What is the difference between distillate and rectified and which is better? What is the difference between the distillation process and rectification and which is better.

In this material, we will focus on the basic concept in home brewing, namely the meaning and features of distillation and rectification. It will also be possible to find out what are their differences, and what types exist. The article will be useful for people who are just starting to create homemade alcohol and want to achieve quality success.

Distillation

Distillation or distillation is a kind of process when alcohol vapors begin to evaporate from the prepared alcohol-containing mash, after which they turn into a liquid form and come out in the form of the final product - moonshine. The procedure for obtaining moonshine through distillation is very simple. Water boils at 100 degrees, but alcohol boils at 78 degrees. Evaporation of alcohols occurs faster than that of water, between two such indicators. After cooling, it condenses, due to which the distillate can be distilled several times. Repeated distillation increases the strength of the drink, and also purifies it. But you need to know that the first 100 grams of the product has a high strength, but at the same time, you can’t drink this drink, because it contains a lot of harmful impurities. Therefore, the first part is recommended to be poured or used to kindle a fire.

The first product obtained in home brewing is called the "head". It is this liquid that is collected in a separate bowl, and then removed so that the main distillate does not mix. In the distillation cube, where the mash is laid, after which it is put on fire to obtain moonshine, after a certain period of time, the alcohol concentration is reduced. This can be detected by an increase in temperature in the refrigerator compartment. In this case, the distillation procedure does not make sense to carry out up to 100 degrees, since the alcohol will evaporate and water will begin to evaporate.

The second part that you can not drink is called the "tail". It also contains a lot of harmful substances and has an unpleasant smell. "Tail" is the last part of the resulting alcohol. Such alcohol begins to drain when the strength of the final product decreases and becomes less than 40%. But the tail part can be subjected to secondary distillation, which cannot be done with the "head". True, it will be possible to use the final product only for technical purposes.

Types of distillation

Distillation is of two types and is divided into:

1. Simple, when the haul is not divided into "tail" and "head". In this case, the final product requires a second distillation.
2. Fractional, when moonshine is divided into different parts, depending on the composition of the fractions. The middle part is called the “heart”, and it is this that can be consumed. The degree of purification is high, and the strength of the product will range from 50 to 70%.

Another distillation is divided into:

1. Steam. In this form, a steam generator is used. It is worth noting that the steam generator and multi-level distillation make it possible to obtain a product of excellent quality, but there is also a significant drawback, which lies in the dimensions of the device, not every room will be able to use such equipment.
2. Double. This technique is based on steam and vacuum distillation. During the first distillation, you will need to do a secondary distillation to get a better drink. As a result, from moonshine with a strength of 40 degrees, it turns out to improve the quality of vodka and raise the strength to 60 degrees. Further distillation increases the strength to 96%, but all harmful impurities will remain, unlike rectification, through which it turns out to make pure alcohol.
3. Vacuum. It is used to transport oil, so it makes no sense to dwell on this type.

Rectification

This distillation method is used to produce ethyl alcohol. Producing it, special equipment called a distillation column is used. Such a device can separate the liquid mixture into different parts, due to which the final product is pure alcohol, without foreign impurities, odor and taste. In addition to alcohol, the owners of the column can create tinctures and other drinks, without the presence of harmful substances. The resulting alcohol will be of the highest quality.

Another equipment can be used as a distiller to produce moonshine. Without a column, not so strong alcohol is produced, and productivity also decreases.

The difference between distillation and rectification

Distillation allows you to make moonshine, when rectification produces pure alcohol without any impurities, using moonshine, the strength of which is 40% and obtained through distillation. This means that it is not recommended to do without a moonshine still, since when driving the mash through the column, the lower part of the device will clog.

Modern distillers have many types and some have improvements that allow you to purify the final product from harmful impurities and other particles, due to which, it turns out, to achieve pure moonshine. In addition, there are universal devices on sale that are used for rectification and distillation at the same time.

In general, both products obtained in different ways cannot be drunk at once, since alcohol should be diluted, and moonshine should be purified. It must be remembered that distillation allows you to achieve aromatic drinks that smell and leave a bite of fruits, cereals, berries and other raw materials used for mash. Rectification of this result will not be able to give and the output will be a drink with neutral tastes. The rectification product is used for further preparation of tinctures, liqueurs, but can be consumed as pure vodka.

