How To Make Your Own Jug Of Distilled Water Right At Home

Although distilled water isn't necessary for everyday cooking or drinking, having a jug around in your kitchen can be surprisingly useful at times. You can use it to clean your coffee maker (after combining it with white vinegar), and, if you can your food at home, having an ample supply of pure water is a must to prevent contamination and off-tastes in your canned foods. In emergencies, such as when your tap water suddenly starts tasting bad or is generally considered unsafe or unpleasant to use, you bet that drinking bland-tasting distilled water is better than nothing.

For those who need a refresher on distilled water, basically, it's the purest type of water around. All of the minerals, salts, and other contaminants will have already been removed, so what you end up with is 100% H2O. While you can buy distilled water cheaply in stores, did you know that you can also distill water at home? And really easily at that? All you need are some basic kitchen tools: a pot, a bowl, some ice, water, and your stovetop.

Making your own distilled water is pretty easy. The basic principle is to boil (often impure) tap water to create steam. If you can somehow collect that steam and convert it back to liquid, you get very pure water. It sounds complicated, but you actually don't need much to do this. To start, fill a large pot halfway with water and place it on your stove. Then, float a smaller bowl or pot inside the larger one — make sure that it's small and light enough that it can float without sinking to the bottom. 

Set your burner to medium heat to simmer the water and create steam. Now, cover up the pot with an upside-down lid filled with ice. As the steam rises and hits the cold lid, it turns back into water and drips into your floating container as distilled water. That's all there is to it! Just replace the ice every half hour or so until you fill up the smaller container. 

Fair warning: This process is slow. It might take up to 12 to 13 hours to fill a 1-gallon jug. And while it's mostly hands-off, you'll want to stay nearby since the stove is on. Given how time-consuming it is, buying distilled water might be more practical for most people. Nevertheless, whenever you're in a pinch and need some distilled water to cook with, this trick can come in pretty handy!