Over the last few days ive been putting my first 5 gallon of wash though the smartstill and the results have been very good. Just tested all my bottles with the refractormeter and they are between 39% and 42%. The only problem I had was the filter, I could not get it to work right, it was very slow. It was taking 12 hour to do. Ive now replaced the thin washers with some rubber ones and it now seems about right, but not sure if rubber will be ok with the spirit. Next batch is now on and bubbling away.
Otis
First run success
Moderator: Site Moderator
Re: First run success
Welcome Otis and congrats on the first sucessful run.
However, if you have done any of the manditory reading in the newcomers area, you would have clearly seen the advice that rubber and high ABV alcochol are a no-no, as is most kinds of plastic.
As for your still, I think it is the one that many of us have bought as our first and were taken advantage of. Is it the aircooled table top unit that holds about 4L. If so then you don't know what good is until you set that one aside and build yourself a nice copper or stainless one.
Also, there will be no need for charcoal filtering once you get the hand of doing propper cuts, and not using those commerical Turbo yeasts, and go with good old fashioned Flieshman's bread yeast and try the Gerber sugar wash, or the Bran flake sugar wash, which is one of my favorites.
The other thing is to not get greedy with your product. When I first started, I didn't want to seperate the heads from hearts ot hearts from the tails, so I got pretty skanky product. Same reason for why I used Turbo for my first wash, to get alot of product.... but terrible tasting product.
Now I take pretty hard cuts, using the several small jars approach. Throw out the first 60 -90 cc's the collect in 8 ounce jars and when you have finished, taste the middle jar and then move up towards the heads and down toward the tails and once it starts to taste bad, that is where you make the cut and save the good stuff and put the other in to the feints jug to add to the next run.
Air out a couple of days, then dilute to 40% ABV and enjoy.
For even better and cleaner product, I have been doing a striping run and then a slwo spirit run. No need to filter at all.
Now this is hard to do with the Air Still as you get about 750cc's of 40% abv so you need to do the same but in maybe 60cc increments.
So if you really want good product, you need to move up to a boiler that at a minumun will hold 12L to 16L, then you can start to understand what this hobby is all about.
So ina very long and round about way, I am saying donlt use the rubber or the charcoal, but build yourself a good unit.
I bought one of those for just under $300, and for that investment, I could have had myself several good home built units, based on some fine and easy to build designs found here on this forum.
The one thing that I have used my airstill for is to make gein essence, where I take nice clean neutral, add the botanicals and let steep for a week to ten days then dilute to between 25 and 40 % and run it in the iar still for a very aromatic gin essence, better than any commercial you can by.
However, if you have done any of the manditory reading in the newcomers area, you would have clearly seen the advice that rubber and high ABV alcochol are a no-no, as is most kinds of plastic.
As for your still, I think it is the one that many of us have bought as our first and were taken advantage of. Is it the aircooled table top unit that holds about 4L. If so then you don't know what good is until you set that one aside and build yourself a nice copper or stainless one.
Also, there will be no need for charcoal filtering once you get the hand of doing propper cuts, and not using those commerical Turbo yeasts, and go with good old fashioned Flieshman's bread yeast and try the Gerber sugar wash, or the Bran flake sugar wash, which is one of my favorites.
The other thing is to not get greedy with your product. When I first started, I didn't want to seperate the heads from hearts ot hearts from the tails, so I got pretty skanky product. Same reason for why I used Turbo for my first wash, to get alot of product.... but terrible tasting product.
Now I take pretty hard cuts, using the several small jars approach. Throw out the first 60 -90 cc's the collect in 8 ounce jars and when you have finished, taste the middle jar and then move up towards the heads and down toward the tails and once it starts to taste bad, that is where you make the cut and save the good stuff and put the other in to the feints jug to add to the next run.
Air out a couple of days, then dilute to 40% ABV and enjoy.
For even better and cleaner product, I have been doing a striping run and then a slwo spirit run. No need to filter at all.
Now this is hard to do with the Air Still as you get about 750cc's of 40% abv so you need to do the same but in maybe 60cc increments.
So if you really want good product, you need to move up to a boiler that at a minumun will hold 12L to 16L, then you can start to understand what this hobby is all about.
So ina very long and round about way, I am saying donlt use the rubber or the charcoal, but build yourself a good unit.
I bought one of those for just under $300, and for that investment, I could have had myself several good home built units, based on some fine and easy to build designs found here on this forum.
The one thing that I have used my airstill for is to make gein essence, where I take nice clean neutral, add the botanicals and let steep for a week to ten days then dilute to between 25 and 40 % and run it in the iar still for a very aromatic gin essence, better than any commercial you can by.