Different alcoholic beverages are obtained in different ways. In addition to raw differences, alcohol can refer to distillate or rectified. The differences between these two groups of drinks at first glance may seem insignificant, but in reality this difference is significant. Both distillate and rectified can be obtained at home if (we recommend choosing a device with a distillation column of the brand or with a dry steamer of the brand), which allows for the rectification mode. To do this, its design must necessarily include a column with a prismatic or regular wire packing, on which the rectification process will take place. Of course, you can, but in the case of a distillation column, you will have to work much more than with a simple household distiller.

You need to understand that both rectified and distillate are solutions of ethyl alcohol. What is the fundamental difference between these two liquids?

Distillate or rectified: which is cleaner?

The distillate is obtained by fractional (fractional) distillation of mash. Most often, mash is first distilled without separation of fractions into raw alcohol, and then it is distilled fractionally with the separation of “heads”, “body” and “tails”. So the “body” is the distillate. This is a solution of ethyl alcohol with a strength of not more than 85-90 degrees, containing various impurities. It is important. It is the impurities (esters, other alcohols, etc.) that create the characteristic taste and aroma of the distillate: this is the taste and aroma of the raw material from which the mash was made. This is the essence of refined and elite distillates - whiskey, brandy, calvados, rum and others. Grape, grain, fruit raw materials give their characteristic unique notes.

Rectified is a completely purified alcohol. Its solution contains only ethanol and water. When forcing on a distillation column, its fortress reaches 95-96 degrees (the maximum possible fortress under normal conditions). The rectificate is devoid of any flavoring notes of the raw materials from which ethanol was obtained during fermentation. Without a doubt, rectified is absolutely pure, compared to distillate. But how important is it?

Rectified or distillate: which is more harmful to health?

There is an opinion that a certain presence of impurities makes the distillate safer to drink. The fact is that when using a distillate, certain substances from the group of “fusel oils” (in small quantities) seem to “prepare” the liver for the processing of alcohol. Based on this assumption, it turns out that with the same use, a properly purified distillate will cause a much less pronounced hangover syndrome than with the same dose of rectificate diluted to the same strength. Well, the load on the liver will be a little less. Some scientific works of the times of the USSR confirm a more toxic effect on the body of rectified water compared to distillate. Rectified, due to its purity, will also have a “harder” taste, since impurities in the distillate (depending on the raw material) will soften it.

However, no well-known scientific studies in this area have been made public, so there is no reason to say 100% that distillate is less harmful than rectified. Yes, and the individual tolerance of alcohol by each individual varies widely. For the same reason, it will not be entirely correct to judge which is better - distillate or rectified. As you know, the taste and color of all felt-tip pens are different.

Well, so that there is no misunderstanding, we will answer the most common questions:

1. Moonshine - distillate or rectified?
   Moonshine is a distillate. Get it by distillation - distillation (raw alcohol). Its fortress, as a rule, does not exceed 85-90 degrees.
2. Vodka — distillate or rectified?
   But vodka is rectified. The most purified alcohol, diluted with water to a strength of 40 degrees. It is only later that vodka is insisted on birch brunka, pepper and other pleasant things. But still, the alcohol in it remains rectified. Of course, all this takes place when it comes to industrial vodka. Homemade "vodkas" obtained by diluting sugar, grain or grape distillate with distillates will remain.
3. Alcohol - rectified or distillate?
   The name "alcohol" speaks for itself. This is rectified, since the distillate has certain impurities and its purification is not one hundred percent. Medical alcohol is always rectified. And even industrial alcohols are obtained in industry by rectification.

In any case, it is up to you to decide what is more to your taste - distillate or rectified. Depending on your preferences, you will have a task: to stop at a classic distiller or purchase a full-fledged distillation column. It should be noted that household columns can also work in distillation mode, therefore they are more versatile, although slightly more expensive than classic moonshine stills.

Is it true that moonshine is more harmful than vodka than Mendeleev had fun, 300-400 thousand bottles of Belarusian single malt whiskey per year for $ 1.5 million, as well as certification issues - chemist Pyotr Dudin, who plans to open the production of Belarusian single malt whiskey, tells how to do it .

