Air Still First Drinkable Drops, is this even possible?

[tonofsteel]

Two points:
- You can make pleasantly drinkable product from an air still (albeit NOT quite what you will get from a good DIY build)
- Your time, effort and resources are probably better spent on a DIY build that suits where you are at in the hobby
(Caveat to above point: If you are just starting out and just want to see how this works and have a lack of material, skills and time then an air still *might* be useful for you)

Started out with the classic uninformed turbo wash and ran that through the air still as per instructions on the tin. HORRID STUFF COMES OUT It all went down the drain, the air still went on the shelf and all was forgotten about until recently. I ran into the opportunity to purchase a couple of kegs directly from a brewer and took them up on the offer. So while I am working on a DIY build I decided to try out the old air still again while I gather the parts and assemble them. The question: Is it possible to get pleasantly drinkable spirit from an air still? (note not necessarily neutral or vodka, just pleasant and drinkable)

I made a tomato paste wash (a la bakers yeast) @ 14% (next one is 10%) and ran it through the air still, this time collecting in jars @ around 50mL per jar and lined them up. Did sniff and taste test right from these jars right after running and selected the "heart of the hearts". I was anti-greed and ruthless with the cuts so very little made it through. Diluted down to 40% and then tried to mix a drink from it.

I was actually really surprised at how smooth it was and how drinkable it was. There was a flavor to it but it was not objectionable and it was not over powering. It would be considered unsavory to the veterans I am sure but as far as if you could drink it I would have to say it would be a yes.

Now in the quest for quality over quantity this really leaves a lot to be desired, I ended up keeping about 150mL from the charge of 4L so the yield is very poor. The air still is a basic pot still so lots of head/tail smearing going on. Could have got more yield with airing out the jars for a day before testing as well I would imagine.

While I work on building something to suit my interests the air still experiments provide a decent bit of fun/learning in the meantime. While the air still is slow and crude it does have some potential as if a double distillation is done the quality/quantity goes up and once the wash and timing of running that wash is figured out you can run the whole process on a timer.

I can understand the disdain for this thing but I think it can be useful for learning about good washes / good cuts and how the process works in general.

The tripping points for a beginner (at least for me) is finding the parts (most not available locally or are REALLY expensive), the heater control has to be built to avoid cycling (hot plates = bad), the lid to the boiler needs to be sealed correctly, the head needs to be connected/sealed correctly to the boiler, the condenser needs to be built so vapor cannot escape and while rare the boiler needs some sort of over pressure protection. With some experience this is easy but just starting out everything is a question with MANY answers. I really want to try avoid having a flour paste mess everywhere every-time I run so while that can be a shortcut to getting up and running as quickly as possible I would prefer to find better joints to start with.

From the above if another person using this type of still ends up here wondering about the cut criteria the heads had a fruity taste and came with a burning sensation. The tails had the cardboard/wet dog taste. Any jar that had a perceptible sensation of this relative to the best jar (after smell/tasting ALL of them) was thrown out (and I found cleansing the palate between tastes to be helpful). Important to note relative here, if you use a full on DIY reflux setup run properly the "best jar" would still be considered well below sub par. But hey, never thought anything drinkable would come out the other end and it did...........

[fizzix]

There are plenty of folks using Airstills and Easystills here that have posted happy results.
They shun turbo yeasts, use proven recipes, and make their cuts in tiny jars. It's just a pot still after all.

Good luck with your new build. And in the meantime, be diligent with the Airstill and enjoy its wares.

[Pikey]

Fizzix is right - it's a tiny little pot still.

Just use it as you would any other pot still - and note that whatever "They" say about "Vodka" and "Neutral", pot still are for making flavoured spirits llike whiskey and brandy, which they do better than reflux stills.

Reflux stills are for making "Vodka" and "Neutral" type spirits, which they do better than pot stills.

don't hate the little fella, just use him for what he is good at !

[zapata]

I dunno man. I've read too many horror stories of shit burning, electrocuting, and even breeding legionnaires disease. Just build a real still.

You can build a pot still with a stock pot, a roll of teflon tape, some binder clips, and $20 worth of copper. May not be your dream still, but it will be a real still and shouldn't take more than a few hours to build. At most a few days if you really have to watch YouTube while you solder, and go buy new tools at each step.
I think we can do better than there being any place for an airstill. Sorry if that sounds snobby.

