StillSmart

I am looking at a way to flavour or filter whiskey, ive tried getting hold of some sugar maple wood to make sugar maple charcoal but havent had a great lot of luck, you can get flavoured charcoal for shisha pipes, but with never doing it i wouldnt know what sort of charcoal it is, could alcohol be poured through the charcoal and will it get flavour from it ? will i need to filter the whiskey i make as that will lessen the flavour will it not ? thanks

Charcoal is to remove flavour, not add it.

Chuck

Don't filter whiskey none of the single malt distillers do just strain if you're using bourbon chips or similar for ageing

I'm using jack daniels as an example as I like the flavour, but they use charcoal to get rid if the bitterness in the alcohol and to make it smoother, and I does adopt some of the smokey flavour on the way through, have found these and thinking of making a metre column and pack the charcoal in and drip through to give it a head start in the ageing process before putting it in a white oak barrel.

http://spruceupyourdeck.co.uk/catalog/p ... b159eb10ad

There is no bitterness in the alcohol. Ethanol has no flavour. They do it because they make shitty, wide cuts and it tastes of ethyl acetate and tails. Make good cuts, get your flavour from toasted and charred oak (e.g. what is inside of the aging barrels).

Chuck

Make conservative cuts and you will have a nicely crafted spirit.

I only ever use carbon filtering for neutral spirit. If I feel that if any other product requires such treatment I have made a mess of the cuts and have, in the past, recycled such spirits. Thankfully this has only happened to me once.

AM

I recieved a bag of charcoal with my t500 but not sure how to use it to filter. Helppppp

Pretty sure that would be activated carbon, not charcoal. Yes, both are black!

Start here: http://homedistiller.org/activated_book1.pdf

Chuck

Has anyone ever used a brita filter with a Britain pitcher to filter?

It has been mentioned, generally gets a big thumbs down due to the unknown plastics and the short contact time with the activated carbon (not charcoal!).

Chuck