I'm not a taster, God deprived me of this feeling of the nose, maybe I burned it when I studied at the Chemistry Department. But I know technology. My idea is to make Belarusian scotch using Scottish technology, namely single malt, not blended. We do not have a choice of spirits, as in Scotland: there, distilleries exchange spirits among themselves to make a blend of 15-40 types. Technologically, a lonely small distillery has a simple choice - to make single grain or single malt whiskey. As for blended whiskey, yes, people in our country think Chivas and Johnny Walker are cool. Nobody thinks about the fact that "Johnny Walker" does not have its own productions. This "independent bottler" - the world's most successful scotch player, who created the brand without having his own distillery and buying spirits from the Scots. The trick is that Americans themselves are more interested in drinking their local whiskey and bourbon from micro-distilleries that produce small volumes. How do they do it?

distillation process

To begin with, strong alcohol can be produced in two ways: traditional distillation and rectification. The distillate was invented by Arab alchemists, then in the Middle Ages it was rediscovered in Europe. The Dutch were the first to distill distillate in industrial volumes, then the British joined in – we all remember the gin riots of the early 18th century. The manufacturing process is as follows. The germinated grain is dried, the malt is ground into flour, mash is prepared from it (sweet malt water) and yeast is thrown into it. Of course, in the old days everything fermented naturally, but now they breed whole strains of yeast that eat sugar and produce ethanol. It all looks like this: there is an alembic above the fire, 7% mash is poured inside. From the cube there are “shoulders” passing into the “neck”, then - a serpentine in a cooling tub with water. Much depends on the temperature: if it is above 30 degrees, the yeast will start to die stupidly. And so they just eat this sugar, after two or three days they feel bad because the ethanol does not go anywhere. Then the physical process is turned on: the vapor pressure of ethanol becomes greater than atmospheric pressure, and ethyl alcohol begins to boil and evaporate.

The art of the distiller is the art of selecting fractions. Roughly speaking, it is necessary to cut off the "heads" and "tails". First, light substances fly from the mash: after all, yeast produces not only its main ethanol, but also methanol and other lower aromatic alcohols: butyl, propyl, isopropyl. Methanol is a poison, so strong that if you drink 50 grams of absolute methanol, you will go blind, and if 250 you will die. The only antidote for methanol is ethanol. So, these light fractions mixed with ethanol are the first to fly. In the people this business is called pervach, in Scotland - "heards" (or foreshots). Brave dudes even drink it. I'm not sure that everyone will definitely go blind, but they pretty much poison themselves with methanol. The main distillate is called "hearts", that is, "hearts". Higher alcohols with ethanol, that is, fusel spirits, are called "tails", "tails". Yes, wings, legs and tails! When the "tails" flew and the strength of ethanol drops, the distillation process must be stopped. Particularly greedy people in villages or farmsteads, as I was told, drive on. And if you drive the moonshine for a long time and try to squeeze out all the ethyl alcohol out of it, as much as possible, all the sivuha will go into the distillate: higher alcohols are poorly soluble in ethanol and precipitate as milk turbidity. By and large, if you make whiskey at home, it is better to throw out the “tails” and “heads”. Although higher alcohols are not bad and not good, it is in them that the whole taste and aroma of moonshine is located.

The distillation apparatus can even be placed in the kitchen, but foreign distilleries produce distillate in much larger volumes: as they did in Belarus 150 years ago, and before that in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Dmitry Mendeleev

The output here is pure alcohol 70-75%. You will not get 100% medical grade by distillation, unless, of course, you add benzene. By the way, this is what Mendeleev worked on. It is believed that he invented vodka, but in fact he studied how drinking alcohol molecules interact with water. The trick is that the volume fraction of alcohol when diluted with water changes non-linearly. If you take one liter of 96% alcohol and a liter of water, you will never get two liters of vodka with a degree in half, that is, 48, it will come out less. This was important for the control authorities, which issued excise taxes already in the 19th century, despite the fact that vodka itself was measured in buckets. Today it's cool to say that Mendeleev invented vodka because he allegedly drank it, but he was engaged in a purely applied physical and chemical problem that was important for the tax authorities of the tsar. In short, the whole story with distillates all over the world went on knurled until the 19th century, until a Frenchman and an Irishman simultaneously invented a distillation column.

