Moonshine Makeover

THIS 10 GALLON GEORGIA RIDGE MOONSHINE STILL HAS COMBINED BOTH A HIGH EFFICIENCY LOW PRESSURE EXPANSION JOINT COLUMN WITH THE MODERN TECHNOLOGY OF REFLUX MAKING FOR ONE OF THE FINEST ALL COPPER MOONSHINE STILLS AVAILABLE. COMPLETE = $799 Photo Credit: COLONEL WILSON'S COPPER MOONSHINE STILLS

It is time to bring back the art of home brewin' as a national agenda of sacrifice to aid in our country's effort on the war on terror. There would be nothing more uniting to our country's culture, and put our country on a war-footing than to fire up the backyard moonshine still ... and make ethanol.

Of course the EPA would have problems with the burdens we all would put on our air quality and it wouldn't be long until our landscape would resemble parts Mexico City ... or North Hollywood (no trees).

Excerpts from AP via The Washington Insider -

Stills brew motorists' moonshine
By Bill Poovey - ASSOCIATED PRESS - May 17, 2006

TULLAHOMA, Tenn. -- The still -- standard equipment of any moonshiner -- has a shot at becoming the must-have accessory of penny-pinching motorists.

An upstart Tennessee business is marketing stills that can be set up as private distilleries making ethanol -- 190-proof grain alcohol -- out of fermented starchy crops such as corn, apples or sugar cane. The company claims the still's output can reduce fuel costs by nearly a third from the pump price of gasoline.

Buyers of stills need a federal permit to make ethanol on private property. In what amounts to an honor system, they are to add a poison to their homemade alcohol so it isn't "white lightning."

"We make it very clear that it is against the law to drink what comes out of it," said Shelley McClanahan, a spokeswoman for her family's business, Dogwood Energy.
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Mr. Sasher's new creekside assembly warehouse in south-central Tennessee -- down a backwoods road, next door to a noisy rooster and less than 5 miles from the distillery that makes Jack Daniel's whiskey -- has orders for an estimated 45 assembled stills.

The company is building four or five stills a day and has sold 45 in recent weeks, more than 125 since September, to meet the demand from customers ranging from small businesses to thrifty individuals.

"You can save a lot of money. That's what this is all about," Mrs. McClanahan said.

A bushel of the fermented starch crop, mixed with yeast, water and sugar, and allowed to sit for about 2½ days, then strained and heated to boiling, makes about 2.6 gallons of ethanol, which is then added to gasoline to produce a blended fuel.

Dogwood Energy says it costs about 75 cents per gallon to make ethanol at home. Adding 15 percent ethanol to $3 gasoline reduces the cost of a fill-up to $2.40 per gallon, Mrs. McClanahan said.

A blend with 85 percent ethanol cuts the cost to $1.09 for a blended gallon, she said.
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"We don't have to use oil from the Middle East. There are options," Mr. Mollenarro said.

Dubose Porter of Dublin, Ga., a state representative and editor of the Courier Herald, said the newspaper ordered a still to help offset delivery costs.

"The still idea is intriguing for a small company like ours," he said.

Using ethanol to power cars isn't new. The original Model T Ford was built to run on alcohol.
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More than 30 models of new flex-fuel cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles -- including General Motors' Yukon and Ford's Taurus -- can use up to 85 percent ethanol, known as E85 fuel.
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Its great advantage is cooking the mash at just the right temperature, 170 degrees, according to John Franklin, a former engine company design engineer and teacher in Evansville, Ind., who has ordered two of the stills.

"If the temperature is too high, then you are losing the alcohol. If it is too low, you are not able to recover enough of that alcohol that is pure enough, that is fuel grade," Mr. Franklin said.

"It really isn't rocket science," he said. "He makes it to where it is much more automated. He does that with that mechanical temperature-control valve. That is half the expense of the still. His still is much more automated and much more precise."

Ethanol already is routinely added to gasoline in New York, Connecticut, California and the Midwest, and makes up about a third of the gas sold in the United States, according to Kristin Brekke, a spokeswoman for the American Coalition of Ethanol in Sioux Falls, S.D.
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Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers, has heard of Dogwood Energy.

"You've got to appreciate Americans' entrepreneurial spirit," he said. He hasn't heard of anyone making homemade ethanol, though.

"The only ethanol I know being made at home is still the beverage," Mr. Hartwig said.
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