Home made Ethanol for fuel and other uses eg, medical.

[Google]

Farmhand, during season, I sometimes make wine from black grapes mixed with sugar. I also use distilled water and add a bit of Viamin B Complex capule in it to make the yeast work better. I dont distill, just filter it after a few days of sedimentation.

[Paul-R]

I've been producing some ethanol from a combination of sugar and grains/fruit. There are some drawbacks and benefits to using different ingredients

What about grass cuttings?

I believe that in principle it can be done.

[Farmhand]

Google, you are quite right, one of the additives I forgot to add the wash ingredients list is some Vegemite, Vegemite is a yeast extract we use as a spread on toast it is high in B vitamins. After fermenting is finished the dead yeast left over in the fermenter can be collected and dried to something like solid vegemite, it can be used as a dietary supplement or fed to chickens or other livestock before drying, also the washed and spent grain after mashing can be fed to the animals as well..

I found last night my malted barley I had stored from last time has been invaded by weevils, so I will just malt some wheat and use that, i also bought some cheap enzymes to convert any unconverted grain starches to sugars.

will take some time to malt and dry the wheat then make the grain mash, I'm convinced some grain wash is beneficial to fermentation and to output qualities.

For the sugars for a 60 liters total wash I'll be using 10 kilo's of raw sugar, 1.5 liters of molasses, about 8 to 10 liters of grain wash from two kilo's of wheat. As well I'll be using all the other extra ingredients, a tablespoon of B vitamins (vegemite), a few grams of magnesium sulphate (epsom salts) ect.  and some citric acid to get about 4.2 ph. A lot of nutrients for the yeast will come from the molasses but some more nutrients in fairly small quantities can't hurt.

The sugars available for fermenting from that recipe should produce about 12 or 13 % ABV initial wash, and take about 7 to 10 days to ferment.

When I get some free fruit to ferment, I'll probably try using no extra sugar and attempt to get a costing of the product. The energy used to distill is free. Using all fruit and some B vitamins should work well because the fruit contains many nutrients like potassium ect. and if citrus it is already a bit acidic, yeast likes slightly acid environment.

Cheers 

[Farmhand]

I've been advised by a helpful you tube comment that It's better to malt/sprout the grains slower at a lower temperature for longer, so I've arranged a solid state cooler box using a big broccoli box and using some thermo electric units in series I can cool the inside of the box to 18 degree's c with an ambient of 30 degrees, I have two sets of two 12 volt 60 watt units in series, so they each only consume less power ( 4 units uses about 40 Watts, 2 units in series and two strings of units ).  I've got a big aluminium plate and fan on the inside and a heat sink and fan on the outside. I just need to rig up a 12 volt digital thermostat now.

These things seem to be able to double the temp when heating but can only halve the temp when cooling if the current is simply reversed.  big difference seems like at a glance.

Anyway I can keep the malting grains cooler during the day so they don't sprout too fast.

....

Not sure about the grass clippings if they have some starches in them that can be converted to sugars and it can be fermented to a reasonable alcohol content then I guess it's possible. I think there is research in "digesters" to do such things.

Cheers