Distillation column

The distillation column reached Tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th century. On it you can get more pure alcohol continuously: pervach and sivukha can be separated even more efficiently, and alcohol can be driven without stopping. Everything works like this. The mash is poured into the base of the column, and above are the so-called distillation plates, there can be up to 40-50 pieces, and on each the distillation process takes place: the steam begins to boil and evaporate. If you have a home apparatus (I have seen such devices being sold now), the diameter of the column is not very large. Industrial columns are such fools with a diameter of 2–3 meters, and the plates there resemble horseradish with holes, with which dumplings are made. The rectification process begins when the mash is heated to the boiling point of ethanol. Since there are many plates, the evaporation and condensation front creeps up. Heavy alcohols, along with water, drip down, and light ones go up. The output is rectified alcohol 92–95%. This is a finished product for vodka. If you dilute it with water, add sugar, acetylsalicylic acid, supposedly for taste, the urine of a whisperer's grandmother and a drop of glycerin for viscosity (if you sort it out with glycerin, you will sit on the push) - you get vodka. Why does strawberry vodka, which was kicked out on a distillation column, smell like alcohol? It has been so purified that there are no higher aromatic spirits left! Some people feel the tinge, but for me vodka is stupidly diluted rectified, I can't tell if it's made from rye or potatoes. A couple of years ago, a World Spirit Competition in San Francisco was won by a vodka that an English farmer kicked out of potatoes, which caused a butthurt among Russians and Poles who make vodka from cereals. Alcohols from potatoes and sugar beet are still considered to be slop, because the raw materials are cheap, and the fragrant fractions have a nasty taste. But when you polish all this on a distillation column, you get in fact the same thing as from rye or wheat: pure alcohol and trace amounts of fusel spirits.

What is more harmful: distillate or rectified

In fact, there is no such strong intoxication from young whiskey, grappa and all these distillates as from vodka. How is alcohol disposed of in the body? Ethanol is oxidized by enzymes to acetaldehyde, which is 30 times more toxic than ethyl alcohol. Acetaldehyde creates problems for the liver, and an unpleasant smell of fume appears from it. The liver is a kind of filter. When we drink vodka, a high concentration of acetaldehyde hits the liver, because besides it, ethanol has nothing to oxidize. And in whiskey or moonshine there is sivuha - higher alcohols. In principle, if you eat one fuselage, you will die, but its small presence in the distillate is good because the oxidation of ethanol in the body slows down.

Sivukha smooths out the effect, and the toxic temporary shock from the distillate is much less. A similar story with methanol, for which the only antidote is ethyl alcohol. The product of methanol oxidation is formaldehyde, the strongest poison. But if, after taking methanol, a person has time to fill in ethyl alcohol, then there are chances that oxidation will slow down and the peak concentration of formaldehyde will not kill him. True, if you measure the concentration of alcohol in the blood after five hours, then after 300 grams of moonshine it will be higher than after 300 grams of vodka, but the head will hurt less, because the head hurts from alcohol oxidation products. There is a drawback: vodka - bang, and immediately oxidized, you realized that you immediately feel bad, and the body processes moonshine more slowly, and you stay drunk longer, sometimes even in the morning. But all this has long been shown in experiments on mice and rats. Propaganda that moonshine is more harmful than vodka is garbage.

Barrel aging

So, the distillate is ready, "the tails are cut off." It's about the oak barrel. In 1913-1917, the Scots decided to age whiskey in barrels for a minimum of three years. Although the barrels themselves were earlier. From the Middle Ages, trade was developed throughout Europe, bulk goods were transported in barrels. There were barrels from Belarusian oak, Ukrainian from the Carpathians, probably even from oak forests in the south of Siberia they were riveted. Everything floated back and forth, the barrels were like tankers - there was a cycle of barrels in the world. But the oak grows slowly, and its European stocks were gradually depleted. Americans are the luckiest of all because they have a special variation of oak called American White (Quercus Alba). If there were no American oak, we would probably be left without whiskey in the world, because our pedunculate oak (Quercus Robur) grows three times slower, and it has too much tannins. American oak is denser, and these casks have now become the main container for aging whiskey around the world. By law in the US, one barrel can only be used once.

There are huge whiskey factories in the USA, the same Jim Beam, Jack Daniels are simply giants. Accordingly, a huge number of used barrels remain on the market. The Scotts, don't be fools, figured out where to use them. Single malt spirits for single malt have a rather delicate bouquet, and in order not to clog the taste with oak, they are poured into barrels left over from bourbon. That is, American barrels migrate to Scotland and Ireland. Most of the distilleries in these two countries use standard 200 liter ex-bourbon barrels - it's a huge industry. There are many different casks in terms of volume: there are 500 liter casks left over from sherry, there are very small 50 liter craft casks that are commonly used in micro-distilleries in the US. It is believed that the smaller the barrel, the greater the area of ​​​​contact of the whiskey with the surface of the oak and the faster the whiskey matures.

