StillSmart

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-29T00:02:11+00:00

Yup - there are definitely some good recipes lurking in the dusty recesses of Google Books. It may be worthwhile compiling a list of the most useful ones and including them in the "resources" section here.

I wish I could grow myrrh in my garden. It and the saffron were bought in last year specifically for liqueur making.

Angelica is really useful if you can grow it yourself, as many recipes use angelica seeds instead of/as well as the root and the seed can be a bit tough to buy commercially in useful quantities.

Orris root is most often from Iris Germanica (although there are a couple of other species used too), which is also the most commonly grown garden iris, so you should be OK. Obviously, it's best to double check - and iris roots can be mildly toxic if ingested and handling the roots can cause skin irritation, so let's be careful out there.

Anyway, to stay on topic, it seems that running an airstill 1/2 or 3/4 full isn't a problem. Good to know.

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:02 am

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-28T03:34:52+00:00

This thread is getting a tad off topic.

Wormwood: thank you for the recipe. I will file that away to try. That is an interesting book! You have myrrh in your garden? I planted Angelica last year and have been eyeing my wife's Iris (wonder if they are the right kind). I will have to see if I can find some more interesting things.

I am trying my hand a gin, but two batches in have a ways to go. My first had WAY too much Cinnamon and Grains of Paradise. Hot! The second is better, but still has a spicy note that I did not want. I've been carbon filtering the output of the airstill to reduce the sweet taste of the sugar based tafia (e.g. white rum). I used 1.6 litres of at that at about 45% to macerate t his for 36 hours:
35g Juniper
11g ground coriander (no whole on hand)
3g dried bitter orange peel
0.5g powdered Angelica
0.5g powdered Orris root
8g dried roses
All this was ground up in a coffee grinder (no longer used to make coffee!). I suspect that the ground coriander and grinding everything may be a mistake and resulting in unintended extractives. I ran this with some water up to a bit over 2 litres. It makes an OK, if unusual, martini. Lots of resin-like stuff left inside the still, I used Barkeepers Friend to clean it up.

That clear coffee was a funny story. I can't see that being a success.

Chuck

Statistics: Posted by chill — Sat Apr 28, 2012 3:34 am

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-27T19:56:43+00:00

Brilliant!

Thanks AM.

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:56 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-27T18:30:52+00:00

Bits in your copper scrubbers? Got a blow torch? - make sure they're well dried and hit them with a reasonably gentle flame from a blow torch. The flame will burn off the organics and copper will become annealed but otherwise will not suffer. If it gets a little discoloured dip it in a weak solution of Citric Acid, Lemon juice or even Cola.

AM

Statistics: Posted by Almanac — Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:30 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-27T02:28:17+00:00

Forgot to add:

I ran a gallon of water through the airstill. The first liter or so had a noticeable odor of cardamom, so I used this to dilute the Trappistine and to make the sugar syrup. By the time the rest of the water had gone through the still, the smell had more or less gone.

Now - any suggestions for how to get bits of herbs and spices out of copper scrubbers??

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:28 am

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-27T02:06:55+00:00

Funny you should mention clear coffee. Remember Crystal Pepsi? Back around that time, my better half was working for the company that owned (amongst many other things) one of the US's best selling coffee brands and came up with how to remove all the color from coffee, without changing its flavor. Given how Crystal Pepsi and Tab Clear were not the biggest marketing sucess stories in history, maybe it's just as well that this idea didn't go any further than the drawing board.

Anyway, to make myself a little more clear, I didn't filter the maceration. After letting it brew for 48 hours, it was diluted and the whole lot dumped in to the airstill and redistilled. I threw the copper scrubbers in there from force of habit. I usually include them in the still as a boil enhancer, although it really wasn't necessary for this run.

The recipe I used for the Trappistine was a scaled down version of this one from Brannt and Wahl's "The Techno-Chemical Receipt Book":

http://tinyurl.com/82cv6qd

For my small batch I used:

10g wormwood
10g cardamom
10g angelica root
20g mint leaves
7.5g lemon balm
5g myrrh
5g calamus root
2g cloves
1g cinnamon
1g nutmeg (figured it was close enough to mace)

The herbs and the roots were all home grown and I just happened to have all the spices in the kitchen.

