Essencia Carbon Filter

[Admiral Toad]

Thats what I do mate take the remedial spirit from top and bottom filter chambers put filter in a deep narrow bowl/ beaker and let it dribble through a few times works for me

[Almanac]

The Essencia filters will retain approx 250ml of water after priming.

When diluting my spirit before filtering I calculate how much water is required for the amount of spirit and I count the 250ml in the filter as part of the water required.

The output from the filter all gets mixed together and the result is correctly diluted spirit without all the faffing about

When all the filtering is finished I check the ABV of the entire batch and have never had to make any further adjustments.

AM

[Robbo79]

Sounds like a good idea. It's running very slow even with a good prime, it's filtered about 2.5 litres in 24hrs? Should it be quicker?

[Almanac]

Yes it should. I had this problem once and found the answer was to fill the upper chamber with water and as it filters through keep topping it until both the top and bottom chambers are completely full then leave the whole thing for 24 hours.

After this procedure I found it worked a treat.

AM

[Almanac]

After recently moving house I discovered that a Bourbon style Whisky I had in a storage keg had developed an off taste that I could only describe as akin to burnt plastic. No smell just a slight aftertaste.

Of course it had to go but before recycling it to the still I decided to put it through my Essencia with a newly re-filled Carbon cartridge. I was very pleasantly surprised with the outcome. The spirit was stripped of all colour and almost all flavour and what I was left with was very pleasant neutral indeed.

The cleaned spirit was put on a fresh batch of JD BBQ Chunks and after a week I had a very palatable Bourbon style Whiskey ready to drink.

It's now two weeks since I filtered that spirit and put in on the wood and it's become an excellent drink for sipping on the rocks.

This filter is definitely the business and well worth saving up for.

Essencia - Essential Kit

AM

[Boozoid]

Really tempted to buy one of these....but I'm such a tightarse!

My 2" stainless boka cost me £62 to build and I figured that was a huge sum!!

Will it do a better job than just placing my product in a demijohn with some activated carbon and shaking once a day for a few days? As the result of that is neutral

Just don't wanna waste £80

[chill]

I don't have an essencia but my experience is that a large funnel filled with carbon produced a better result than just putting carbon in the bottle and shaking it.

[Anavrin]

I use an essencia filter and I must say I think it's a truly amazing piece of kit, yes it's expensive but you can buy bags of activated carbon for a few quid and from that you can refill the carbon fiter 3 times over, each fill is good for filtering 40 litres of 40% spirit, so it makes it very economical to run, the other ceramic filter in the top half is good for 500 litres.

As for results, I don't think you can beat it, you can put almost anything through it and it will come out much improved, I take 94% clean neutral after cuts from a sugar wash, proof it down to 40% before putting it through, it's still sharp to taste and smell a little sweet, the difference after passing through the essencia is almost night and day, the output is just clean vodka, in taste and smell

[Easydrinker]

@Boozoid,You do realise that Anavrin works for Essencia?
Not really,-but he gave the best description of the kit!
Apart from the high cost of the Carbon filters,(for which there is a workaround),it is a worthwhile investment.
I did do Carbon and neutral in a bottle and shake,place in freezer and pour/filter.
It beats that practice in my book.
And I regard, over 12 months later,it to be a good buy.
Robert.

[Boozoid]

Ok... I took the plunge and bought one.

How many of you pass your product thru it a number of times?

On a single pass it's not as good as my technique of just dumping some product on loose carbon in a Demijohn. Granted that carbon is in contact for a few days rather than hours but hey..results matter.

[Almanac]

I've never had anything other than perfect neutral results out of my Essencia.

Do you air your distillate before diluting and filtering?

AM

[Boozoid]

The 5L of product was open to air thru a uncorked demijojn for 24hrs at 95%. Is that sufficient?

Then watered down to 40% and filtered

[Almanac]

My runs are all collected in 1lt Kilner jars, it was worth the investment. These allow me to easily measure collected volume but also allow me to put gauze over the wide necks of the jars to allow the volatiles to evaporate.

The narrow neck of a DJ is probably a bit small for the purpose.

I aired 16 jars of distillate from a Heads Run last night and kept the two crates of jars in the porch at the back of the house. When I came down this morning you could detect the slight waft of the Angels Share all over the house. The Spirit in the jars was, by that time, completely clear of any nose-tweaking aromas

AM

[Anavrin]

I only run mine through once, I have double filtered in the past but I can't tell the difference the second time, the first pass does the job nicely for me.

[Easydrinker]

The 5L of product was open to air thru a uncorked demijojn for 24hrs at 95%. Is that sufficient?

Then watered down to 40% and filtered

I may be wrong,but would agree with AM that your airing may not have been sufficient.
Equally, maybe you took a little more from this distillation than you should,the Essencia will do it's job with the proper input,but the cuts are down to the distiller.
And I have never seen a reason to double filter.
HTH
Robert.