Sodium bicarbonate can be used in distilling to prevent the formation of ethyl acetate. My notes say 60 ml per liter of pure alcohol in the 2nd and 3rd distillation. The first run will produce about 65% alcohol, so you'd do the math from there. I've lost the URL, but it went into more chemical detail then I could understand.
Distilling
Date: 2008-02-04 12:20 am (UTC)