

Brian am 27.06.2009 03:37:30 | Region: Australia
Thank god you're here, Bernard.
Any steel other than stainless will rust. Aluminium will pit very fast, plastic is to be avoided and COPPER is the best for the reasons that you state.
When using Stainless it's best to put some copper chips in the kettle.

So I'm told.

RE: Material for still

sammy am 25.12.2012 20:14:53 | Region: u...s...??????
Any material that would rust is not advised unless you plan on poisoning yourself and others!!

RE: Material for still

Mista Too am 17.11.2013 08:47:23 | Region: NZ
We use a a Duplas Reflux still and have done for more than 10yrs . It has a copper head and the rest is food grade plastic . Between 2005 and 2007 we have won 23 Master Distiller awards including Best whiskey in NZ 2yrs running . If any still is to be avoided it would be steel and aluminum due to oxidation. Any one distilling should Carbon filter their brew that is collected . discard any brew collected up to 78 and after 85.