StillSmart

Hello
I ve just found this great forum and been reading through for the last couple of nights and just thought i would say hi.I ve purchased a air still and all the kit from my local home brew shop who were very helpful.But reading here i seem to need a couple of extra bits first seems to be a Essencia Carbon Filter.

Hi mate, I only joined the other day.

Airstill here as well. The filter I got with it is very slow, so I reckon I'll be looking at the Essencia eventually.

The Essencia seems to be a great filter, but I don't think it is essential. In my opinion, you only need to filter if you are trying to make a neutral tasting spirit. If you are aiming for rum or whiskey or some other flavoured drink (fermenting molasses, grains, etc, not talking about using essences here), then I would not filter. I don't. Aidan may disagree. For filtering, I am still using a large chemical resistant funnel with cotton wool stuffed in the neck. Not ideal but a few runs through do the job to my tastes.

What you DO need to do is to double distill, discard the foreshots, and make proper cuts.


Chuck

Cheers chill for the advise

+1 what Chuck said about double distilling.

On filtering, we all have our own methods and prefs based on our own experience and what we're making.

The Airstill is great fun and easy to use - enjoy it and what you can make with it

Remember, if a run doesn't go as you hoped, just chuck it all back in and run it again making different cuts - trial and error is a great teacher

and welcome aboard - don't forget to post your results and pics and don't be shy about asking questions, you'll always get a friendly answer on stillsmart

AM

Thanks aidanmac for your reply
I will post some pic later but at the moment all i have is a big white bucket, with 26l of disgusting looking black liquid bubbling away in my garage with a fish tank heater in it set to 22c.
I am going to try to make some Bourbon irish whisky and hopefully vodka to keep our maude happy as she has bought me all the stuff as an early xmas present after alot of hints.

Black liquid? That sounds like a Turbo Yeast. Yeah, you would want to filter that! That does not produce a great product. Quantity of alcohol and quality of alcohol are like the two sides of a see saw.

Chuck

I was at the mercy of the lady's advice in the homebrew shop and she just kept coming out with all this stuff 2 x hydrometers,1 x 28L bucket,Air still and matching filter,1 x Turbo yeast and Active carbon,some tube a attachment pipe with a cup thing on the end,a big plastic spatula, 4 bottles Flavour Enhancers,fishtank heater,8 kilo of glucose,1 x turbo clear and some advice.
On my next attempt i will try the vodka star and sugar i also got a couple of 20L new white plastic buckets from work.

Hi Guys -- been a while!

Most impressed with recent posts about enhancing the possibilities of the Air-Still.

Not to mention the refining of distillation techniques which have advanced considerably since my time!

Looking forward to my next batch.

Ronbo.

Hey Ronbo,

I thought you got pickled a long time ago - welcome back, pull up a stool and whet your whistle

AM

Hi
I have been somewhat of a voyeur over the past few months - listening in and picking up advice from you very knowledgeable guys. As a recently retired person I have been looking for interesting ways to spend my newly found spare time. I was introduced to wine making which is fine, but now I've got a hundred bottles on the racks it has become a little boring. Then I stumbled upon your site - now we're talking!

Got myself all the hardware and now that I've bottled the last of the Merlot I've just started my first wash today. I'm following the excellent chart published by Aidanmac and which I printed out a couple of weeks ago - so here we go. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks I will be taking more interest in the flavouring debates.

Only reason to introduce myself at this time is to thank you all for the help you have given by allowing me to eavesdrop on your conversations and to warn you that there will possibly be some really stupid questions in the future.

Thanks again - Egg

Good to have you here Egg, you in the UK or from a land far away.

hi welcome to still smart forums egg
as you know these guys are a friendly and knowledgeable
and fun people

as for stupid questions... no question is stupid

enjoy the forums

I'm in Sudbury, Suffolk - don't know if that is a land far away, depends where you start from I guess. Thanks for the Welcome.
Egg

Thanks for the welcome Magnu.