This was macerated for 48 hours in 1l of the best neutral I could produce - slightly lower than the 85% specifed in the original recipe. This all got dumped into the still and I collected one liter at about 76%. Colored it with saffron (I skimped a little, because it's so darned expensive, but it still colored it well), then added about 750ml water and 450ml sugar syrup to bring it down to about 35% and enough to give me three 750ml bottles. I think it needs to age a little, but the little taste I took was very promising indeed. I was concerned that the cardamom might be a little past its best, but it is definitely making its presence known!

I couldn't find any of the real thing for sale online, so I don't know how much money I saved with my imitation.

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:06 am

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-26T20:58:12+00:00

Are you willing to share your recipe for the Trappistine?

On the subject of filtering macerations, cotton balls wadded up in the neck of a large funnel work far, far, better (and slower!) than coffee filters. Ever see a clear cup of coffee?

Chuck

Statistics: Posted by chill — Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:58 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-04-26T18:21:11+00:00

A somewhat late follow-up.

I ran a batch of faux Trappistine the other day. It stunk up the still much more than the gin did. Maybe I should do some more gin to try to clean it out.

Anyway, pertinent to the title of this thread, the maceration for the Trappistine was one liter and I redistilled it with the botanicals and a couple of copper scrubbers after adding another liter of water. It ran fine, the only problem being that I now have to figure out how to get all those bits of herbs and spices out of my copper scrubbers!

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Thu Apr 26, 2012 6:21 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-03-07T18:49:42+00:00

Gin perfume, for those who want to smell like a lush twenty four seven.

It's a million dollar idea.

Statistics: Posted by mozr — Wed Mar 07, 2012 6:49 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-03-07T17:38:22+00:00

Thanks Jimmy.

Before investing in my airstill, I did a lot of reading up on the subject online. Most of the comments on the various forums focused on what the airstill did badly, but a few mentioned what it did well. A couple of experienced distillers talked about using their airstill for small batches of gin, absinthe and the like. There's a lot to be said for being able to do a small pot distillation to test a recipe and several people mentioned how the airstills are much less likely to scorch your herbs if you are redistilling on the botanicals. Of course, a T500 would make production of good neutral a lot easier, but that's not really an option for me at this point.

By the way, since making the gin I've done one stripping run and a gallon of distilled water. There's just the very slightest smell of gin lingering on the airstill and the lightly perfumed distilled water is actually quite pleasant!

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Wed Mar 07, 2012 5:38 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-03-06T14:44:54+00:00

I do wish I still had my SmartStill, I had to sell it to get my T500 but it would have been great for trying out things like this - good work wormwood!

Statistics: Posted by Jimmy — Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:44 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-02-27T23:46:09+00:00

Update - I decided to go with a 3l maceration. When it was poured into the airstill, solids and all, it was quite close the the fill line anyway.

I collected 1.5 liters from it, then diluted that back to 42 ABV, giving me three bottles of very nice, clear, not overly floral gin. I think I could probably have run 2l without any problems, but I don't really regret having that extra bottle!

The still does smell a little gin-ish now, but I don't think that's likely to last past the next round of stripping.

Thanks for all your input.

Statistics: Posted by wormwood — Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:46 pm

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-02-21T09:20:54+00:00

Hi Jimmy
Thanks I'll have a look at that link.
Norm

Statistics: Posted by Normski — Tue Feb 21, 2012 9:20 am

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-02-21T01:45:58+00:00

Yeah that's it - I infuse spirit with botanicals then run it through a coffee filter just to catch the particles, it's still got the flavour. Here's a good site to get started, I'm working on adapting the recipes to fit my tastes but each to their own so if you get a good one let us know!

http://www.badmamagenny.com/2011/07/13/ ... this-time/

PS - plastic water filter = bad. She only needs it because her store bought hooch is inferior to ours, keep away from plastic though and just filter as I said above instead.

Statistics: Posted by Jimmy — Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:45 am

Re: Minimum fill level?

2012-02-20T14:05:55+00:00

Ta Aidan

Statistics: Posted by Normski — Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:05 pm