StillSmart

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-08-13T17:33:24+00:00

I made an amazingstill but 2 or 3 runs later I learned about plastic.

If ever I stop being lazy, I fancy making a non plastic one as the product was gorgeous. Does about a litre a week. lol

Statistics: Posted by John51 — Tue Aug 13, 2013 5:33 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-08-13T15:02:01+00:00

jeremypaulwagg wrote:
utilising the carbon filter packs, have produced a very clean spirit on the first run through.

The little tea bag carbon packs that fit into the spout? Those are for distilling water. They are totally useless for our needs. Try double or triple distilling and proper carbon filtering for a much better result.

The only decent apple brandy that I have made was from an apple and sugar wash. Apples only (or fresh apple juice) would be best. Leave out the carbon filtering (tea bag not counted ).

Chuck

Statistics: Posted by chill — Tue Aug 13, 2013 3:02 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-08-13T06:36:40+00:00

My first post. I've only been distilling with an air still for 6 months, but utilising the carbon filter packs, have produced a very clean spirit on the first run through. I've then produced great gin (by maceration) and whisky (by maturation in 3 litre oak barrels). If anybody knows how to produce a good calvados using these methods, I'd love to hear.

Statistics: Posted by jeremypaulwagg — Tue Aug 13, 2013 6:36 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-06-14T17:42:12+00:00

I have made quite a few rums, the first one had hardly any taste, but that was expected, because to make a good rum you have to use dunder (8 litres if brewing a 25 litre batch) from your first run and half of the lees from your first ferment.

Make sure the dunder is hot before you add the sugar and molasses, helps it dissolve better.

You can make the taste stronger by either adding more molasses or more dunder, they both work.

If you keep regenerating dunder from your runs, each generation of rum will also give more flavour.

Statistics: Posted by Gaztops — Fri Jun 14, 2013 5:42 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-22T07:33:36+00:00

Uber wrote:
Thanks for the update Normski, are you happy with the final product?

Hi Uber
Yes, Im very happy with the quality of my Spiced Rum now.
The key things for me are. Use somewhere between a quater to a half of Mollasses and the rest cane sugar. Use bakers yeast. Leave soaking on Oak.
Soak a small amount of Rum in a jar with a chopped up vanilla pod. Blend this with the finished product.

My lattest experiment has been with Cassia bark. I have soaked some rum in a jar with the bark for a week or so and it has a fantastic Red colour and a familiar smell. I think a blend of Vanilla and Cassia will be my spirit of choice.
Norm

Statistics: Posted by Normski — Wed May 22, 2013 7:33 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-17T01:45:22+00:00

@Chuck....all good mate, I know how fond of the airstill you are (too)....
I find the airstill is also very useful for 'cleanup' runs...ie using with some of the (diluted) feints etc from a bigger potstill spirit run; mind you, as Normski says, it does tend to 'neutralise' the spirit a bit by that stage.

Statistics: Posted by Frank — Fri May 17, 2013 1:45 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-17T00:26:43+00:00

@Frank. Yes, I was just trying to make a joke. My personal equipment is an AirStill, though I aspire to something larger. Used properly with a quality wash, you can produce decent spirits with an AirStill. Even when I get a larger still, I will still use the AirStill for test batches and my infusion gins.

Chuck

Statistics: Posted by chill — Fri May 17, 2013 12:26 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-16T07:58:19+00:00

chill wrote:
...Yes, there is something that gets less respect than an AirStill!

@Chuck, I presume you mean on certain other forums? The Airstill is a well used, tool-of-choice on this site....and a good thing that is too

@Normski....sorry for the late entry here but...
IMHO most newly-distilled spirit (esp @higher ABVs and well cut) will smell vaguely neutral and taste quite sharp/non-flavoured. It is the airing/maturation process that better promotes the differences and, of course, a decent aging on oak will ALWAYS complement the endproduct, as applicable...in some ways the oaking will even more bring out the origins of the spirit too.

So...if your newly gotten spirit is of good quality, a few months will make it far more distinctive.

Statistics: Posted by Frank — Thu May 16, 2013 7:58 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-16T00:08:52+00:00

Correct. It is a bad variation of what started life as a solar still. Not to be recommended.

Statistics: Posted by Myles — Thu May 16, 2013 12:08 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-15T22:20:13+00:00

I think he is referring to an Amazing Still: http://amazingstill.com/

Yes, there is something that gets less respect than an AirStill!

Statistics: Posted by chill — Wed May 15, 2013 10:20 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-15T20:17:34+00:00

Myles wrote:
I did try one of those double plastic bucket type stills.

double plastic bucket type stills???
I'm not sure I want to know,but what is this plastic bucket still? Sounds like all kinds of wrongness!