As soon as a cask arrives in Scotland from the USA, it is filled with distillate diluted to 60-65%, and it costs 3-5 years. Most manufacturers refill alcohol three times, but over the years the barrel starts to work worse - it gives less polysaccharides, which give off sweetness and spicy aromas. The distillery has a master blender that selects whiskeys for blending and monitors maturation in barrels to imagine what the spirits will taste like in a few years. Even in Britain, dudes appeared (master blender John Glaser from Spice Tree) who are trying to make inserts from oak of a different kind in a barrel, which was quickly banned by the Scotch Whiskey Association.

Shot from the film "Angels' Share"

When storing barrels, temperature is important. With its increase by 10 degrees, the rate of a chemical reaction according to the Arenius law increases by 2–4 times, and the whiskey matures faster, it produces more aromatic substances. True, evaporation at a temperature also accelerates. This thing is called "angels' share." Watch Ken Loch's Angel's Share film about how much whiskey goes through a barrel. In Scotland, the average temperature in the rooms where barrels are stored is 7 degrees, in Belarus it would be 12 degrees. And in India, for example, it's as much as 25 degrees. Indian whiskey is not bad at all. They have their own market there: there are quite a lot of those who drink and do not bathe in the Ganges and do not eat grasshoppers. The Indian single malt "Amrut" in the book of whiskey guru Jim Murray invariably receives high marks. So Here, the "share of angels" in Scotland is 1-2%, in more southern England - 2-3%, and in India it reaches 12% per year.But whiskey matures faster.

The idea of ​​Peter Dudin

I would like to experiment with Belarusian pedunculate oak. I think it can work if the tree is properly prepared. Although I will have ex-bourbon casks for the main aging. For raw materials, I would take Belarusian malt - no matter how Belarusian brewers who do not like it are driven to it. Yes, there is a lot of protein there, and the peasants do not follow the cultivation technology, but you can control the entire production chain yourself. Why do we have bad barley and malt? Peasants don't fertilize at the right time. Instead of adding phosphorus, they take nitrogen, which increases the proportion of protein in barley and it turns from brewing into forage. The peasant does not care how you drive your beer or whiskey. When he puts in nitrogen fertilizers, instead of 30 centners, he will grow 40 - he has completed his shaft. It's bullshit that there is 15% protein and that feed barley is cheaper than brewing barley. In principle, if you lead a peasant by the hand: “Vasya, tomorrow you bring in this and that,” then the process can be controlled. Growing and drying malt with Belarusian peat at the distillery is more expensive - you need to take a couple of people who, like in Scotland, will walk around the malt house, thin out and dry barley. But there are only four distilleries in Scotland that produce their own malt! By the way, their barley grows so-so, so many distilleries use the one that was grown in the east of England. For example, the Girvan grain distillery (this is Grant whiskey) was built southwest of Glasgow in order to transport cheap corn from America by sea in case of emergency. Suddenly there will be a shortage of grain in Europe - maritime logistics will work. I would buy alembics in Scotland: I have already talked to a couple of companies that are ready to make.

In principle, even Uncle Vasya can make cubes according to my drawings, but the problem will be in certification.

In our country, it is easier to import with a foreign certificate, because here you get sick of certifying these cubes. It is clear that the distillery needs to produce not only whiskey, but also related alcoholic beverages - if you stupidly take and lay everything in ground spirits, you need 3-4 million dollars. This is wrong from a business point of view, only if you are rowing money with a shovel. But distillation is primarily a technology for the production of unique spirits. The larger the plant, the more efficient it is. In Belarus, due to the small market, production is forced to be small, it seems to me that the market is initially capable of drinking no more than 300-400 thousand bottles per year of a three-year-old single molt.

