Q ) What materials are required to make ethanol once I have a still set up?
A ) First, you need a good source of feedstock.
By feedstock, I mean a good source of sugar or starch (carbohydrates) which can be
fermented in the same process as which you make beer or wine.
You aren't going to drink it, so it can be somewhat contaminated: For example, we
once made a batch from a weeks' garbage from a low-security prison (one of our CAPFA founders worked there), so he separated
it out for us. It was mostly lumpy mashed potatoes and stale bread, and we had to fight off the flies while we ran mixed it
with water and dumped it into a larger fermentation tank. Then we covered it with window screen to keep the flies away.
Another time we used 5 year old dehydrated prunes, which I soaked for a week to get them soft enough
to grind by hand, with a baseball bat.
Realistically, you want to do all this on a farm where you have access to hammer-mills, large tanks, and
various means of handling large amounts of feedstock (and the resultant waste). Corn (dry kernels) is one of the best, as
it is over 70% starch.
Also,you can use sugar beets, Jerusalem artichokes, rotten apples, grape skins from a winery, and much more.
Molasses works great, too.
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