Thanks for the update Normski, are you happy with the final product?

Statistics: Posted by Uber — Wed May 15, 2013 8:17 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-15T19:59:42+00:00

As this was about a Smartstill I'll update it.

I did finally manage to produse decent good Rum with an Airstill.
The key was to get Molasses. Not the sugar, but liquid from a farm feed suplier.
I used part Molasses and part Sugar and bakers yeast.
Tripple distiled and then soked on JD chips.
I also soaked Vanilla pods in the rum and when blended this made a fine spirit.

Norm

Statistics: Posted by Normski — Wed May 15, 2013 7:59 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2013-05-14T07:59:44+00:00

I don't run an Air Still. I will admit that right at the beginning I did try one of those double plastic bucket type stills. Not for long though.

Next I tried a Spirits Unlimited Mk5E, this is basically an electric alloy pressure cooker style pot still. OK I did modify mine to replace all the rubber washers with compression fittings and also replaced the vapour path with 22 mm copper tube.

Mk5E.png

I have made my own copper pot stills in a variety of sizes, so I can give you my own opinion.

All of these small pot stills have the same basic "flaw" that has been mentioned previously. In addition,you can NOT create drinking product with a single run. If you wish to make a neutral type product you need to do multiple runs. I stopped filtering at all and substituted a couple of extra runs with dilution and careful cuts to get the same results. A bit more labour and time intensive but it works.

For flavoured spirits they are just hard work. The "flaw" is that the transitions between the cuts are so small it just makes it tedious to do lots of small volume runs.

If you want flavoured spirits like rum and whisky, life is a lot easier if you can increase your boiler volume.

You don't need to go massive though. The smallest practical option (just my opinion) is in the 12 to 25 litre range.

If you were to use a 20 litre boiler charge at 28% you could expect to get in the order of 5.6 litres of premium quality hearts.

Cutting this down further to a 13 litre boiler with a 10 litre charge you might get 2.5 to 3 litres.

A small pot still is an alternative option, but if you can make it a bit bigger, it makes it a lot easier.

Statistics: Posted by Myles — Tue May 14, 2013 7:59 am

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2012-05-03T19:45:14+00:00

I have continued to try to make a sort of Rum spirit with an airstill. I have run another two batches of molasses wash. This not black strap molasses, but molasses sugar from a supermarket. If I find some Black strap I’ll try that.

As more than one run through strips out just about everything and only leaves a Neutral spirit. I have tried just doing just one run and making very tight cuts. I have managed to collect around 500- 600ml of a spirit that appears to be, with a little time, maybe of drinkable quality. It is mainly a neutral spirit with just a tiny flavor that I am hoping will become rum. I will age this and see if it IS possible to make something other than a neutral. But to be honest, my guess is that its not worth the bother. Maybe if I find Black Strap that maybe the key.

On a separate note, after seeing some of the posts regarding macerating things. I have been soaking various ingredients in spirit to try to make spiced rum. And that has been really successful. I have used Vanilla, Cloves, Coriander Bark, Treacle, Sultana’s, Root Ginger & Mama Juana. The Vanilla pods are wonderful they small and taste so smooth. The cloves appear quite good too. But I think they would be quite easy to over do. The Treacle is a great way to add some colour and a little sweetness., I’m using this to make a dark type rum. The Coriander Bark, Sultanas & Root Ginger are all ok and I will continue to experiment with.
The Mama Juana I bought when I was in the Dominican Republic a few years ago, It is a mixture of sticks and herbs, I have no idea what they are, I have added 200 ml of spirit to the mama Juana in a bottle and leave for a week or two, it has a real nice spicy taste. I have added some of all of the above (5-10ml of each) to a neutral that has a tiny amount of Gold Rum essence. It’s very drinkable.

Statistics: Posted by Normski — Thu May 03, 2012 7:45 pm

Re: Is it only posible to distill neutral with an airstill ?

2012-03-31T03:50:24+00:00

Hi Norm,

Normski wrote:
I think that as the AirStill needs more than one run through to make a drinkable spirit, after the second or third run through theres nothing left of the wash except the spirit. Im not getting any flavours from a mollasses wash etc just a Neutral.

Are you carbon filtering it by chance? That, I imagine, would remove a lot of the taste. I did my spirit run of my rum experiment (next time I will measure better as I used 2/3 of the water I had thought, no wonder it is strongly flavoured!). It is much better off the still, but still (pardon the pun) with LOTS of molasses flavour. This is going to need some oak and time before I really like it. But lack of flavour is NOT a problem! In fact, I may throw in some carbon to tone it down a tad.

Chuck

Statistics: Posted by chill — Sat Mar 31, 2012 3:50 am