StillSmart

Does everyone carbon filter or just some?

What do peeps think is the major benefit.

My experience has been that it depends on the type of still you're running and what you intend to make with your spirits.

If you're making spirits from grain to make Whisky or molasses to make Rum you will want to retain the flavour so carbon filtering is out because it will strip it clean of colour and taste.

With the Airstill I always ran all the distillate through an Essencia filter regardless of what it was going to end up as. Even after double distilling with the Airstill there was always a slight taste that I didn't want and the carbon took care of that.

When I changed over to a 50lt Pot Still I found it that carbon filtering wasn't necessary once the cuts were done right. Despite that, to this day I routinely put the Vodka I make for my good lady through my Essencia Filter system. It's been worth it's weight in gold to me.

I don't do reflux in the quest for ultra high strength, pure neutral so I'll leave comment on that to others who do

AM

I will +1 on most of Am's points here,the only time that I don't filter from the Smart still,is when running Odin's Easy Gin.
I am unsure what AM means by stripping out colour in his second point?
Total agreement upon the hearts of a large pot not needing filtering,but it really won't hurt,so why not?

Robert

[quote="mashy"

What do peeps think is the major benefit.[/quote]

Sorry mashy,in the dance,your question may not have been answered or the answer understood.

If running any pot still,then carbon filtering will be advantageous,if you are seeking a neutral spirit.
For a flavoured spirit it will not.
The difference is most definitely in the taste.
HTH

Robert.

Go along with AM and ED now I'm using the bubble plates and still 2 runs, taste tests appear to indicate the holy grail has been achieved ...no more filtering for neutral/vodka
Cuts are still most important though
For whisky or other grain or flavour washes pothead only or perhaps one plate only seems best

Thanks chaps. Makes sense.

For gin I then.. Strip run - spirit run - then filter - soak the botanicals
Then re-distill followed by NO filtering.

That is how I do my gin. And make cuts on the start and end of the gin run. At the start you will get a small amount (depends on how much alcohol is in the still) of the citrus oils and other flavours that boil at low temperatures. You may want to control how much of this ends up back in your finished product. At the end, somewhere after the output drops below 70% you start getting "low" notes that IMO ruin a gin. And I have ruined many. Keep that aside, and when you have enough, run it by itself, making the same cut and filter it again to use as a gin base. Waste not, want not! ... or just start another wash.

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Easydrinker wrote:I am unsure what AM means by stripping out colour in his second point?

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If you filtered a wood aged product it removes the colour too.

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mashy wrote:For gin I then.. Strip run - spirit run - then filter - soak the botanicals
Then re-distill followed by NO filtering.

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Bingo, that will do what you want. I have an efficient packed column that could pull off 95.6% with half the length of packing that I use, so I find that with good cuts I don't need to filter for my base neutral.
I prefer my sipping vodka with a little more "character", So I use a grain mash and triple distil with the pot.

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chill wrote:That is how I do my gin. And make cuts on the start and end of the gin run. At the start you will get a small amount (depends on how much alcohol is in the still) of the citrus oils and other flavours that boil at low temperatures. You may want to control how much of this ends up back in your finished product.

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I do the same, there is a lot of flavour in the first drops and if you include it all, the gin tends to go cloudy when you add a mixer - a bit like absinthe does. Its purely cosmetic to leave it out, but its what people expect when they get a gin that its clear.

I only cut about 40ml on a run where I'm looking to end up with about 5.5L of finished gin - so its a really tiny amount.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:-----------------------

Easydrinker wrote:I am unsure what AM means by stripping out colour in his second point?

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If you filtered a wood aged product it removes the colour too.

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Capt.I'm obviously being a little slow here,why would you carbon filter a product that you thought good enough to be consigned to wood aging,in order to allow the wood to do it's magic?
As here we are not speaking of chill filtering to deal with proteins,fatty acids and esters that may cause cloudiness upon dilution below 46%.

Robert

Robert.

confused .i double distill in a airstill do i filter or not

popcorn sutton wrote:confused .i double distill in a airstill do i filter or not

I'm with you, please tell???
Last run I did I didn't bother filtering and as far as I know everything tasted ok.
But I might look back one day after more experience knowing it was wank!

I never filter anything anymore.

Even when making vodka I like to leave a slight residual flavour. Some folks do filter to remove mineral deposits and some filter to remove absolutely all traces of flavour.

There are different reasons for filtering so you need to be clear on what you are trying to achieve.

Some even filter to put flavour IN - as in filtering through charcoal as opposed to carbon filtering.

thanks .this run will not get filtered

I never filter anything anymore.

That is where I am at. I try to make the wash is as clean as possible so the impurities are not there to start with.

Just following on from Mashys last post which is correct. Clean low stress fermentation is good.

Presumeably if considering filtration you are probably talking about making neutral. Its also worth not putting so much feints into the boiler to start with - check out hydro separation.

Then you can look at dilution of boiler charge, ph treatment and bicarbonate.