How to Make a Moonshine Still With a Beer Keg

Making whiskey legally requires a license so moonshining remains alive and well. For many moonshiners, ordering a copper pot still is not an option because it is expensive and attracts unwanted attention. Therefore, a stainless steel beer keg can be used as an improvised distillation kettle.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Beer keg Rubber stopper 9 feet of copper tubing Rubber mallet Caulk Clamp Used glass water carboy with cap Campfire stand

Keg to Kettle

1. 

   Drill a hole in the top of the keg near the tapping cap. Use a reciprocating saw and a metal blade to cut around the side of the cap. Remove the central tube from the keg, which is only attached to the top of the keg. Pull it out once you cut it free.

2. Check to see whether the rubber stopper is the right size for the hole. If the hole is neat, the stopper should be 1-1/2 inches wide, which will create a tight fit. If the hole is too big, use another stopper.

3. Drill holes into the rubber stopper and use a pocket knife to whittle openings into it. The holes admit the copper tubing and the thermometer into the keg's interior. The tubing and thermometer should be snug. If too much rubber gets cut away, use caulk to seal the gap.

4. Remove the thermometer and tubing, if they are in the stopper, and stop the top of the keg with the stopper and a rubber mallet.

5. Push in the thermometer and tubing. You now have a stainless steel kettle for your still.

Setting up the Stll

6. Use an old glass soda bottle as a mold and bend the copper tubing around into a coil. The central 6 feet of tubing needs to be coiled, leaving 1-1/2 feet of straight tubing on either end. A clamp provides a good grip on the tubing.

7. Take the cap off a used water carboy and cut a hole sized to fit the copper tubing into it. Replace the cap.

8. Set the kettle on a campfire stand.

9. Bend the copper tubing down and fit it into the carboy lid. This should be easy because copper is a soft metal.

10. Operate the still by filling the kettle with fermented corn mash and building a fire underneath it. Maintain a temperature between 172 degrees F and 212 degrees F so the kettle will boil away the alcohol in the mash but not the water. The hot vapor will rise into the copper coil and condense, and the resulting liquid will drain into the carboy. The process is not perfect, however, and two or three distillations of one mash's output will be needed before a strong moonshine is made.

Tips & Warnings

• It takes 5 gallons of fermented corn mash to make 3 quarts of alcohol at 40 percent purity. The standard half keg holds 15-1/2 gallons of beer, so expect it to yield 12 quarts of 40 percent pure grain moonshine.
• Alcohol vapor and open fires are an explosive combination. Always use a still of this kind outdoors.

References

• Draft Beer Issues
• Home Distillation Network
• Making Pure Corn Whiskey