Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

As the title displays, my still caught fire today. Holyfuckingshit! There was a small leak I was trying to patch with paste, when the cap popped off a little, and that's when the real trouble started.

I jumped back just as flames and wash start spraying out. The entire shed, save for the corner I jumped back into, immediately filled with flames, and the cap shot off and away. Think house fire, mixed with science project volcano! All I could think was that I was trapped! Fortunately the flames died down just enough for me to duck by and out the door. I scraped by with a toasty red face, and singed hair. No blisters fortunately.

Lessons learned!:

1) My fire extinguisher wasn't in an easily accessible location compared to he still. Stupid me. Keep fire extinguisher located in better location, and more of them spread around.

2) if there's an uncontrollable leak, shut the heater off and fix it. Or just quit the run entirely. A little liquor ain't worth death or destroyed property.

3) Don't overfill your pot. Not sure if this contributed to my issue, but again, a little more liquor ain't worth it.

4) Always work in a well ventilated area. Mine was, but it's worth saying again.

Of course these aren't all the lessons I'll learn. Just my initial thoughts. Comments are welcome. I know the "you're an idiot" and "retards" are coming, so let it fly. Just make sure you learn from my mistakes.

your only an idiot if you do it twice , glad your safe though . was there much damage to the shed / surrounding area ?

No, surprisingly. I had some cabinets installed, and the varnish is a little charred, and the floor was flooded. Fortunately nothing really caught fire, or I'd be in jail probably, and not posting this now!

Aside from that, some plastic bens were melted a little and deformed, as well as some other items suffering minor heat damage.

Hello MtnMoonshiner

That's only a learning curve, don't worry about it ...........................................................the best is yet to come. Cheers :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The cloth you wear is also important synthetic material can melt and give off toxic fumes .

Glad you're OK.
Were you runing your still on gas ?

Yes, I was running my still on gas, just like I've done for years. I'm going to buy a large electric burner now though haha.

Damn!!

A lot of people running gas convert to electric eventually, it's just a matter of when.

Glad you were okay after the wake up call :smile:

Yeah, gas flame + 93% alcohol = YIKES!!!

Good to hear that you survived with only your eyebrows and pride a little singed.

Close call MM, could have been a lot worse. Glad you ok.

I had my gas tubing melt and create a flamethrower. Scared the shit outta me, definitley changing to electric














SOON :shock:

Well that's a good lesson to everyone right there. Thanks for Maning up and not keeping it to yourself.
We are glad you came out of it ok.... Stay safe everyone ;-)

Good to know your ok :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Good to here your ok :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Be safe!!
I'll stick with my lecy elements & silicon seals :-D :-D

Bloody hell glad you're safe that would of got the old ticker beating like crazy, You have inspired me to get a couple of fire extinguishers must say I am a bad boy and don't have one yet, what type do we require for ethanol again i have read it but can't remember. :shifty:

Co2 or foam does that sound like the go?

Today I used the kind with dry chemical, and it worked splendidly. You'll want a "dry chemical" or FFFP extinguisher.

I wish I didn't have first hand experience. You'd better get an extinguisher before you still anymore!

And yes, my heart hasn't beat so hard in quite a while! :laughing-rolling: I can laugh about it now, but I assure you it wasn't funny at the time!

this would be me using a gas still!

glad you are all right- and have a valuable lesson to share to everyone

Andy wrote:

this would be me using a gas still!

glad you are all right- and have a valuable lesson to share to everyone

:text-+1: Yes me too,thanks MM just been checking Ebay and what size do you think is a suitable size i.e a couple of 1 kg car type ones or one 2.5 kg. :-B

:scared-eek: glad you ok mate. I make sure I always do a pre check when starting a run. Water line running, gas cylinder appropriate distance from burner, 2 extinguishers on either side of still and a back up water hose ready to go. Also once up to temp all seals are checked with a mirror for vapor leaks. Never can be to carefull :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Won't be long till I go electric anyway open flame does worry me a bit. Please please safety first guys :pray: keep safe everyone

Food for thought not my words but I thought it would be good here..

Well just consider what parts of your still may cause a fire. There is your heat source and the ethanol itself. So you could have a electric fire (because you you run electric elements), a liquid ethanol fire, or gasious ethanol fire. Most standard fire extinguishers are labeled ABC. This means they will put out solids, liquids and electrical fires.
From there there are two types of ABC extinguishers. Dry chemical, and Co2. The cheapest option will be a ABC dry chemical extinguisher. This type of extinguisher works by putting a blanket of non flammable, material over the fuel depriving it of oxygen. This will work well with burning liquid ethanol, or an electrical fire, but if you have a fire coming straight from your still where the ethanol is burning in a gasious form it will not work as well because it cannot blanket a gas with the solid material. The ABC Co2 extinguisher on the other hand will put out the ethanol burning as a gas as well as the other two conditions. It creates a cloud of gasious carbon dioxide that dispaces all the oxygen around the fuel.
Now this part is very important! If you happen to have a fire started by ethnol in gas form, like from a leak in your still, or if your condensor isnt working properly then you really dont even want to be around your still because it is completely filled with a slightly pressurised flammable gas. This is a perfect condition for an explosion. The best thing to do in this situation is turn your heat source off and walk away till it cools down. The scary part about that is that pure ethanol burns clean without color, so you may not even know if you have a leak that has caught fire. This is why paying attention to your still is very important. Buy a mirror and hold it up to where you think you have a leak, and it will fog up wherever ethanol is escaping as a gas. Seal all leaks as soon as possible because you just dont even want to mess with that catching fire.
When looking for an extinguisher just make sure it is the ABC type, which shouldent be hard to find. Then think about the capabilities of the two types of ABC extinguishers and which you would rather have. One other thing to keep in mind is that dry chemical extinguishers will make a giant mess, putting very fine white powder everywhere, where as the Co2 will just dissipate and leave nothing behind.