Home-Made Water Distiller

Post date: Feb 5, 2009 11:43:27 AM

If you live in an area where your tap water is not suitable for making home-brew, try this. You can buy a home water distiller, but they will run you from $100 to $300, however, this should cost you little to nothing, since most of this is already in your home.

Equipment:

- Large Pot (example: 18 or 22L stock pot).

- Small Glass Bowl (must fit down into pot and handle heat, a spout would be nice, example: Pyrex 2L Bowl).

- Large Glass or Stainless Steel Bowl (must have small base with a large mouth so it will partially fit into the pot, i.e. Wok shaped).

- Funnel.

- 2L Bottle.

Place the pot on an electric stove (small burner). Add water (4L, we don't want to run'er dry) to pot. Put the small bowl down into the pot, if it floats that's ok, as long as its no more than an inch from the bottom (we don't want it to tip over). Turn the stove on Max (assuming that your stove goes "Min, 1, 2,...8, Max") for 5 to 10 minutes, until you start to see steam, now turn the stove back to the 1, 2 or 3 setting (we don't want boiling, it may splash into small bowl, use a thermometer, water boils at 100°C, so around 90°C is fine). Next place the larger bowl on top of the pot, fill it with ice. Set the stove timer for about 1/2 hour for every Liter of water used (example: 4L of water would be 2 hours, note: this may take longer depending on stove temperature). Keep check on the ice, remove water with a mug and replace ice as needed. After the timer has gone off, remove the larger bowl to check on smaller bowl, if it's 1/2 full turn the stove off, replace the larger bowl to pot and let stand for 15 minutes to cool. Now you can remove the larger bowl and carefully take out the smaller bowl, pour the contents of the small bowl (using the funnel) into the 2L bottle. This water should be very clean distilled water. Add 1L of water and repeat process. In this case, you should get 2L of distilled water in a total time of 4 hours and 40 minutes.

Optional: A Large CrockPot (Slow-Cooker), set to Medium Heat should work as well.

*** WARNING: DO NOT USE THIS TO DISTILL ALCOHOL, IT IS ILLEGAL TO DO SO IN MOST COUNTRIES, NOT TO MENTION VERY DANGEROUS. ***