[Pikey]

I dunno man. I've read too many horror stories of shit burning, electrocuting, and even breeding legionnaires disease. Just build a real still.
........

I don't think youve "Heard" any of that "stuff" on here - have you zappy ?

A bit like Moonshine making you go blind, stopping your legs working and killing you I expect, alhough personally I've never heard any problems like that with Airstills. and there are a LOT of them out there !

[zapata]

Oops, looks like I confused airstill with amazing still.

viewtopic.php?t=2891

[Pikey]

Oops, looks like I confused airstill with amazing still.

viewtopic.php?t=2891

OK that's resolved then

Good job it got queried

[kimbodious]

Check out how this user was getting the best from their airstill http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=765" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Pikey]

Check out how this user was getting the best from their airstill http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=765" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

HE DID ALSO WRITE THIS !

.......... but if you want your spirit to taste nice, the single run method is a no go, unless you want to start experimenting with non-turbo home made washes.

Which of course is EXACTLY what we advocate here !

[kimbodious]

?? I thought the post I linked to was advocating stripping runs and then spirit runs using cuts ??

[Captain Sheffield]

I've made quite a few fine tipples with my airstill. I have a 750 watt water distiller version (the ones sold for spirits are around 320 watts) so heat ups are speedy, and stripping is quick as well. For spirit runs I use a Harbor Freight speed control to plug into the heating unit and control the power that way. I plug the fan into an outlet separately with an old computer cable so it doesn't slow down when I adjust the speed. I definitely recommend a defoamer. My first whiskey wash puked even though I degassed it.

I've made fine spirits from sugar washes (All Bran then aged on oak), molasses for some good rums, and my best success with an airstill is an apple brandy I've had on oak for over 3 years now. I prefer to use my boka for all runs that are 5 gallons and under, just because pot stills smear so much. Having said that, you can get drinkable product out of most stills if you hone your technique. The best still is the one you have. With an airstill, double-distilling is pretty much a necessity. So yeah, airstills make drinkable drops.

[tonofsteel]

There are plenty of folks using Airstills and Easystills here that have posted happy results.
They shun turbo yeasts, use proven recipes, and make their cuts in tiny jars. It's just a pot still after all.

Good luck with your new build. And in the meantime, be diligent with the Airstill and enjoy its wares.

After doing what you say I noticed a definite improvement in results. Thanks!

Check out how this user was getting the best from their airstill http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=765" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

This is exactly what I ran into and tried which changed my opinion on the air still (real still best, but it can work). To start with I tried a single run TPW with cuts just to see what comes out.

Just build a real still.

I know this was in reference to the amazing still (which I did have at one point and binned) but I agree in general. For what the air still costs I could have built a keg still. It is hard to find 2" copper or SS here off the shelf and the industrial suppliers want your first 2 kids. Little scrap opportunities that I have found so far. Working on scrounging the parts for the real still. Fortunately/unfortunately in the meantime I have learned a lot more about the art/science of stilling using the air still.

don't hate the little fella, just use him for what he is good at !

Mixed up a batch of demerara sugar rum and ordered some oak blocks to toast/torch. Will take less stringent cuts when aging and follow advice on here for distress aging/time aging etc.

I've made quite a few fine tipples with my airstill. I have a 750 watt water distiller version (the ones sold for spirits are around 320 watts) so heat ups are speedy, and stripping is quick as well. For spirit runs I use a Harbor Freight speed control to plug into the heating unit and control the power that way. I plug the fan into an outlet separately with an old computer cable so it doesn't slow down when I adjust the speed. I definitely recommend a defoamer. My first whiskey wash puked even though I degassed it.

I've made fine spirits from sugar washes (All Bran then aged on oak), molasses for some good rums, and my best success with an airstill is an apple brandy I've had on oak for over 3 years now. I prefer to use my boka for all runs that are 5 gallons and under, just because pot stills smear so much. Having said that, you can get drinkable product out of most stills if you hone your technique. The best still is the one you have. With an airstill, double-distilling is pretty much a necessity. So yeah, airstills make drinkable drops.

I think this is actually quite genius for doing the double distill method. Just going to add the often mentioned advice that if you are new and reading this that you need to block the chlorine vent if you have the water distilling version instead of the low watt alcohol version. The stripping runs would be much quicker with the higher power and the power controller would allow for proper spirit runs. Kind of makes me wish I would have went this route instead.

