Weird question I know, but to settle an arguement does anyone know either way If someone can legally distill gin in there own home or would you need some sort of lisense?

Also, if you can make Gin at home, anyone know how to do it?

Try Googling "How do I make home made Gin", there are some fasinating receipes there with or without using a still, especially from the USA. As for legality who is going to know as long as you don't try to sell it. Barry

Try Googling "How do I make home made Gin", there are some fasinating receipes there with or without using a still, especially from the USA. As for legality who is going to know as long as you don't try to sell it. Barry

Try Googling "How do I make home made Gin", there are some fasinating receipes there with or without using a still, especially from the USA. As for legality who is going to know as long as you don't try to sell it. Barry

Don't know what happened there with regards to three replies. Maybe it is too much home made Gin or what the hell are we doing up at this time of night.

Legal? Don't know, it's legal to make beer and whiskey so why not something minging that's only drunk by old women?

I think the distilling process needs to be done with great care to avoid concentrating poisons, potentially lethal (I jest not)
I think a safer method is using the freezer. Water freezes first, take bits of ice out of your brew, and the % will go up.
However, I believe there are yeasts out there that can be used to brew (just like wine) "spirits" but up to a max strength of 20 odd %.

Like anything you made at home...you would have to IVA it.

If the still temperature is just a few degrees wrong you get methanol (the nasty stuff) instead of ethanol (the good stuff). Ethanol makes you drunk, methanol makes you blind, and screws up various internal organs - basically, it's meths without the purple colour and evil taste.

Risky, if you don't know what you're doing!

try www.homedistiller.org

The good old UK government forced the gin makers to register what they put in in the 1880s(I think), so on that site you can find the difference between beefeaters/gordons/bombay saffire etc.

As long as you register for 'home use' (I'm not sure how) you can make 'small' quantities for your own use (but not for sale/distribution). The definition of small is something like 5000l/year so I doubt you'd exceed that. If you don't register its illegal.

When you distill, the methanol boils off first, so its normal to put the first 100cc or so aside for use as cleaning solvent or meths - When it first starts to distill through its quite tempting to have a sip to see whats its like - thats why backwoods distillers went blind - the first bit is pure methanol.

One of the reasons freezing is not generally used to make drinking alcohol is that any impurities get left in (you freeze out the water, but dissolved nasties/bad tastes stay in there), whereas distilling tends to leave most of the bad stuff behind in the still.

When you distil, some does not recondense and you can smell the alcohol from about 100meters away.

All my knowlege is purely theoretical of course......

Regards
Hugh

[Edited on 8/7/11 by hughpinder]

my understanding was that its illegal to distill at home, i looked in to it a few years ago as I fancied making vodka

As I understood it, it is illegal to distill at home.

In addition to the reason the backwoods guys went blind there was also a spate of people using second hand radiators to condense the distillate which picked up all the nasty stuff from inside the radiator

There are some self brew kits available that will by fermentation produce a reasonable tasting gin at around 20%. Just means you have to use a double measure

And you dont need to make a still all you need is a demijohn and a food grade plastic bucket

Dont ask me how I know

http://www.wineworks.co.uk/department/still-spirits/?gclid=CObA8OC28akCFcce4Qodvg8mVg

just one of many. My local home brew shop sells all of the stuff needed to make something alcoholic that you coold describe as gin or brandy or whisky, but I stick to single malt - there's no way you can make that in an afternoon!

Have a look at
Alaskan -Bootleggers-Bible

I bought it and it tell you how to make all sorts as well as making equipment like capers and stills

So to summerise, To make real, safe Gin I need permission from the government (I'm reading it that way because my original argument at work was just that) but I can make something simillar to gin at half strength with wine making type stuff and I won't kill myself or go blind as a direct result.