why do you filter

[googe]

Hey all, I don't do turbos, never have cause of the bad feed back. I've always Been curious why the turbos need filtering though?. Thanks

Cheers

[chill]

I don't use turbos, but I do use an AirStill (aka run-away pot still). The carbon removes some of the sweetish and other tastes and results in a more neutral product. If I am doing fruit macerations or such, I don't bother filtering. But for Gin, I find it makes for a dryer, cleaner result. No where near as good as you can get from a fractionating still, but better than not filtering it.

I have heard the turbos produce off flavours and that the carbon helps to remove those too. I have no direct experience with that and am not keen on getting any.

Chuck

[Frank]

@Googe (hi mate hows that new still going anyway?),

I dont use carbon (filter) and I dont use turbos, however I did use turbos way back in the beginning....and the end product, esp with an airstill or similar, leaves quite a lot of skanky smell and attendant taste, some of which a good carbon filter will help alleviate.

The thing is (as far as I can tell) people use turbos for gaining 'maximum' ABV% yield from the ferment and the turbo yeasts are 'designed for'/capable of working under significant duress for the ferment (hence the 6,7,8kg sugar wash recipies etc)....and, as you would know, any stressed yeast will produce undesireables in the result.....etc

[Keystone]

In moving away from turbos more than a year ago, I still filter though using an LM for neutral. I found that it still needed polish despite taking narrow cuts.

What I do is to filter the most neutral hearts first through the unused carbon filter, noting that I use the SS EZ Filter System. Then, I filter the remaining hearts separately. This way, I get the most neutral sugar vodka and then have very clean neutral for flavoring.