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1 small point here, Charcoal filtering for alcohol is to remove the fusel oils that occure when the alcohol is not distilled in a pure copper boiler, and occur natural when you use many starchy vegitables, (like potatos) or fruits with high sugar, (like grapes) to make your mash for alcohol production.
Those are the oils that can cause blindness or death, but charcoal filters remove any dangerous amounts of these oils from the finished product. Fusel oil
When I see that triple distilled, (meaning to increase the proof as a straight run will produce about 20% alcohol, the next time you the distilled product through you increase the alcohol to around 50-60% alcohol, the third time brings it to about 80-90% or between 160-180 proof which is then cut with water to a standard 80 proof, and increases the amount available for sale), and charcoal filtered it is just standard distillation process for alcohol meant for human consumpton.
Using stack or colum stills made from steel works fine for fuel quality alcohol, with only single or double runs to get the product above 168 proof or about 64% pure alcohol which will run in an engine.
Triple distilling and charcoal has very little to do with the organic purity of the alcohol because alcohol kills bacterial contamination anyway.
Generally agree, but if you dig deeper, the quantities of of fusel oils in the heads and tails is nowhere near enough to be an issue (other than taste and maybe a few more headaches) unless the distiller sells the product without mixing the entire run in a vat.
You also bring up a point. It was very common in the past for people NOT to drink water straight, but have it mixed with wine or beer. Vinegar originally referred to the cheap watered wines used for such purposes. Was this a way the ancients kept themselves from becoming constantly sick? I don't know. I just bring it up as another possible way of having somewhat "safe" water.
I personally would prefer Reverse Osmosis over Distillation but any method where you remove so much in the water is going to make it very aggressive and able to eat away at the sides of many containers you might put it in. However I don't want an under the counter unit.
I saw a distributor do a test using a particulate counter to compare an unopened bottle of bottled water; agaisnt the tap water agaisnt tap water filtered through an R.O. system.
The tap water had over 600 particulates. The bottled water had around 200 and the R.O. water had only 24. That is good purification. The problem I see is figuring out what container to use to put the water in after it goes through an R.O. system that it won't be able to eat through. I don't want it eating away at the sides of a plastic container.
For now I have a Doulton UltraCarb counter-top unit but it doesn't address Fluoride which is bad news and I'm not conviced it even does that good a job on Chlorine. It sounds like it is best used for well water because it sounds like it does a good job of removing bacteria which is supposedly killed by the chlorine they put in the water.
Emily, if you are concerned about the active properties of water eating away at plastics, there is a fairly simple and pretty natural way around that. Get a section of coral rock, sanitize it by heating it, then allow the water to drip on it or the rock to sit in the bottle. The lime in the coral will react with the water, making it a little "harder" and less likely to react with plastic.
I saw a distributor do a test using a particulate counter to compare an unopened bottle of bottled water; agaisnt the tap water agaisnt tap water filtered through an R.O. system.
The tap water had over 600 particulates. The bottled water had around 200 and the R.O. water had only 24. That is good purification. The problem I see is figuring out what container to use to put the water in after it goes through an R.O. system that it won't be able to eat through. I don't want it eating away at the sides of a plastic container.
What is the definition of particulate in this context? Since neither people who drink tap water nor people who drink bottled water are dying in droves I'm of the opinion that this is still more marketing flummery of the sort that we've seen for years in the sale of water treatment equipment.
As a boy I recall seeing a little cheese cloth bag fastened to a kitchen tap. The lady who had placed it there told me that its purpose was to filter out sand. The water supply was that of Colorado Springs, Colorado. No one was dying from drinking it.
I find it interesting that the worthy conducting the above mentioned test did not include commercial distilled water as a control. I assume that he was selling some product or service; is that correct? If he did stand to gain why do you believe him?
Particulate is a neutral term; it implies neither safe nor dangerous.
how about a gallon of bleach
1/8 teaspoon of bleach to a gallon of water....
make sure you get the unscented bleach.
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