Carbon Filtration, worth it?

[morefog]

I'd like to create a quality vodka for a skeptical wife. Carbon filtration seems to be part of the answer. I have the necessary 2" stainless equipment but after putting a great deal of time and work into creating the source product I am leery of making a mistake with the carbon filtration process and making things worse.

My questions:
Is carbon filtration necessary and worth it to get a top-notch vodka?
What are the common mistakes and how do I avoid them?

[morefog]

Clarifications:
By top-notch vodka I am assuming maximum neutral is desirable, is this wrong-headed?
It seems as if this is a lot of work and if I'm going to do it I'd like some assurances its worth doing.
Yes, I've researched the process but parts remain unclear to me.

[still_stirrin]

Keep researching. You’re not done with your homework.
ss

[NZChris]

Top-notch vodka, to your wife, means it suits her tastes. It doesn't have to be the almost unobtainable neutral that many newbies think they can make with whatever POS still they've just been sold.

What she likes might have some grain flavor that she is so used to that that is what she thinks is neutral/vodka.

[morefog]

Fair comment. I did find several other threads that filled in gaps (and sometimes contradicted themselves). I was really looking more for opinion based on personal experience. "Is it worth it?" The threads I found provided great background, and had I done more research I might not have asked, but I'm still not comfortable that I have an answer to my question.

So my conclusion is carbon filtration is optional based on personal preference and skill. It seems to me the best possible answer is learn to do a good job sans filter and see if I'm personally satisfied with the product. If not I can always filter it then.

[morefog]

The bogey in the wife's case is Grey Goose.

[NZChris]

Stainless isn't ideal for distilling. If you have little copper in the boiler and still head, you might have sulfides spoiling your product. I don't know if carbon fixes that as I've never had to use it.

Also, your running protocol and/or cutting technique might need a tune up, but I don't know what you do.

[Saltbush Bill]

A Start with a wash like Shadys Sugar Shine.
B Strip the wash
C Load it back into the boiler diluted to around 30 %abv
D Run it slowly through a proper Reflux Still....not something claiming to be one.
E Make tight cuts.
F Give your Wife some to try.
It should be clean enough if you do all of that right.......if she makes noises and screws her face up then carbon filter it.
As Chris stated , copper is a must in a column ..or any still for that matter.

[TwoSheds]

Another important point... Fresh stilled it will be a little more volatile, some describe it as prickly. Between Saltbush's E and F, blend down to drinking strenght and give a week (or better a month) of sitting in a jar will calm it down. Bonus points if it's only a 2/3 full jar and you open it every few days to let the volatiles breathe.

This is more of a feel than a flavor, but contributes to the experience and definitely impacts the feel of 'smoothness' that you want in a vodka.

[greggn]

Is carbon filtration necessary and worth it to get a top-notch vodka?

I find that a well-made AG vodka is a joy to drink when it exhibits subtle characteristics of the source grain. Carbon filtering removes that. So, no, carbon filtering is certainly not "necessary." Just the opposite ... it's a band-aid fix when things go wrong.

But, as NZChris states, the definition of top-notch needs to be decided by your wife. If this tasting is an up-down vote of you continuing with the hobby then I would suggest filtering to give her a neutral (not a vodka). If she complains that it's tasteless then you can fall back on the excuse that you just need to tweak the type or quantity of grain in the recipe to increase flavor and mouthfeel.

Full disclosure: I've only used carbon twice ... once on a commercial white rye that was so tails-heavy that it turned my stomach just uncorking the bottle. The second was on my own product that, for the life of me, I couldn't reason what went wrong. In both cases the carbon stripped aroma and taste. While far from experienced I can't imagine what could go wrong other than not filtering out any carbon particulate that might migrate into your product.

[Rrmuf]

Hi, You have all the advice you need above. I like SB Bill's proposed way forward. I use TFFV (in T&T recipes) for neutral. It will impart a very slight wheaty feel even after a good reflux run. I naively just tried carbon filtering once without proper research and it wasn't a success at all so do research that process well in terms of selecting and preparing the carbon. That's where I went wrong.

[vattan raja]

From my very limited study… If one is using pot still, activated carbon filtration makes little purification on sediments, flavors and tastes and a transparent clarity of the product. But product come out of a reflex.. digestive system will take care

[NZChris]

The bogey in the wife's case is Grey Goose.

