Water Distillation (water In Brisbane)

[gnewell]

As the water levels in the dams get lower and lower and the quality of our water varies one week from another, it makes me think that I need to stabilise this aspect of my brewing. I work hard to stabilise my process and use high quality hops, yeast and malt etc but usually little thought goes into the liquor (water) in the brewing process. After all, the liquor typically accounts for over 95% of the finished product (Beer!).

I've been investigating two methods.
1) Water distillation. Using a heating element and some form of distillation apparatus to condense the pure distallate. Theoretically if the apparatus is made well, the water should be completely pure. No minerals, contaminants etc.

2) Reverse Osmosis (RO). This method is ok and is used by XXXX and Carlton to guarantee a baseline for their liquor but has a lot of replaceable parts thus ongoing costs.


So I am keen on making / buying a water distillation apparatus. Very few replaceable parts. Just need to pay for the electricity to drive the heating element. Given that I only need to make 40+ litres for a brew (23 litre batch size) it works out at less than 40cents for this volume (price based on commercial distillation equipment). So it is way cheaper than buying good quality water from the supermarket etc.

After trawling the internet, I have found almost nothing on plans for water distillation equipment. Heaps for alcohol stills but they operate on different liquids with different evaporation points (ie 70*C vs 100*C).

Does anyone have any ideas on where I might start looking for solid information on making such a piece of kit.

Cheers,

Geoff.

 

[crozdog]

Apart from needing to replace parts on an ongoing basis, RO is very wasteful. For every litre of RO water you produce, you will use 3-4l!

As I understand it, all stills (including oil refineries) operate on the exact same principle regardless of the product. As you point out, it is only the temp of vaporisation/condensation that varies. Therefore checkout designs on homedistiller or the distillers yahoo groups page. If you boil water & circulate cold water through the condensor & you'll get distilled water out. OK you may loose some vapour if you can't supply enough cool water to the condensor - but it's only steam.

As Spring water from the supermarket is about the same price (ie $4.50 for 12l = $0.375/l) as you've calculated, to distill your own water, I'd use the supermarket alternative as it is cheaper, easier to get & you don't need to make anything esle

Another option may be to search the chemical suppliers as I recall seeing Distilled water being available from them. Do that & you also get a no chill cube for every brew. h34r: :lol:

 

[gnewell]

Apart from needing to replace parts on an ongoing basis, RO is very wasteful. For every litre of RO water you produce, you will use 3-4l!

As I understand it, all stills (including oil refineries) operate on the exact same principle regardless of the product. As you point out, it is only the temp of vaporisation/condensation that varies. Therefore checkout designs on homedistiller or the distillers yahoo groups page. If you boil water & circulate cold water through the condensor & you'll get distilled water out. OK you may loose some vapour if you can't supply enough cool water to the condensor - but it's only steam.

As Spring water from the supermarket is about the same price (ie $4.50 for 12l = $0.375/l) as you've calculated, to distill your own water, I'd use the supermarket alternative as it is cheaper, easier to get & you don't need to make anything esle

Another option may be to search the chemical suppliers as I recall seeing Distilled water being available from them. Do that & you also get a no chill cube for every brew. h34r: :lol:

Thanks Crozdog. Will check out those forums.

P.S. 40cents was the price for 40litres.

 

[OleFella]

How would you be just putting in a GOOD water filter. I have one for my tank water I use for do distillation of spirits

 

[jupiter]

have you thought about building a solar stil?

it's probably no help, the chemistry store at university i work at has a large RO setup to supply DI water to the university. i just take in a couple of 20l cubes every couple of weeks and fill them up for free. use it for lots of stuff, like topping up my cars radiator and battery... and my homebrew. i'm not sure how other universities work with their DI water supply though.

 

[BrissyBrew]

I remember livingstone (lab supplier) catelogue use to have a small water distillation unit about 2L per hour or something like that, but I dont think it was cheap.