StillSmart

Hi guys -- I\'m new to the hobby, and really appreciate all the information available on this site. I run a plain air still and the filter that came with it.
I tried a 25l turbo wash using the stuff that came with the still. It fermented and cleared perfectly, but you could smell what I now know as heads from the other side of the room, even before distilling. Distilling twice and filtering didn\'t clean it completely. And the tails were foul-smelling.
The other thing I\'ve done is made up various washes from some undrinkable home-made cider, apples cluttering up the freezer, and some crab apple jelly from 2 years ago that no-one was eating. Chucked all the low wines together (about 4 litres) for a spirit run. The heads had cleared after about 200-300ml, I got 400ml of clean spirit, and even the tails smelled pleasant -- down at 25% they were rough but drinkable.
Don\'t think I\'ll be bothering with the turbo stuff again ...

check out the tomato wash :-)

you wont go back

Phlogiston welcome, you sure don\'t sound like a newbie, don\'t give up on all turbos yet,read the various posts on different types of yeast and wash, also consider upgrading your filtering and redistilling
Cheers, hoppin

Hi, Welcome to the forum.
I have to be honest and tell you that I think your being to rush full in your hobby. Its all in the cuts dude. If you try and take to much from a run, the Smart Stills carbon filter won\'t work. Don\'t collect anymore that 800ml and try and get your SG down to .990

IF you don\'t manage that then you will have problems. You have to accept that the SS filtration system is not so good. Its only a tea bag full of carbon, so it makes sense that the better you put in the better you get out. The SS is small, so your wash has to be good.

I agree with Umpa, with an Air Still one should collect and discard 50ml then collect 800ml and stop.

Still Spirits seem to have done their home work with all their Stills.

Follow the instructions and you wont go wrong, try \"funky\" things and god knows what will happen.

The Air Still is a \"pot still\" and you will only get out what you put in (shite in shite out type thing) but is good for certain recipes......

I tried a 25l turbo wash using the stuff that came with the still. It fermented and cleared perfectly, but you could smell what I now know as heads from the other side of the room, even before distilling. Distilling twice and filtering didn\'t clean it completely. And the tails were foul-smelling.

i agree with umpa and andy, 800ml is an absolute max, i also suspect that its an ss turbo yeast which does stink imo, i find alcotec yeast much less so and there is no need for carbon in the wash. i get their vodka star down to 0980 (approx 20% yield) and its much nicer spirit 2
hoppin

Thanks all. Had a go at blending the cuts from the apple wash -- you get to taste some foul stuff, don\'t you? Kept about a litre of 65% -- probably a bit too much, but the heads are faint and a bit of tails tasted quite sweet. Toasted a couple of oak sticks and chucked them in. Now all I have to do is wait ...
It\'s great that there are so many ways of doing things, and even if it goes wrong you can get the alcohol back and start again. I\'ll now have to try tomato wash, Alcotec, and the cereal washes and plain sugar washes that seem popular over on homedistillers.org. Should keep me busy for a while.
Hoppin, yes, it was SS turbo, the 14% version, and it went down to 0.990. I kept the first 750ml separate, but it was a problem was getting rid of the smell/taste of the heads. The carbon seemed much better at getting rid of tails.
Andy

try "funky" things and god knows what will happen

That\'s half the fun :-)

Hey, I had/have the smelly spirit problem with SS triple turbo. Throwing away the first few cc\'s out of the still made no difference to the smell. Taking more than 70cc DID make it smell worse, and reduced the ABV.
I also use the SS filter that cam with the still (at the moment) and I have the carbon disc sort. Problem with this is that the flow through is not very good and the seals are rubbish so it is possible that the spirit runs through without touching the carbon. I also found that the packet that came with the still were blocked solid and it was impossible to get anything to run through. Bought a new packet and things were much better. Also cut a couple of slots along the screw to improve flow.
So, the carbom did reduce the smell, but not completely. Distilled the 40% spirit again - 4 litres in 2 litres out at 80% - as suggested elsewhere in this forum and the result was really quite good. Hardly any smell at all :)
I am pretty happy with the result but still have the Vodka Star yeast to try which again come very highly recommended elsewhere in the forum. do a search for smelly spirit

If it has been through the still then it can only be too much head or (more likely) too much tail in there. It\'s not the end of the world, you can always re-distill - basically you have a choice between cutting early and \'wasting\' some clean alcohol, or hanging on and risking getting the bad smell from the tails. The third, sensible way is to cut early but use another jar to collect after that, then later you can mix all the leftovers together and screw out some more ml through the still.