When you say on oak what technique are you using? If I had to guess I would say jar/jugs with white oak dominoes toasted to 350-400F with a outside char that layers to raw wood on the inside with periodic airing @ 50-65%ABV? Either boiling or leaving out in the yard to get weathered for a couple years (if raw original wood) to reduce the tannins? Although I think I have heard every version of aging from nuking to raw wood etc.


I think my rambling on might have distracted what I was trying to say but essentially I got my first drinkable stuff that was not vile by following the advice posted. I am very thankful for all the people who have shared their advice and knowledge for others like me to learn from.

I have been able to have a first enjoyable tipple in honor of the friendly knowledgeable folks on here and I thank you, I have no problem sharing my tipples either if I run into you one day.

[Copperhead road]

I’m with zapata, it’s all to easy to knock together a real still...

[fizzix]

I’m with zapata, it’s all to easy to knock together a real still...

He says he is, Copperhead. The Airstill's just to get him by for now.

[tonofsteel]

Thinking about this a bit more after trying out the results I am wondering why commercial distilleries put so many heads in their vodkas?

I remember 20 years ago having people tell me that a certain brand is the best because it tastes like nothing. I tried it out again recently and definitely has a large amount of heads in it. Comparing different brands over the years they all have a different taste but the taste is heads/tails in some sort of combination.

Even though what I got was not azeotrope or anything even remotely close I was trying to be quite ruthless with keeping out anything that smelled/tasted of heads (I am finding I HATE heads). It had a taste to it but it was smooth and lacked the fruity/burn sensation relative to commercial vodkas I have tried. After cutting by small amounts in jars I could experience the transition from heads/hearts/tails and I am sure from this experiment that there are many heads in commercial stuff.

So is this an economic play or a branding play? Economically to include as much of the distillate as possible in the bottles makes sense but I would much rather buy something that is smooth and mostly tasteless when going for something like a vodka. The stuff I made had a taste to it but I was surprised as the magnitude of unpleasantness was missing.

Branding wise if everyone was to bottle azeotrope (diluted to 40%) and sell it there would be no difference in taste so then becomes a commodity (super competitive race to the bottom etc). So it seems like they add in certain heads/tails to create a flavor that resonates with hopefully a large number of people.

I see triple/quad/up to seven distillations marketed on the bottle. But if the cuts suck then what are you gaining?

Maybe some of it is because people expect a certain experience, alcohol should have a taste and a burn so this expectation is exploited. I have tasted various moonshines in addition to what I have run and there is definitely more to this story. Lots of paint stripper out there but the odd soul that goes for quality over quantity and the results are very different.....

[The Baker]

Tasting my vodka, four times pot stilled and although not perfect I am proud of it. Certainly by far the best I have made.
And I had a taste of a commercial vodka. And my first thought was, that is bitey. Lots of heads?

Geoff

[zapata]

The Airstill's just to get him by for now.

This thread is 3 days old, how long does he need?!
Just kidding. Not really.

[Copperhead road]

The Airstill's just to get him by for now.

This thread is 3 days old, how long does he need?!
Just kidding. Not really.

[Saltbush Bill]

You need to learn about and utilize Stripping Runs , to really get anywhere with that little still.....somewhere on one of the distilling forums is a step by step diagram and instructions on how to do that.
I'll see if I can find it when I have time.

[Yummyrum]

You need to learn about and utilize Stripping Runs , to really get anywhere with that little still.....somewhere on one of the distilling forums is a step by step diagram and instructions on how to do that.
I'll see if I can find it when I have time.

That would be really cool if you can lay your hands on it Salty . I vaguely remember you posted it on another forum years ago .... its really good stuff for airstill owners .

Have to admit my only experience with an airstill was using one at work to make distilled water

But I recon it might be a perfect little Gin still

[Scottish auld balrog]

I have got myself an air still, the smaller wattage alcohol version, you got to start somewhere. Future upgrade to it already in the planning stage .
I was wondering, does anyone know of any alterations or modifications that can be done, like variable temperature control, or any other helpful adjustments that can be safely made to this unit?
Is there anything that should not be done with an air still? Anything I have been short sighted about and missed? All advice and help gratefully received.

SAB

[Manc]

Hi SAB

I had an air still for two years and ran turbo's through it then filtered and added flavours all bought from the homebrew shop. I recently went in recently and he asked why I didn't spend so much anymore called me tight and said I use to pay for his holidays (I pay for mine now).
Anyway it's just a little pot still if I remember it's only 385watts no much point in adjusting that it only drips out, It is useful while you get use to fermenting and gives you something to run your washes on, I'd follow the advice on this thread for making a drinkable spirit it should stand you in good stead. I recently sold mine on flee bay got £90 for it so when you're finished with it you'd be able to recoup some funds.

