This years production of Chinese Rice Wine has begun!!

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

True, but I would toss a bit less. Beers, wines, and meads create and hold some rather nasty stuff, but we drink it all the time without harm. The problem with these heads and tails off the distilled stuff is that it is concentrated. Some of the more volitile alchohols and aldahydes evaporate first, and then there are the ones that require more heat. When the alchohol level gets low then the wash heats up and out comes the worst part.
In the military myself and a bunch of recruits were in the field for more than a month. We found a bunch of pear trees that were completely loaded down. The pairs were big and ripe and really sweet. We crushed and squeezed the juices and set it to fermenting. Got the yeast from the mess tent. It tasted nasty and bitter, so we dug a hole, set a big pan of the wine down in the hole and placed a big pickle jar under the clear plastic and laid a big rock over it. We only made about a quart of alchohol in a full day, so next day we lined the hole with black plastic bags. We doubled production and we were distilling half a gallon every day. We had trouble keeping up with the still. We brewed a 55 gallon drum of wine, cooked out about 9 gallons of strong alchohol, cut it with bottled water and ended up with close to 19 gallons of drinking. We done that with a solar still.

This gives me an idea to get some clear plastic sheet that can be manipulated with a heat gun.

I have an idea to make a still that works over a camp fire as well.

[Lee Chiang Po]

This gives me an idea to get some clear plastic sheet that can be manipulated with a heat gun.

I have an idea to make a still that works over a camp fire as well.

If it can be manipulated with a heat gun it might also be manipulated by the camp fire heat. I know what you are talking about though. I know of people distilling small amounts of wash in a large pot in the kitchen. they place something in the put to sit a small container on, then pour in some wash and seal the lid down on it. The problem with this method is that you have to be careful or you will blow the lid off. An inclosed system can build up pressure. The pipe drain of the sun still will not allow any pressure to build as it is an open system.

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

Well, there was no saving that last batch. i tossed it and started over. I am transferring my next batch of Rice mash to the fermentrer now. Hopefully this batch will be as good as the first one....because the second one just suxored.