Key Issue: Certification

The main problem is that distillates were previously banned in our country. There is GOST for rectified, and the only distillates that can be produced are fruit, for calvados and cognac. Although, the Research Institute of Food Products of the National Academy of Sciences developed specifications for grain distillate in 2013. Breakthrough! Especially after they have been trying to convince us for 60 years that moonshine is harmful. Why did the dude from Kaliningrad, who made Polugar moonshine, open production in Poland? Because in Russia the same garbage. Although we still allowed small farms to make moonshine, this is not the case on an industrial scale. People have a cliché in their heads that vodka is purer. We have alcoholic recipes and specifications are developed by aunts who studied according to Soviet textbooks. Where to get oak barrels and why it is better than steel enameled containers, they do not know, and they did not intersect with Western technology. For some reason, it is considered normal for us to make cognac from grape distillate, infused on wood chips, and leave grain distillate outside the law. Meanwhile, in Russia in 2016 GOST for distillates will come into force. I would like to believe that the new Belarusian TU will not leave us behind.

Of course, it is difficult for people now to imagine who will drink Belarusian three-year-old whiskey, if it is believed that seventy-year-old is mega-cool. I plan to sell 200 thousand bottles a year in Belarus and for export - everyone will be interested in what kind of single malt whiskey is from Belarus. I will make peaty whiskey, like Laphroig, this will be his feature - Belarusian malt and Belarusian peat, a unique climate for maturation. Making another light Glenfiddich or Glenmorangie is not interesting. Moreover, no SWA association will interfere with experimenting with wood and aging in Belarus - I'm not going to produce scotch, but a Belarusian single malt. Whiskey is not produced in Eastern Europe yet, but I suspect that in 5-7 years Belarusians will go to Vilnius, drink Lithuanian whiskey there and exclaim: how cool is Lithuanian whiskey, why can’t ours do this! We import grappa, we import whiskey, why can't we produce them ourselves? We have grapes in Gomel, and we bring cognac drinks from Moldova and Armenia. Everything can be done with us, it’s just easier for someone so that nothing happens here.

I would sell a bottle of three-year-old 0.7 for about $25-28, then the project could pay off.

We have a lot of old abandoned factories that can be rented or bought from the state for one base - there are a lot of production sites. You can build a new workshop even in an open field. It is not difficult and not very expensive in comparison with the repair of old factories. If there are people who are ready to invest about one and a half million dollars in this, then Belarus will have its own single malt whiskey. Yes, I want there to be a whiskey "Distilled, Matured and Bottled in Belarus", so that people would be proud of it. I believe in him, and we need to start now.

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As a result of distillation, we get moonshine, not alcohol. Even after repeated distillations, there will still be some fusel oils and other impurities in it. Now there are distillation columns on sale, and it has become easy to make pure alcohol at home. So why do moonshiners keep choosing distillers?

Distillation is the evaporation of liquids (for example, alcohol-containing mash), cooling and condensation of steam. Rectification is the separation of alcohol in the process of repeated heat exchange between an alcohol-containing liquid and vapor. In the process of distillation, we get moonshine - a more or less strong liquid containing alcohol, water and a small amount of impurities. In the process of rectification, we get pure alcohol with virtually no impurities.

The distillate, even the purest, contains impurities. There are practically no impurities in the rectificate.

It would seem that pure alcohol is always better. For this, we are engaged in moonshining in order to drink clean drinks. Alcohol can be diluted and get vodka, you can insist on berries or herbs. So, we make the simplest sugar mash, build, drive alcohol and use it as the basis for making drinks without fusel oils and acetone. And we will be happy.

On the basis of rectificate, you can prepare vodka, liqueurs, tinctures and liquors.

But not everything is so simple. Take, for example, cognac, a fragrant drink made by sublimation from grape wine. Where does its fragrance come from? These are the fusel oils originally contained in wine. If the wine is rectified, having selected all the impurities, we will get a very pure, but faceless spirit. If the wine is distilled, retaining aromatic substances during the distillation process, you will get the basis for the preparation of cognac. Of course, it still needs to be kept in a specially prepared one, but the main thing is the base of the right material. From rectified alcohol, “cognac” can be obtained only by adding.

Impurities are not only dangerous methanol, but also aromatic substances that create the smell of cognac or whiskey.

Of course, to make good cognac, the distillate still needs to be purified from the head fraction, which does not contain anything tasty and healthy. And it is also necessary to start the selection of the tail fraction for a good result on time. In the city of Cognac in France, this is done by real masters of distillation, who are sensitive to when to select the best part of the distillate. But even a mere mortal can learn this if he is persistent in the tests.