Hope this helps
Lee

[Scottish auld balrog]

Hi SAB

I had an air still for two years and ran turbo's through it then filtered and added flavours all bought from the homebrew shop. I recently went in recently and he asked why I didn't spend so much anymore called me tight and said I use to pay for his holidays (I pay for mine now).
Anyway it's just a little pot still if I remember it's only 385watts no much point in adjusting that it only drips out, It is useful while you get use to fermenting and gives you something to run your washes on, I'd follow the advice on this thread for making a drinkable spirit it should stand you in good stead. I recently sold mine on flee bay got £90 for it so when you're finished with it you'd be able to recoup some funds.

Hope this helps
Lee

Hello Lee.
Thank you for the reply, all information is very helpful at this stage, good to know that flea bay can 'recycle' it when the time comes. I take it the added flavours worked fine and gave an acceptable end product? Any good ones or any to avoid you could mention please?
SAB

[Manc]

Hi SAB

I use to just buy the vodka flavour which I now know is stupid why would you buy something to make a neutral flavour but it was for my SOH and it was the only way she would drink it. I used the 6kg mix not the 8kg I tried that once but it was undrinkable.


I was in the turbo cycle for 2 years b4 I found this site, buy turbo + carbon + clearing then you need carbon to filter and then flavours to make it passible. I know it's going to be hard with just 4 litres capacity to put in 10% abv when turbo's promise upto 20% but it's going to be worth it and as this thread says double run a strip run and a spirit run its all good learning.


I was going to say hello in your welcome post as I live south of the border and point you to this thread but I see you found it by yourself with that attitude your soon be making some good sipping liquor. There's some great info in here I can personally recommend Rad's all bran for a good netural all the ingredients are in the supermarket if you have any problems with the names as they do things differently over the pond just PM me I'm happy to help.


Try the tried and trusted recipes get your fermenting down there's a lot to take in if you do a tried and trusted people can usually help better as most have done them. I currently have a Booners All Corn in my fermenter for the 3rd time, Get me turbo boy doing All Grain,

Wish you all the best with your adventure

Lee

[Scottish auld balrog]

Thank you for the informative reply Lee, I think I shall try various homebrew shop bought yeasts for champagne, wine, cider, mead, and beer with my next list of sugar brews, aim for about 1.080 degrees SG with sucrose and see how it goes for each yeast. Once I get more confidence in brewing then advance onto making my own mix of ingredients, following the recipes here. Will a brew with these yeasts be OK for the air still? Would I need to purchase anything to stop the air still puking like distillers conditioner or can I get away with just boiling chips? What about recycling tails in the air still with the concentrated fusel oils, can that be problematic and cause puking? Sorry for the questions but my head is full of questions about the air still. (And the hobby).

So many questions about this air still, no easy quick way to learn other than read and read some more. With the small volume of the air still, I hope to get the working hands on experience of using it over and over and over again, learn how to get the best hearts from it, when to ditch and when to keep the output. Any advice about how to go about this with the air still is gold dust to me at this stage. I plan to collect the spirit run in 100ml or 200ml batches, compare each and see if I can detect the differences between heads, hearts and tails. A lot of bottles and maybe a long way for a short cut but I need to learn about this air still works, how the process of distillation proceeds and evolves.
I did plan to use small 20ml bottles but I think that would just cause more confusion with so many bottles. Just how much overlap does the air still operation cause, do I need a triple distillate for better quality? This is going to be a very challenging but interesting learning curve.

I wish I had found this site earlier, learn how to get the best from this air still from the start of this adventure, from brewing the mash, the facts about turbo yeast and the unwanted by products. Now a case of read up on theory while the brew brews up.

Thank you for your kind words and help, expect incoming PM in the future as I get more confidence and find my feet and start looking for ingredients.

SAB

[tonofsteel]

You need to learn about and utilize Stripping Runs , to really get anywhere with that little still.....somewhere on one of the distilling forums is a step by step diagram and instructions on how to do that.
I'll see if I can find it when I have time.