Look up their website. Their vodka boasts to be made with winter wheat.

If you have a reflux column, something like TFFV might be close enough, (use the best wheat bran you can get). If that has too much flavor, strip the wash to 40% low wines with a pot still before the spirit run.

If you have a pot still, use about a quarter of the bran Teddy suggests, take foreshots, shut down the strips when you have 40% ABV in the collection vessel for each strip, then spirit run using Kiwistiller's novice guide to cuts. https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13261

[NZChris]

When you have your cut jars lined up, call in The Expert. Make up a sample of the most flavorless jars at about 35%. Get her to taste it. If she doesn't like it, you're in trouble already Alternately add to it from jars from each end until she tells you which jars spoil it. I use a bent teaspoon for a dipper and estimate the ABV to keep it around 35%. You might have to do this more than once. Be sure to make up a sample of your chosen blend and sample it at your preferred ABV before you commit the jars to one vessel.

[rull_bull]

Nothing wrong about using carbon filtration, i use it sometimes when i want totally clean and tasteless alcohol.

It also works great for filtrering my tap water before diluting.

Try it for yourself, if you find it useful then great.
If not you know and can skip it.
At least you tried it then, seems like alot of people didnt and just bash it.

It’s nothing you have to use but rather a extra tool to polish your final product.

[Saltbush Bill]

seems like a lot of people didnt and just bash it.

Seems to me that a lot of people cant be bothered getting it right to begin with , then need carbon to try n polish a turd that they made using Turdbo yeast and some crappy still that was sold to them by some Conman on allibahhhbahhh or some other dodgy place..
Ive been at this a while now, seen and made what I thought was good neutral when I first started out.
What I thought was good Neutral " because I dint know what I didn't know yet" became good neutral by learning , learning about washes , learning about cuts , learning what stills where needed to make different products. I started with no F'kn clue..a T500 handed down from my son with a whole heap of Turdbo Yeast.
We can all encourage people to take short cuts, but it takes more time and effort to teach them the right ways.

[Demy]

My opinion, you know you do everything right. you don't need to filter with charcoal .... i'm not a fan of charcoal, use only in desperate cases ... if it's not neutral enough, much better dilute it and distil again.

[Bushman]

My opinion, you know you do everything right. you don't need to filter with charcoal .... i'm not a fan of charcoal, use only in desperate cases ... if it's not neutral enough, much better dilute it and distil again.

[Rrmuf]

I get the sentiment w.r.t. using it to fix something that should have been done correctly first, but sometimes we just find it fun to reproduce a process we hear about. For the quality vodka, there's great advice in here, but if at the end you just want to 'perfect' a carbon filtration process , go for it and tell us how you did it. I am interested.

[rull_bull]

seems like a lot of people didnt and just bash it.

Seems to me that a lot of people cant be bothered getting it right to begin with , then need carbon to try n polish a turd that they made using Turdbo yeast and some crappy still that was sold to them by some Conman on allibahhhbahhh or some other dodgy place..
Ive been at this a while now, seen and made what I thought was good neutral when I first started out.
What I thought was good Neutral " because I dint know what I didn't know yet" became good neutral by learning , learning about washes , learning about cuts , learning what stills where needed to make different products. I started with no F'kn clue..a T500 handed down from my son with a whole heap of Turdbo Yeast.
We can all encourage people to take short cuts, but it takes more time and effort to teach them the right ways.

I am not going to argue about turbo, cheap stills and so on.
I have been lurking this forum and distilling with my vm-e-arc and pot stills for many years.

I know how to make cuts, making proper washes/mash, running still, the theory behind it and i agree that this is the most important things.

I am just saying that if a person have not tried it by themself, their opinion is rather worthless. Right?
This is goes for everything in life.

No trying to upset anyone, we are all here for the same thing.
Just a shame that certain topics cant be discussed open minded.

[Windy City]

A Start with a wash like Shadys Sugar Shine.
B Strip the wash
C Load it back into the boiler diluted to around 30 %abv
D Run it slowly through a proper Reflux Still....not something claiming to be one.
E Make tight cuts.
F Give your Wife some to try.
It should be clean enough if you do all of that right.......if she makes noises and screws her face up then carbon filter it.
As Chris stated , copper is a must in a column ..or any still for that matter.

