Emergency food supply....for the wife

[johnsbrewhouse]

When it comes to needing water, I just fire off one of the stills and do steam distillation, no pathogens, no odors and if you run your source water through screening materials, you take all the particulates out from the still.

[Chef]

johnsbrewhouse Lots of units out there. What would you recommend for a small family, say 5 people?

[processhead]

I really don’t know to much about any specific brand of filter or storage system.

What I do know I learned when worked in the municipal drinking water industry. We would preach to the people that had filter systems installed in their homes, that you need to maintain them and change the filters regularly, or else they can become health hazards. The exact opposite of why they installed them in the first place.

I would say those rules would generally apply to filter systems for camping and storage systems too.

[Jonathon]

matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/

[processhead]

Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:

matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/

Not only that, I can think of another very practical use of a distillation unit when my CE wife wasn’t busy purifying water with it. lol

[RafterW]

processhead said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:

Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:

matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/

Not only that, I can think of another very practical use of a distillation unit when my CE wife wasn’t busy purifying water with it. lol

No Doubt! Jonathon I picked my unit up with a decent discount for being a first responder. If you do the math, each gallon I filter will cost me $0.05 over the life of the filter.

The appeal of the dual-purpose of some distillation equipment has me second guessing my purchase…

[johnsbrewhouse]

Chef I have a 15 gallon still made from a keg with a 2 ft refraction tower. You need about 1 gallon of water per person per day

[johnsbrewhouse]

processhead many practical use when you have multiple units

[Tex_77]

@Matt-Westerhaus why don’t you just drop a well, and put in a hand pump?

[RafterW]

Tex_77 I have a well. a hand pump would be cool, I’d like to get some solar out here eventually for running the well when grid power is out. Generator will work temporarily but it would be nice to have the solar in place. Most of our appliances are electric, with the exception of furnace and water heater. Looking at plans to add a fireplace in the living room and a wood burning stove in another room. The fireplace will be in the same room as our return air vents so we could flip on the central air blower to send some heat to the ends of the house. The central heating eats through propane in the winter. I think we had one month this last winter that cost $300 in propane.

[processhead]

I think its gets pretty expensive to get completely off the grid and still live a lifestyle with all the typical electrical comforts we take for granted like A/C and hot water and a well. It takes a lot of panels, batteries, and a big inverter to run a typical home and all the electrical loads. Got have the batteries and inverter for nighttime and cloudy days.

[HerbcoFood]

processhead Yep the amount of solar panels and batteries needed to run an entire house efficiently cost more than some think. Yes the technology is getting better every single day but it comes at a cost. Plus then also have to think about the life span of the panels and batteries. I know when we were building our house in 2014, it was going to cost 30-40K for panels. That wasn’t with any battery banks to hold that energy. If you tried to get off the grid with as many creature comforts you’d also need windmills. But then again going off the grid it would be understood you are willing to give up a lot.

[Jonathon]

processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!

[HerbcoFood]

Jonathon Yeah think of all that fertilizers/chemicals in there…yummy!!!

[processhead]

Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:

processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!

Ask your wife.
She are one! Chemical Engineer. CE

Pretty common in the engineering professions EE electrical, ME, mechanical, …and so on.

[johnsbrewhouse]

Jonathon Chemical Engineer

[Chef]

johnsbrewhouse If it’s not too inconvenient, could you post a picture of the still? Your refraction tower, what is it made of and is there anything on the inside to increase surface area?

[johnsbrewhouse]

Chef Which one do you want, I have four of them. I have a five gallon onion, a 7.5 gallon refraction (reflux), 15 gallon refraction, and another 15 gallon refraction. My tower can use copper wool or Raschig rings and can expand from 2 ft. to 8 ft. I built all the the reflux towers and cooling units. The reflux’s are 2" copper pipe, silver soldered with tri-clover fittings. I get them out and take a picture of them. Here is my onion still.

[processhead]

johnsbrewhouse said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:

Chef Which one do you want, I have four of them. I have a five gallon onion, a 7.5 gallon refraction (reflux), 15 gallon refraction, and another 15 gallon refraction. My tower can use copper wool or Raschig rings and can expand from 2 ft. to 8 ft. I built all the the reflux towers and cooling units. The reflux’s are 2" copper pipe, silver soldered with tri-clover fittings. I get them out and take a picture of them.

Would like to learn more about these as well johnsbrewhouse. What are the pro’s and con’s of the different designs?

[johnsbrewhouse]

Chef Here are pictures of the 7.5 gallon, 15 gallon pot and the rings and both the S/s mesh and copper. I didn’t take a picture of my 15 gallon keg since it’s the same as the 7.5 and out in the shop. One picture does have the extension in it. That is just one of the extensions I have. They all connect via tri-clover fittings, you have to watch how high you get, because it gets tippy with the height. The taller the tower, the higher the alcohol strength. You can get the same effect with the rings and/or mesh and a shorter tower. More surface area.