Check out how this user was getting the best from their airstill http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=765" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I think the image in the post kimbodious referred to is the diagram you speak of?: https://imgur.com/1MM0IOo


The stripping/spirit runs do make a big difference as well as the ferment recipe used. I use the diagram for an outline but for the spirit run still collect about 50ml per jar (after foreshots) and line them up to get experience smelling/tasting the transitions. While there is a lot of smearing I can definitely tell when the heads decrease and when the tails start coming in. Hearts are smooth and drinkable but not neutral like you would get out of a better setup.

I have got myself an air still, the smaller wattage alcohol version, you got to start somewhere. Future upgrade to it already in the planning stage .
I was wondering, does anyone know of any alterations or modifications that can be done, like variable temperature control, or any other helpful adjustments that can be safely made to this unit?
Is there anything that should not be done with an air still? Anything I have been short sighted about and missed? All advice and help gratefully received.

SAB

Up until recently I was making the mistake of using only neutral washes with the air still. Switched to trying out some of the easy cereal/rum/etc. washes that have some flavor to them (ie. pot still compatible) so look forward to seeing the results. Have been reading a lot about aging and want to put down a few jars with different toast/char variations (as per the many instructions/experiences already shared on the forum) to see what the differences are personally.

I agree with what Lee said on no point adjusting the power but I have heard it *can* have better results if you do. Only try it if you have one of the air stills that you can run the fan on full power while adjusting the heater. I notice that the takeoff rate during the spirit run is noticeably higher than the stripping run (due to the higher initial ABV still charge) so thought about trying to slow it down a bit, probably would not see any worthwhile difference in quality vs speed sacrifice though.

Always blows my mind when tasting the results as I never thought it could be possible after so many horrid (horrid!) turbo wash runs.

[tonofsteel]

Thank you for the informative reply Lee, I think I shall try various homebrew shop bought yeasts for champagne, wine, cider, mead, and beer with my next list of sugar brews, aim for about 1.080 degrees SG with sucrose and see how it goes for each yeast. Once I get more confidence in brewing then advance onto making my own mix of ingredients, following the recipes here. Will a brew with these yeasts be OK for the air still? Would I need to purchase anything to stop the air still puking like distillers conditioner or can I get away with just boiling chips? What about recycling tails in the air still with the concentrated fusel oils, can that be problematic and cause puking? Sorry for the questions but my head is full of questions about the air still. (And the hobby).

So many questions about this air still, no easy quick way to learn other than read and read some more. With the small volume of the air still, I hope to get the working hands on experience of using it over and over and over again, learn how to get the best hearts from it, when to ditch and when to keep the output. Any advice about how to go about this with the air still is gold dust to me at this stage. I plan to collect the spirit run in 100ml or 200ml batches, compare each and see if I can detect the differences between heads, hearts and tails. A lot of bottles and maybe a long way for a short cut but I need to learn about this air still works, how the process of distillation proceeds and evolves.
I did plan to use small 20ml bottles but I think that would just cause more confusion with so many bottles. Just how much overlap does the air still operation cause, do I need a triple distillate for better quality? This is going to be a very challenging but interesting learning curve.

I wish I had found this site earlier, learn how to get the best from this air still from the start of this adventure, from brewing the mash, the facts about turbo yeast and the unwanted by products. Now a case of read up on theory while the brew brews up.

Thank you for your kind words and help, expect incoming PM in the future as I get more confidence and find my feet and start looking for ingredients.

SAB

While Lee will probably offer more insight I will share what I have found so far.

Switched to using Fleischmanns ADY (active dry yeast) as for my taste it works so far and is the cheapest. Tried Lalvin EC-1118 and didn't notice much difference in the final results. I find more of an effect on the results are the nutrients used in the recipe like kale vs tomato paste.

I use LOTS of boiling chips (pennies and copper pipe off cuts) that cover the entire bottom. The manufacturing process of air stills leaves a different degree of smoothness on the boiler surface from unit to unit (from mfg website/docs) so different air stills will require different amounts of boiling chips depending on how smooth they are. I just covered the entire bottom after having a puke.

For sugar/neutral washes I have never had an issue with puking on stripping run so never add distillers conditioner to these. I plan on adding distillers conditioner to non-neutral stripping runs and if I treat the low wines with bicarb from past puke experience.

I don't recycle anything but also have wondered about this. I hear of people doing it but do you do it indefinitely or only do it for 3/4 runs?