Over time, the distiller acquires the necessary experience and selects the drinking part, cutting off everything harmful and preserving the aroma of grain, apples or grapes in the drink.

Findings. The choice of equipment comes down to the choice between drinks. What do you like more - whiskey or vodka? Calvados or absinthe? Chacha or liqueurs? If you have chosen the first everywhere, you need a distiller. For the second, take a distillation column. Your Alkovod.

Recently, home brewing has become very popular. And this is quite understandable, since the quality of store-bought alcoholic beverages is getting lower every year, as evidenced by the increasing cases of poisoning. Therefore, the desire of reasonable people to protect themselves from accidents, but at the same time continue to enjoy the incomparable taste of elite alcohol, is quite natural.

Manufacturers of moonshine stills, in an effort to help modern people find the best and most effective solution for preparing alcoholic beverages at home, offer a decent range of distillers in various configurations. And if you are a beginner moonshine brewer, then you will probably be interested to know how the distillation process differs from rectification.

Distillation: definition and types

The main purpose of distillation is to preserve the aroma and taste of the product transferred to it by the raw materials from which it is produced and is the distillation of raw materials. In the process of distillation on a moonshine, the evaporation of volatile components is carried out, which are converted into condensate, settle and again take a liquid state. This condensate is, in our case, moonshine or, scientifically, distillate. From the school curriculum, we all know that alcohol boils at a temperature of 78 degrees, and water at 100 degrees. Thus, alcohol evaporates much faster (given the difference in boiling point), and when it cools down, it condenses. That is, the raw material can be distilled several times to increase the amount of pure alcohol in the final product.

Experienced moonshine makers know that you can distill moonshine once or twice. The first hundred grams of home-made moonshine obtained contain a lot of alcohol and are distinguished by high strength, but at the same time they contain no less high content of harmful impurities. Pervacha contains a lot of esters, acetone, aldehydes and volatile acids, so it is dangerous to use it for health.

Types of distillation

Distillation is the purification of mash from harmful impurities under the influence of high temperature. There are two types of this process:

• Fractional distillation;

• conventional distillation.

In the first case, the distilled raw material is divided into separate parts that differ in the composition of the components. The advantage of this distillation is a high degree of purification of homemade moonshine. The output is the basis for high-quality home-made cognac or other alcoholic drink with a strength of up to 70 degrees.

Conventional distillation takes a minimum of time, but the quality of the final product is average. Homemade cognac, brandy, whiskey and other moonshine, the recipe of which you choose, will contain fractional components, fusel oils and other necessary impurities that give that unique and memorable taste of the drink, and the strength of the drink will not exceed 50 degrees.

Rectification: definition and concept

Rectification is also a distillation of raw materials, only in contrast to distillation, the process goes with separation into various fractions and mixtures. The end product of distillation is ethyl alcohol. The process is carried out using a distillation column - a unit inside which liquid mixtures are separated into separate parts. The result is the purest ethyl alcohol, which is colorless and odorless.

Rectification is also often used in home-brewing for subsequent infusion and obtaining various tinctures. During the distillation process, the raw material is cleaned of harmful impurities, so the final product does not contain fusel oils, esters and aldehydes, but the characteristic taste contained in the original raw material is lost.

What is the difference between distillation and rectification?

If you want to make homemade cognac, whiskey, brandy and other moonshine at home, then all you need is to buy a moonshine still and learn the best recipes from experienced moonshine makers. However, it will be useful for you to know that it is pointless to use a distillation column for this, since its main function is to obtain pure alcohol and nothing more.

This is the difference between rectification and distillation. In the process of distillation on a moonshine still, the process of cleaning the liquid mixture takes place. That is, you add the ingredients for moonshine, the recipe of which you have chosen, they are thoroughly mixed and after that, under the influence of temperature, the raw materials are cleaned of esters, fusel oils and aldehydes. At the exit, you get any alcoholic product you choose.

If you use a distillation column, you can prepare a delicious tincture based on pure ethyl alcohol. Producers of rectifiers warn that in no case should you use an apparatus for distilling mash. The first few times you will be able to get the desired product, but with each distillation, the distillation apparatus will become clogged until it finally fails.

Therefore, if you want to enjoy delicious homemade alcohol for a long time, then you should definitely buy a moonshine still in the CHZDA online store. Here you will find a wide variety of models and modifications of moonshine stills, among which you can choose a design that matches the required volume and performance.