I like to make a extremely clean neutral for my vodka.
I will first strip it through my four plate bubble cap still. Then I dilute to 35% with distilled water and run it 2 to 3 times more through my packed column. Each time I am diluting It back down. Water is the best filter in my opinion.
I make cuts each time and end up with a phenomenal clean vodka
I am going for quality not quantity. And yes it's a bunch of time spent that I probably don't need to but the fact is I enjoy running my stills.

[still_stirrin]

Jack Daniels’ “claim to fame” is their activated carbon filtration system. Years ago (before I “woke up”), I liked their products. I’ve been to Lynchburg and toured the facility when “Old Number 7” was running. Their products are so full of heads that they’re not consumable without carbon filtration plus at least 3 years in a cask. Now, if I drink a Jack Daniels product, it gives me a headache almost immediately. Yuk!

It wasn’t until I started making my own whiskeys that I’ve learned (trained my palette) to appreciate a “clean spirit”. And it is all about the process, including the potstill and the cuts. Carbon filtration is (at best) a “repair process” that we hobbiests DON’T NEED unless we’ve F’d something up!

Make it right, ie - good recipe, good ferment, proper equipment, good cuts, and proper aging protocols and you won’t need activated carbon.

I don’t use carbon filtration and I won’t ever. I don’t make “crap” that needs to be filtered to be consumable. When you (morefog) ask a question like you have, you better EXPECT to get diverse opinions. And often this type of question will turn “heated” in the responses. Yours is not the 1st time this question has been asked, nor will it be the last. But the answers are always the same, so what value have you added? What have you learned along the way? Did you really “want an answer”, or simply a “vote of support” for your point of view?

I hope you got what you came to get. Sooner or later, you will.
ss

[morefog]

What have you learned along the way? Did you really “want an answer”, or simply a “vote of support” for your point of view?

My opinion is that making a good vodka requires you to first make the best spirit you can with a properly operated reflex still, multiple distillations and proper cuts, and if that's not good enough, then look to carbon filtration. I've learned that carbon will 'polish' the vodka, which seems important for some reason given that's what the pros do. I've learned that if you made awesome liquor then carbon is an optional process. I've learned that carbon will remove 'flavor', perhaps more so than you might wish. I've learned if you've really made a mess, carbon might help bail you out. I've learned that a good number of folks here would prefer an additional distillation rather than use carbon, while others prefer to use carbon for a variety of reasons. I understand how to distill, not as well as the folks here, but a heck of a lot better than I understand how to carbon filter. I have trepidation about carbon filtration given my overall skill level with the hobby and the unproven nature of my still.

Other topics I've read one the subject are a meandering mess. This topic was handled succinctly and stayed on-point. The question was one that I wanted an answer to and I'm pleased with the answer and discussion I got. Thanks all.

[rull_bull]

Common mistakes with carbon filtering are:

* Not using the correct activated carbon
* Using charcoal
* Not cleaning the activated carbon before use

Read this book about it:

[Deplorable]

I have to agree with the sentiments above. It's more trouble than it's worth, if you stuffed it up so bad your most discerning critic wont drink it, dilute it and run it again, That's faster and less trouble than filtering through activated carbon. At least that was my experience. besides, you'll get more practice running your still and making proper cuts.

[Bee]

Reading some reviews of Grey Goose, it doesn't look too hard to compete with. Maybe activated carbon filtering would make something similar to Grey Goose.

[bluefish_dist]

I used carbon filtering as the way I read the bam, it’s part of the vodka process. With that said, I viewed it as a step that just smooths the edges a little. If you don’t have a nice clean product to start with, running it through a carbon filter won’t fix it.

I had a filter that was two kegs with a 36” long 2” pipe between them to be the filter. It would hold about a half gallon of carbon. The carbon was held in the tube by a couple coffee filters hose clamped on to the pipe. My process was, wash the carbon, then pour it into the tube while wet. Add spirits at 100 proof. Needed room to have it absorb the water from the carbon. You could feel the tube get warm as the alcohol moved down the filter, displacing the water. It would take a few hours to slowly drip through the filter. Once it was done, I would pour a half gallon of distilled water down the filter to push out the alcohol. Then blend down to 80 proof and filter with 2um filter when bottling. The filter would remove the carbon fines from the vodka.