So, torn between my desire to become introduced to the distilling community, yet due to space constraints and the considerations of my roommates, I settled for an Airstill. That sentence reads like a confession because it is one. I walked into the HBS bright eyed and bushy tailed and came out with a popcorn maker and some B**** ingredients. Mistake #1 was substituting YouTube videos for actual, factual research, interaction, and study - all things that this website offers. I found out too late that I had shot my wad, but like waking up married in Vegas I sucked it up and decided to make the best of it, at least until something better comes along
. Lesson #1 - Spend a lot of time on this website understanding what the start up costs are, what the time commitment is like, and how much more detailed, nuanced, and complicated this hobby can really be. Three months in and I am still finding things to read that I should have read months ago before even Googlemapping the HBS. Conservatively, I recommend at least 30-40 hours study before even looking at still designs, there is that much information to begin to understand and process. Would you buy a car without test driving different models from different dealers? Marry a girl after one date? Considering how much time, effort, and passion distilling can demand spend the TIME upfront, not the cash, and come out ahead.Now, after that fateful day, I spent plenty of $$$ on a 10 ltr fermenter and two 25 ltr fermenters. Including lids, airlocks, electric blanket, utility bucket, food grade funnel, alcohol hydrometer, wash hydrometer, a couple different essences, coffee filters...The like. For a student like myself, the costs were staggering. My over-excitement to just get home and "start making alcohol!" really ended up hurting me in the end, and I was doubly ashamed because I consider myself a very frugal, level-headed person (It takes a certain kind of person to be able to spend all day standing waist deep in freezing water, fly casting into the wind, catch nothing but a cold, then go home and tell everyone what a great day you had on the water - and be telling the truth). Mistake #2, going to the HBS and hardware store full of energy and pipe dreams. Again, after spending time on this website (I cannot stress that point enough - A LOT OF TIME) I realized there is much more that goes into distilling that throwing some S*** into a bucket, waiting a few days before popping it into my cotton-candy machine, then getting Grey Goose out the other end. Lesson #2 - Just like not going grocery shopping on an empty stomach, do not go to the HBS with saucer eyes and visions of opening up your own craft bourbon distillery - not to disparage HBS owners, but they are NOT the Salvation Army and they have bills to pay. If they see someone who is willing to spend money on all the bells, whistles, filters, carbons, yeast additives, and finings than they WILL make a sale. Not their fault, my fault.
My first washes were, typically, Turbo Yeast-Turbo Sugar-Turbo Carbon- Turbo Clear..Probably more Turbo ingredients than that, I just cannot remember what they were. Regardless - they are outrageously pricey. And yes, while they are relatively foolproof, the alcohol they produce out the other end is unworthy of the name. I was distilling paint thinner. Then I was carbon filtering it with a copper-coffee filter-carbon monstrosity of my own creation (Disclaimer - as anyone on this site can attest to, plastic is OFF LIMITS after the fermentation process. No PVC filters, no milk jug collecting jars, no rubber stoppers. Nothing. Ever). The saddest part was I that thought what I was making actually tasted good. I was proud of myself. I could mix spirit & ginger ales and call myself a man. Unfortunately, I was just a sucker. Mistake #3 - Buying or using anything with the word "Turbo" in it. By the time I stumbled accross this website I was a few wash cycles in, a couple hundred bucks down, and convinced I actually knew what I was doing (I was SO smart I substituted regular cane sugar for Turbo Sugar). Lesson #3 - It takes all of 5 seconds on HD to read so many underwhelming and downright slanderous things about Turbo products, that I cannot believe a cease and desist letter has not been issued
. But they do not lie, those products are horrible. They push the yeast too hard, tempt you with high ABV and stupid-simple instructions to "home made" rum, whiskey, vodka (vodka!?!) and leave so many off flavors, chemical tinges, and gross by-products that the result is damn near undrinkable without heaps of filtering and treatment, which cost plenty of money themselves.Finally, about a month into it, I came across HD. And the seas parted. Where I had been lost, I was now found. Where I had been thirsty, I was now quenched. Where I had been spending $30 a wash, I was now spending $12 - and sugar was most all of that cost. I read hungrily and without abandon, I even chucked two 25 ltr washes of Turbo down the drain, starting fresh with one Birdwatcher and one All-Bran. A week later, I was drinking homebrew neutral with coke. Not the best, definitely not the best. But from where I was standing that night, I couldn't even see a Turbo!
I read lots. Then I started inverting my sugar. I read some more. I started racking my washes at least once, and let them clear for a few days, not just overnight. I read this, and I read that. Then I went out and bought 12 jars of baby food, chucked 4 apple-cinnamon-oatmeals into my 10 ltr bucket with 2.5 kgs sugar, a pinch of epsom, a squeeze of a lemon, a healthy pour of yeast...JUST TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN, before using the jars now for making my cuts; first 75 mls down the sink, next 250 mls into feints jar, no questions asked, then the next 5-600 in 50 ml increments. Air overnight, dilute, taste, a couple drops of this, a splash of that - some homebrew, some more into the feints jar for next time. Again, not the best. But better than before. And it kept happening like that and it keeps happening now. There are no leaps and bounds in this hobby, there are few "breakthroughs," and the only shortcut is reading this website. Each run is a bit better than the last. Maybe the product is worse, but a lesson is learned, and that alone makes it a better effort.
One of the realizations I have made, or at least how I have tried to justify my stupid spending spree weeks and weeks ago (or rather, tried to rectify it) is that fermentation is just about half the battle. There are an infinite number of recipes, an infinite number of techniques, of methods, of styles, of ingredients, of tricks and tips...etc, etc. As someone on this site once said (referring to Turbos, no doubt) "Garbage in, garbage out." And that is the motto that I have pledged to distill by. I understand there are some severe limits to what an Airstill can do. Its puny capacity makes distilling any significant amount of alcohol tedious and time consuming, lack of temperature and pressure control hurts any effort at making cuts or controlling the speed for different types of spirits or runs. But I have come to believe that if I only have a 4 ltr pot still to work with, than I better make damn sure that the 4 ltrs of wash I put into there is the absolute best I can come up with, because Im going to need it to be.
To all those Airstillers out there, understand this: If you can begin to understand different washes and recipes, how certain ingredients effect the fermentation, the importance of SG and PH, begin to see the difference in a product made with inverted sugar rather than without, experiment with different yeasts, different starters, different everything...Than by the time you work your way up to a bigger rig, a more serious rig, indeed a "real" still, you'll have all the tools you need (I know I will) to crank out some alright likker. But most importantly, be patient. Read some. Read some more. Ask around. Read even more. Then, if you decide you want to start stillin' jump in knowing you have the knowledge and know-how to make an honest go of it. If you have the time, resources, and space, then by all means I recommend a real set-up - there are plenty of build plans on HD. Really though, if an Airstill is your only option, it ain't so bad, because there is a lot more to this art than "pushing play", so to speak. Lesson #4 - Gotta work with whatcha got.
Good luck
The homebrew shop is the distillers friend. If you made the decision to buy an airstill, then buyer beware... don't blame anyone else or call them dishonest because it doesn't live up to expectations.
