Air still, filtration speed.

[Balmoral]

I am using the Air still collector/filter set to filter my first run of distilled water, for cutting later on. The instructions suggest a filtration rate of about one litre over two hours. But I am getting virtually no flow through, unless I loosen the spindle to such a degree that the washers arent actually sealing the carbon filter and what little drip there is coming through is then bypassing the filter and coming out through the washers. At the moment I have it as loose as possible, the washer seal is barely effective, and it has taken about three hours to filter 50ml.
Is my filter set faulty do you think, or user error?
The design appears to rely on the screw being not too tight a fit in the threaded hole, and that alone lets just enough water trickle through to the filter. I was wondering if it might be an idea to cut a groove along the length of the threaded spindle, or alternatively cut a small notch in the threaded hole, to allow flow into the centre of the carbon cartridge, then I could screw it up tight enough for the washers to be actually making a good seal, and the flow would have to come through the carbon filter.

[umpa]

Do you have a link to the device in question ? It would help me and perhaps help you too.
Cheers
Ian

[Balmoral]

The device I am using is here, scroll all the way down the page, it\'s the one at the very bottom. Thanks Ian.
http://www.mainbrew.com/media/StillTurb ... lNotes.pdf

[Balmoral]

I have cut a groove along the length of threaded spindle, the liquid now flows into the centre of the filter and out through it very well at the correct flow rate, all screwed up tight and nicely sealed with the washers.
Thanks anyway.

[Phantom]

That\'s the newer type of carbon filter Balmoral.
The one I have is a small \"pot and cap\" device that is big enough to hold a \"carbon teabag\" and sits on top of the 4 litre PET collector pot and tucks under the outlet nozzle part of the condenser lid....
They do keep the type of filter arrangement shown in that link at the local HBS, but I haven\'t bothered to get one as I also have a \"full Z filter\" which I use when I run my 25L super reflux still.

[Balmoral]

I would stick with your large jug and tea bags, this \'newer\' design is rubbish IMO. The exit hole in the base of the collector is effectively blocked by screwing the bolt into it. I can\'t see how it could work unless the bolt was a very loose fit, but it isn\'t. It works fine with the groove cut into it though.
Hopefully my first mash might be done by the weekend, it went on last Saturday. Then I can get my first run done.
I notice that the instructions say that discarding the first part of the run is not required? Yet a browse through these forums and it is apparent that folks are discarding anything between 20-100ml at the start.

[Jimmy]

Tell you what - take off the first 50ml into an empty, clean bottle - a small whiskey bottle is ideal, you can put 50ml of water in and mark it up beforehand - take that off, put the cap on it, shake it up for a while and then open the cap and take a sniff. Then decide for yourself!

[umpa]

Sorry for the deley, I would not distill water in that, it\'s not made for it. It will take an age, I have the exact same still but it\'s called a Smart Sill, as as the others have said, we get a small White top and a plastic jug to catch the produce. Instead of tee bags I use a coffee filter chopped in half and fill it with activated carbon, wash it in ro, put the top on and use that.
I distill the full 5 gallons over a week, and only take the heads/ forshots out on the very last pass, about 20ml, and we have all been fine on it. Mind you I only got the thing at christmas, so it\'s early days yet.
If I were you, I would perhaps try another carbon filter, some ppl on here have made them out of copper pipe, full of carbon, others use a \'Z\' filter. The benefit of making your own is that you can put lots of carbon in so should filter out more nasty tastes.
Jimmy & Phantom are the resident experts on here I bet they have loads of ideas.

[Phantom]

The \"small white carbon tea bag holder\" and the collector can work fine for me, with the \"smart still\" and yes it does take a long time to run water in it - but it\'s handy for cutting/letting down the distillate to 40%.
The \"Z\" filter kit is basically 2 buckets (10 litre capacity), one bucket has a solid lid and a tap, the other has no tap but a hole cut in the lid to take the pipe from the Z filter.
The Z filter itself is basically a piece of 2 inch pipe that\'s been moulded into a Z or S shape, with the appropriate caps and pipe connections, and a small mesh screen to keep the carbon granules/pellets in place.
I tend to run it at about 2 litres an hour - by adjusting how far open the tap on the top bucket is......
It wouldn\'t take much effort to make something up using domestic waste pipe (2 inch plastic) and something like coffee filters to retain the carbon. Some sort of \"Heath Robinson\" system of funnels etc to run the spirit through it to achieve the same results - at vastly less cost (the full Z filter kit is about £50 or so).
Hell, if you\'ve got a spare bucket with a lid you could even just put the distillate in it and add the carbon granules/pellets and swirl it a couple of times and then filter the whole lot through a coffee filter system to separate the carbon out.
Don\'t forget, using sugar turbo wash does create very clean ethyl alcohol - which might not be the case if you\'re trying something like tomato paste wash, or grain mash or.....etc etc etc!

[Rich]

Hmmm, so would there be a way of knocking up a kind of filter using activated carbon powder with coffee filters and cotton wool in a pipe or funnel? Or does it need to be granular carbon, powder being too fine. Carbon powder is something else I can nick from work see! Just asking because I have the same Air Still filter as Balmoral and if it\'s s**te, which I\'ll be finding out soon, I\'d like to have something else to hand.

[Opus 27]

I had the same problem with the kit filter. I also cut a grove along the thread which helped a bit but I\'m not convinced about the compressed carbon cartridge either.

In the the end I coughed up for a Z Filter, this works well. I also pass my cut spirit through twice.
Opus

[Balmoral]

I have just used one of the cartridges from a new Still Spirits multipack box. They work brilliantly, the distillate flows through them very quickly rather than drips.
It would appear that my initial problem with no flow was down to the cartridges that came loose in a bag, with my complete still kit. I wonder where Wineworks sourced them from? porous they ain\'t!

[Opus 27]

I still had the same problem with the Still Spirits Multi Pack. I think you will find they are just a very slow throughput. Considering the available surface area you can\'t expect much else.
Opus

[maverick50]

Just thought I would get this one giong again.
I had the same problem, done all mods an no better, purchased a new ss multi pack and all sorted.
The ones that come with the still are c--p, block one end up with your finger and try an blow air through, just about impossible, do the same with the new ones and you will notice the difference, they probably filter to quick after cutting the grove in the screw!!!!

[Phantom]

The ones that come with the still are c--p, block one end up with your finger and try an blow air through, just about impossible, do the same with the new ones and you will notice the difference, they probably filter to quick after cutting the grove in the screw!!!!

So how about running it through more than once ?
It\'s one of the reasons why it\'s handy to have read through Gert Strands free ebook about carbon filtration. Yes it tells you how to make your own filter, but if you\'ve come up with a slightly different method, it also tells you how to "clean" or re-activate it. It reduced carbon wastage to a minimum.