StillSmart

the filter that came with the ss air still kit

Sorry no idea the sort of filter I got was the carbon teabag type, I’m guessing from “didn’t tighten the carbon really tightâ€

yes the first lot has gone through now i loosened it off a bit so it actualy moved freely that done the trick,crystal clear and smells clean enough,just put the second lot in and another run going,im gonna call it a day then and do more runs in the morning

cheers optic

its a bit of a pain but the more times you filter it the better it will taste & smell

Hi Newbie, I was a newbie too a few months back.
If the filter is the one that came with the kit, I presume it is the carbon cartridge type with a hole in it like a big thick Polo mint? that goes onto a grey plastic threaded spindle with a white foam/styrene washer at each end? and the two beige beakers, one goes inside the other?
If so, they are rubbish, and it won\'t work anything like properly until you modify it or get rid completely and use something else.
I cut a groove down the length of the threaded spindle, so that the spirit flows right into the middle of the cartridge, otherwise if you tighten it up the thread itself blocks the flow off, and if you loosen it enough to flow, then the spirit bypasses the washers rather than flows through the saturated cartridge. With the groove cut in it, you can tighten it right up, so everything is filtered properly through the cartridge.
Before I modified mine, I had virtually no flow at all. Modified, it now filters a full demi-John in about two hours. It is still a poor design though, a new one has now been introduced, which I might buy soon, or I might just go with a the bigger \'Z\' filter set up.
As for the distilling, it\'s going very well, although I am a bit OCD with it all. My usual MO is as follows:
Ferment the wash for a fortnight.

Clear it for 24 hours.

Distil with rings and a cap of conditioner.

Discard 1st 50ml.

Collect further 800ml and set aside.

Collect a further 500ml and put it in with the next run of wash.

Repeat until all the wash is used up.
I then cut back to 40% with distilled water, distill it all a 2nd time, cut back again and distill a third time.
I get a huge amount of spirit at 84%, then it tails off very rapidly and I stop when it drops below 60%.
I then cut it back to about 45% and filter it 5 or 6 times.
The results are far better than they have got any right to be, for something knocked up in my kitchen.
On Wednesday I bought the Whisky Profile kit, and will probably have a go at mixing up some replica Laphroaig this evening.
I like to think of my Malt Whisky as akin to one of the better class of triple AAA Chinese knock off replica watches. Fake Rolex or Breitling anyone?
Good luck.

balmoral

thanks for the info,im just gonna cut a groove in mine ready for the next lot

cheers

optic

I\'d have thought that your process is a little OTT Balmoral, but hey, who cares, if you\'re happy with the results then why the hell do anything differently eh!
Or it might be that I\'m just too impatient to refine my processes any further.....
Plus the \"fake rolex\" analogy is brilliant.
Please post how you get on with the whiskey profile kit, I\'m not a scotch drinker myself really, but I\'m pretty sure that others here would like to know how you get on with it (and if it\'s worth the effort - I\'d get one just to make extra giveaways and BD/Crimbo pressies...).

If you want to keep cost down Alcotec Gold under £2.00 does a excellent job.

If you want to keep cost down Alcotec Gold under £2.00 does a excellent job.

yeah, got one to try for my next batch of wash. Still got 50 litres to run of the still spirits one at the moment though....

The alcotec gold is that a turbo yeast?

It is a turbo yeast, I got my last lot from http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/ took a week ish to deliver but I wasn’t in a rush anyway.
I used to get it from http://www.thebrewshop.com/index1.html but they decided to stop selling it. Maybe not enough profit in it for them.

Thanks bluecap i will have a look in the local home brew shop for it,the info with the still said you could only use still spirits triple distilled turbo,think that is just bull to get you to buy their yeast,but saying that, they say none of the other yeasts in the stil spirits range is suitable for this still,i cant really see what difference it makes?

optic your right it is a load of crap
I used dried bakers yeast and tomatoe paste

[center]Hi Guys just popped in to say ive bought my SS and iam so new to this ive been running water through the SS since last saturday 4ltrs at a time but 9 hours to run 4ltrs through the SS is that right ? Ive been home brewing wine lager beer for the past 15 years or so and i thought i would have a dabble with the spirit side of things , anyway thats all for now cheers.

sounds about right for water it runs much faster with spirit.

one or two runs should be enough to clean it out as long as you giave it a good wipe out first