StillSmart

I just stick activated carbon (2tsp per litre alcohol) in 50% spirit in a demijohn and shake every day for about a week, doesn't need to run through a filter. Then I do filter through a vinbrite and reclaim the carbon for reactivating later.
Cheers
Dave

As some of you know I started off with an Airstill and used it for a number of years before building my 50l pot still and VM. Today, I still use that same Airstill and I like to think I know all the ups and downs of using that little gem of a still.

One of the indisputable drawbacks to the Airstill is the absolute need to use Activated Carbon to achieve a completely clean spirit - BUT - once you use Activated Carbon the Airstill will produce lovely clean spirits for you every time

Having said that, Activated Carbon is mucky, messy stuff you should avoid handling as much as possible and it is possible to avoid handling it I wouldn't put Activated Carbon in a wash and I wouldn't put it in my spirits either because getting it out again is just way too messy for me.

The only time I use Activated Carbon these days is to Carbon filter my wife's Vodka through my Essencia Filter System.

I'm not marketing for them but, to my knowledge, nobody else has produced anything near as good, clean and efficient as the Essencia.

Yes! It is relatively expensive to buy - initially but let's face it, if you're using an Airstill you don't have any choice but to Carbon filter your final spirit and when you have to do it you may as well get it done well and with as little fuss and mess as possible. After all, you're going to be drinking the stuff

I even tried triple distilling in my Airstill and the final spirits still required Carbon Filtering.

Once you refill the Carbon Cartridge yourself the cost per litre of running an Essencia filter is quite low.

My 50l pot still is a piece of distilling heaven Quiet, efficient, predictable and it produces beautiful clean spirits for me. My Airstill, on the other hand, is a quiet but inefficient still that can be used to produce spirits of reasonable quality that require Carbon Filtering before being good enough to drink

I love the Airstill, it's where I learned my hobby and craft and it's brilliant for anyone with space restrictions or who just wants to make small batches, but I'm also a realist.

The Airstill is a compromise still in terms of design and has one particular shortcoming as a result of the design compromise. This 'compromise' is that the product from an Airstill must be filtered through Activated Carbon to get as good a result as you would get from a conventionally designed pot still.

Now, would somebody please get that soapbox out of here before I get started
on something else

AM

AM that essencia is convenient, and I take it from your reply you are treating the carbon as disposable. Just use it a few times and then replace it.

Now I went down the other route and built a tubular filter similar to the one described in the activated e-book. Except mine was copper and 1.5m x 54mm.

It worked well but was a real PITA with cleaning and re-activating the carbon. Did you ever try doing it that way yourself?

There is a discrepancy between the depth of carbon that the e-book says is required, and the essencia system. I suspect that you could build a tubular filter much shorter and it would probably work just fine.

Perhaps a 1m x 54mm tube 1/2 full of carbon, with a needle valve at the bottom. Filled to the top with spirit (it will hold well over a litre) to slowly drip through the filter bed.

I don't know how it compares price wise, as there is cost involved in cleaning and re-activating the carbon.

In the beginning, after reading the ebook on Activated Carbon which I downloaded from http://www.partyman.se, I did all the faffing-about with activated carbon in the wash and loose carbon in a variety of contraptions made from copper and stainless steel. Man, you should have seen some of the crappy messes I got myself into.

In March 2010, venerated member Opus 27 posted some lovely pics of an attractive looking filter and being thoroughly deflated about using activated carbon at all I jumped on it like a madman.

I have to say that when I need clean pure Vodka the spirit goes into the Essencia and comes out at an acceptable rate filtering 5 litres in approx 24 hours and the result is absolutely brilliant.

Activated Carbon costs me about 7 Euros for a bag that provides 5 refills so I consider it more cost effective to simply dispose of the Carbon once I've filtered an entire batch of Vodka - usually about 20l. This means about 7 cent per litre which I consider excellent value for money. plus, there's no way she'd let me cook that stuff in the oven to dry it out

AM

Sounds good sense to me

aidanmac wrote: plus, there's no way she'd let me cook that stuff in the oven to dry it out

AM

For those of you that have not tried this yet - let me put it in perspective. The carbon adsorbs all the nasty volatiles that you don't want to drink. You can't wash these out effectively, you have to evaporate them out. The smell is truly awful. Even with an AGA where it gets vented out the chimney, the kitchen still stinks.

If you try it you can be sure SHMBO will not appreciate it.

*Tin hat on*
Whilst Ive moved from Turbo yeasts to vodka star with no carbon in the wash, I still filter my spirit through the 'Heath Robinson' Filter system that came with my Air Still. Ive been stilling with this for 4 years and now make one carbon filter and one tea bag last for about a 10 bottle run before replacing both.

You can tell when its no good any more coz the filtered spirit tastes like unfiltered spirit. However changing to Vodka Star need virtually no filtering once its been through a second run.

You can stick your fancy-dan £80 filters where the sun dont shine! (Whats the betting I buy one at some time in the new future)

makum101 wrote:*Tin hat on*

You can stick your fancy-dan £80 filters where the sun dont shine! (Whats the betting I buy one at some time in the new future)

I'll resist shooting at your tin hat,but even VS,tastes more neutral through a proper fancy filter,if that is what you are after.

Robert.

makum101 wrote:You can stick your fancy-dan £80 filters where the sun dont shine! (Whats the betting I buy one at some time in the new future)

I thought the same a while back, but I bit the bullet and bought one only a few weeks back... What an eyeopener!!! the liqueur comes out as good (if not better) than some of the standard commercial brands....I'm chuffed
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I noticed that this thread was started a year back by sonsenfrancais on Fri Jan 04, 2013 8:58 pm.
Then it gets legs again and starts to run, and other members get the benefit of it all...don't you just love these forums
It's a shame sonsenfrancais didn't last as long...Last visited:
Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:18 pm
He's not been back since, you win some, you loose some.