StillSmart

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??

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

Brilliant!

Thanks AM.

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

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.