New Life for the Old Still: DIY Ethanol

Ralph White welds together the parts of the distilling column of a still in Tullahoma, Tenn. on Friday, May 12, 2006. The mechanism allows the still to produce ethanol, 190 proof grain alcohol, that can be mixed with gasoline to reduce automobile fuel costs by about two-thirds. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) (Mark Humphrey - AP)

TULLAHOMA, Tenn. -- The still _ standard equipment of any moonshiner _ has a shot at becoming the must-have accessory of penny-pinching motorists.

An upstart Tennessee business is marketing stills that can be set up as private distilleries making ethanol _ 190 proof grain alcohol _ out of fermented starchy crops such as corn, apples or sugar cane. The company claims the still's output can reduce fuel costs by nearly a third from the pump price of gasoline.

Buyers of stills need a federal permit to make ethanol on private property. In what amounts to an honor system, they are to add a poison to their homemade alcohol so it isn't white lightning.

"We make it very clear that it is against the law to drink what comes out of it," said Shelley McClanahan, a spokeswoman for her family's business, Dogwood Energy.

Phones are ringing with orders at the business that mostly sold pellets for wood stoves before pump prices bounced high by Hurricane Katrina focused new attention on a modified still designed by McClanahan's father, inventor-mechanic Bill Sasher.

Since word started getting out in recent weeks about Sasher's still, Dogwood Energy has added 10 employees, McClanahan said.

Sasher's new creekside assembly warehouse in south-central Tennessee _ down a backwoods road, next door to a noisy rooster and less than 5 miles from the distillery that makes Jack Daniel's whiskey _ has orders for about 45 assembled stills.

The company is building four or five stills a day and has sold 45 in recent weeks, more than 125 since September, to meet the demand from customers ranging from small businesses to thrifty individuals.

"You can save a lot of money. That's what this is all about," McClanahan said.

A bushel of the fermented starch crop, mixed with yeast, water and sugar, and allowed to sit for about 2.5 days, then strained and heated to boiling, makes about 2.6 gallons of ethanol, which is then added to gasoline to produce a blended fuel.

Dogwood Energy says it costs about 75 cents per gallon to make ethanol at home. Adding 15 percent ethanol to $3 gasoline reduces the cost of a fill-up to $2.40 per gallon, McClanahan said.

A blend with 85 percent ethanol cuts the cost to $1.09 for a blended gallon, she said.