How Food Grade Ethanol is Made

Food grade ethanol is distinguished by its ingredient standards, strength, and manufacturing process.  Culinary Solvent is pure food grade ethanol unlike any other brand out there.  Learn more about the true micro distilled process that makes Culinary Solvent the best pure food grade ethanol available for purchase online.

How is food grade ethanol made?

1. Feedstock Selection: Food grade ethanol can be made from various feedstocks, including sugar cane, corn, wheat, barley, and other crops rich in starch or sugar. Non-food sources like cellulose from wood or agricultural waste can also be used in advanced ethanol production processes.

2. Preparation of Feedstock: Depending on the source, the feedstock may need to be prepared. For instance, if the feedstock is starchy material like corn or wheat, it may need to be ground into a fine powder or mashed to expose the starches.

3. Conversion of Starches/Sugars to Fermentable Sugars: Enzymes are typically added to the feedstock to convert starches or complex sugars into simpler fermentable sugars. This process is called saccharification.

4. Fermentation: The fermentable sugars are then mixed with yeast or bacteria in fermentation tanks. Yeast is the most commonly used microorganism for ethanol production. During fermentation, yeast consumes the sugars and produces ethanol and carbon dioxide as byproducts.

5. Distillation: After fermentation, the resulting mixture, called beer, is distilled to separate the ethanol from the water and other components. Distillation involves heating the mixture to vaporize the ethanol, which has a lower boiling point than water, and then condensing the vapor back into a liquid form.

6. Dehydration: The ethanol is often further purified through processes such as molecular sieves or dehydration to remove any remaining water and impurities.

Culinary Solvent is Distilled from 100% Corn

Culinary Solvent is distilled from 100% corn, and our certified organic recipe uses organic, non-GMO corn.  Learn more about our USDA-certified organic alcohol.

Why Corn? 

We tested out many different alcohol bases, including sugar cane, grape, wheat, rice, barley, oats, potatoes, and sugar beets, before settling on a recipe of 100% corn.  Ultimately, we chose corn due to its supremely neutral smell and taste.  While it is possible to distill alcohol from any material that ferments, only corn can deliver consistent neutral profiles, making it an ideal option for tinctures, perfuming, and culinary applications.  

Read our description of the alcohol produced from other raw materials here. 

First Stage Distillation: 192 Proof

Our distillation process begins with a reflux column still stage.  The ethanol is distilled to 96.2% alcohol by volume (ABV).  The remaining 3.8% of liquid consists mostly of water and fusel oils, a natural byproduct of alcoholic fermentation. 

Dehydration to 200 Proof (99.97% ABV)

Alcohol and water cannot be separated by distillation alone past 96.2% ABV.  In order to remove the last 3.8% of dissolved water, the solution must be dehydrated using a molecular sieve.  These ceramic beads are specially engineered to literally trap the water molecule, allowing pure ethanol to flow past.  Dehydrating with a molecular sieve is chemical free and the only approved way to maintain food grade integrity.   

Achieving 100% ethanol, often referred to as "absolute alcohol," requires the removal of all water content from the solution. Typically, ethanol comes in concentrations like 95% alcohol and 5% water because beyond this ratio, ethanol and water form an azeotrope, making further separation through standard distillation challenging. Dehydration is essential for applications that demand pure ethanol’s unique properties, such as precise scientific experiments, specialized manufacturing processes, or certain culinary uses where water content could compromise the integrity of the final product.

A molecular sieve presents a safe and effective method for dehydrating ethanol to reach that coveted 100% mark. Molecular sieves are highly porous materials capable of trapping and holding water molecules within their structure, while allowing ethanol molecules to pass through unimpeded. This process doesn't involve adding any chemicals to the ethanol, making it a safer and more environmentally friendly option compared to traditional dehydration methods that use hazardous substances like benzene.

Using benzene or other chemicals for ethanol dehydration can introduce toxic residues into the final product, posing significant health risks and potentially affecting the ethanol’s purity. In contrast, a molecular sieve dehydrates ethanol through a physical process without chemical reactions or by-products. The ethanol's quality remains uncompromised, ensuring it is safe for all intended uses, including those that involve direct contact with food or skin.

Moreover, the process involving a molecular sieve is relatively straightforward. The ethanol is passed through a column filled with the sieve material, selectively removing water due to the sieve's affinity for water molecules over ethanol. This method not only ensures the safe production of absolute alcohol but also aligns with stringent health and safety standards, making it an optimal choice for producing food grade ethanol.

Final Stage Pot-Still Rectification

After achieving 200 proof, the pure ethyl alcohol is redistilled one final time using our array of micro batch 50-gallon pot stills.  We run many small stills simultaneously when performing our rectification runs, which results in consistently pure, supremely neutral alcohol output when we collect the hearts.

We Distill in Small Batches for a Reason

Unlike continuous industrial processes, distilling food grade ethanol in small, fixed size batches using a pot still method simply allows for the precise capture of the purest, highest quality ethyl alcohol of each the distillation run.  Small stills require more investment and time per distillation run; however, the payout is supremely pure ethanol.

Smaller is better (when it comes to distilling).

By using a pot still, the master distiller isolates the "heads" and "tails" of the distillation run (the very first and very last batches, respectfully), saving only the purest "hearts" to be bottled up and sold.  The smaller the batch size of your pot still, the greater the ability to isolate the purest ethyl alcohol possible.

Heads, Hearts, and Tails

The output of a distilling run is "analog" rather than "digital," meaning it changes gradually over time. Each run takes about six hours per still. The initial output, known as the "heads," is the first liquid to come out of the still. The heads contain any methanol present, as it has the lowest boiling point and evaporates first. The output then gradually transitions from "heads" to "hearts," where pure ethanol is being collected. The transition from "hearts" to "tails" also occurs gradually, as the tails contain a variety of other compounds that need to be isolated.

It is the responsibility of the master distiller to determine the precise moment to stop collecting heads and start collecting hearts. Similarly, as the run nears completion, the master distiller must decide when to stop collecting hearts and designate the remainder in the pot as "tails."

What's in the heads?

At this stage of rectification and dehydration, there is practically nothing other than ethyl alcohol in our heads cut.  With that said, we make a head's cut anyway out of habit or best practice.

What's in the tails?

This is where all of the "hidden-character" of your other alcohols live.  Detectable by the nose and tongue distinctly, even in the smallest of concentrations, tails alcohol contains any esters, aldehydes, or last bits of other ethanol derivatives with similar boiling points.  The difference is clear when tasting before and after redistillation. 

By only bottling and using the hearts of a distillation run, Culinary Solvent is supremely neutral in aroma and flavor profile.

The unique design and setup of our distillery permits many small stills to run in tandem.  After distillation, each batch is gauged for proof and undergoes a last stage of filtration before bottling and labeling.