Personally I found collecting 50ml at a time vs 100ml was helpful in being able to identify the transitions and changes. I was using 100ml jars and if two of them were indistinguishable I would combine them to save on quantity of jars. When I noticed a difference between two jars I would keep them separate. I could really notice a difference when the head "bite" went away and if it was a 100ml jar I would have been excluding 100ml from the hearts instead of the 50 I ended up keeping out.

The other trick I heard could work well is if you treat the low wines (product from stripping run) with bicarb or washing soda for a week/month. Much info on here and elsewhere as to the chemistry and how it works but ends up making the cuts sharper on the spirit run with potentially less heads.

[Manc]

Hi SAB

I personally think you are on the right path you seem to be on a large learning curve the more you still the more you will learn it's that simple. On the puking I've never had a problem as far as I'm concerned if you clear your wash you should have no problems( just let it sit for a few days, I usually move to another container after 2/3 days and let rest again). I'd love to hear how you get on with all your yeast experiments I'm a bit on the careful side with my penny's lol[FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY] Only use dry active baker's yeast picture below at 64p for 125g from Morrison, (Tesco want a pound) you can't go wrong at 10 grams per gallon.

This is why I love this site so many people willing to share there experiences ton of steel that is amazing info wish I had that info years ago I bow down to your info it's all and more than I wanted to say I'm going now my own spirits are taking over

Please PM anytime I'm willing to share my limited knowledge

Lee

[Scottish auld balrog]

Thanks again Lee for the kind words and advice, it is so wonderful that technology nowadays can let similar minds get together and pass on and share ideas and wisdom, beats a textbook for knowledge anytime. A big thank you to all for sharing this hard won data. My salutes to you all. May we all gain from it.

I shall try to record and share all my experiments and data here, a lot better than writing it all down on a bit of paper that you know will end up lost after a few weeks . I got another primary brewing bin in the post, so I can do side by side experiment comparisons with yeasts/sugars/nutrients etc.

Is there anything else I should get for this hobby? I have just added an electronic pH meter for measuring brew pH and a TDS meter to measure the total salt concentration for yeast nutrients to see how they get used up, maybe make my own nutrient mix sooner than later to trial out.

SAB

[tonofsteel]

Ran some 10% demerera rum in addition to other washes using only single distillation to see what comes out. This is what I found:

- Using two Gas-X pills, not sure if it is doing anything but had no boil overs / pukes when filled to the 4L line. Did not de-gas other than racking and filling the boiler so I would think it is helping. Heard that molasses can be tricky with the foaming but not sure if demerara is the same. Can also use baby gas drops but reading the ingredients they have flavoring added where as the pills are just mainly simethicone which AFAIK is basically an oral version of distillers conditioner. Some differences but closely related. Reduces surface tension of gas bubbles which prevents foaming from building up.
- After many single runs end up with roughly 250-300mL fores/heads, 150mL hearts and the rest tails. Varies by about 50mL either way though depending on wash.
- As far as I can tell with a 10% wash I do not see the need to go much further than 1L collected in stripping runs. The PDF linked above says 1.5L for a 14% wash. After 750mL collected on single runs in 50mL jars the last stuff collected is heavy tails already. So will aim for 1 to 1.25L on stripping runs in the future. With a 10% wash after 1L collection slows down and it took 5 hours to get 1.5L, too long.
- Freeze stripping does work and can save some effort. For some reason the freeze stripped product tastes better than still stripped. Can either freeze and then invert over container collecting half of original volume or taste the melting drips and when alcohol noticeably drops off/disappears stop collection.

Another kale wash tasted yeasty but I guess this is from a low temperature pitch and ferment. Was 26C sprinkling bread yeast on top and fermented at 24C for 2 weeks before finishing.

Next time going to re-hydrate at 40C in water in separate container, bring wash to 30C and when the small yeast container cools to 30C then pitch it in. Also did not include a squeezed lemon or a pinch of epsom salt which I will include in the next one.

The 150mL of demerara rum is nothing to write home about but was noticeably smoother than commercial spirit tasting side by side. I have tried to get greedy and save more than that from a single run (preferring tails over heads) but it tasted off and when really greedy the headaches start coming. I read heads cause headaches and tails cause human plumbing problems but I notice that too much tails also causes the headaches. Reading that 2-Propanol (rubbing alcohol) boils at 82C (180F) and that it can cause headaches this could be a source in addition to other higher boiling temp compounds.

Going to start doing more freezer/air still stripping runs to see how that works out. Now that I know what a single run looks like should be able to speed up the process by collecting less when stripping with the air still @ 10%