Air still confused

[RockinRockies]

My air still is from Vevor. One gallon. 120V, 750 watt. I'm at my property picking juniper berries to do a test batch for Odin's gin. 100% following his recipe. I'm interested in tinkering.

Here's where I'm confused. I already made super clean, sipping vodka. Twice through five plates, recovering all the feints and filtering. Very tight cuts, It's super clean. I'm amazed at how delicious an all feints run turned out.

Why do I need to reduce the wattage to 300 watts is the neutral is extremely clean? How will smearing be that bad if I dilute to 25% off already clean spirit?

And, if I absolutely must reduce the wattage... How is this achievable? My electrician buddy says I can build an old fan style rheostat inline, 30 amp, between outlet and air still to adjust the wattage. I'm assuming I would adjust it like my propane regulator on my old pot still to adjust power and get the output closer to my needs. Does that make sense?

I don't like gin, but I'm interested in branching out and I like the air still for tinkering and research.

[hawkwing]

I have a 750W and it's too much power to strip rum. It'll puke on some things like the rum. You can buy an SCR voltage regulator pretty cheap and that's what I did. Also turning down the power allows for more reflux and better separation. Running at 750W everything will come out hot to the touch.

For gin it might not matter. And I like Odin's easy gin better than a London dry gin. I was pleasantly surprised. The smearing is a thing when all nasties are still in.

[Tummydoc]

Your electrician friend's suggestion will also slow fan speed reducing condensor function.... bad idea. Use an old computer power cord to plug the fan directly into a power outlet. Plug the airstill into a router speed controller and you can now vary your power input. Speed controllers are about $20 on ebay, higher on Amazon. Reduced power minimizes smearing of macerated flavor compounds. You'll find citrus oils come across first, juniper and corriander later.

[Tummydoc]

I have a 750W and it's too much power to strip rum. It'll puke on some things like the rum. You can buy an SCR voltage regulator pretty cheap and that's what I did. Also turning down the power allows for more reflux and better separation. Running at 750W everything will come out hot to the touch.

For gin it might not matter. And I like Odin's easy gin better than a London dry gin. I was pleasantly surprised. The smearing is a thing when all nasties are still in.

Its an airstill, there is no reflux

[NZChris]

Use the Google Search for power controller.

Note; you should only control the power to the element, not to the fan.

[hawkwing]

I have a 750W and it's too much power to strip rum. It'll puke on some things like the rum. You can buy an SCR voltage regulator pretty cheap and that's what I did. Also turning down the power allows for more reflux and better separation. Running at 750W everything will come out hot to the touch.

For gin it might not matter. And I like Odin's easy gin better than a London dry gin. I was pleasantly surprised. The smearing is a thing when all nasties are still in.

Its an airstill, there is no reflux

Even a simple pot still has some reflux especially if run at low power. Granted it's not much to speak of.

[Sporacle]

Even a simple pot still has some reflux especially if run at low power. Granted it's not much to speak of.

Just so we are all on the same page and to avoid confusion, a reflux still is a reflux and a pot is a pot. Even if a pot has a some tiny bit of passive reflux it is still a pot.
Columns and risers and the such, we all need to refer to things in a consistent manner

[RockinRockies]

Thanks guys! Will do! Looking forward to this experiment

[NormandieStill]

Smearing occurs in gin as well as not all the oils will come over at the same point in the run. It's worth sampling from time-to-time to see the flavour transitions. How much this is a problem will depend on your personal tastes, some of it may well be quite drinkable, but detrimental to the mix. Smearing really hard might push some of those stronger flavours over into the "hearts".

Edit to add: It might be interesting to collect in 10ml jars and blend as you would a base spirit. General consensus of opinion is that for OEG, Odin got the 400ml collection bang on, but maybe when you start playing with the recipe it'd be worth exploring

[RockinRockies]

I just charged the air still with a fan speed controller, 120vac 15 amp
I suspended juniper in stainless loose leaf tea container, added two drops of organic essential orange because I couldn't suspend the peels.
I got the setting at 50% with the temp on the air still at recommended 95°C. hopefully it works. Plan on Collecting 50ml at a time

[ThomasBrewer]

Rockin - Make sure to follow Tummydoc's advice, and only use the controller on the main plug. Disconnect the fan plug and connect that to a separate outlet with an old PC power supply cord. You always want the fan running at full speed.

[RockinRockies]

Rockin - Make sure to follow Tummydoc's advice, and only use the controller on the main plug. Disconnect the fan plug and connect that to a separate outlet with an old PC power supply cord. You always want the fan running at full speed.

Yes sir! Did exactly that. Had to go find a computer plug with the male adapter. Just finished. I had my spirits at 100 proof (then proofed down to 35ish) so my amounts are slightly more, but I collected:
25ml fores ( it kicked on quick, unexpected, even at half power so I turned it to about 20% and by the time I switched jars it filled to 25ml. Oh well)
400ml
50ml
Then 8 jars at 25ml


Unfortunately I'm sick as a dog here with a nasty cold, and sinus infection, going on a week. I can't smell or taste anything. I'll have to wait a few days to blend.

The biggest concern I have is the quality of my juniper berries. I don't think most were worthy but I hand picked them and it's a fun experiment. Thanks again for all the help fellas. I highly recommend this setup as a way to tinker for cheaper than the air still $200 pricetag. This setup only cost me $115 total

[rubberduck71]

What's nice about the AirStill is that each run is ~3 hrs. But it comes at the cost of volume per batch constraint.

When I read about the 1.5 technique on this site, I used it exclusively until upgraded to a larger system for whiskeys, tequilas, rums (not for neutrals). It is a time & space saver & also brings over more flavors from your wash (Odin's Rye Bread recipe was my go-to).

You start with your 4L charge & run it. Consider this your "stripping" run. It would start north of 50% & I'd take it down to ~10-15%. You'll end up with ~1L of low wines.

Empty your boiler, toss in the 1L of low wines & top up with 3L of wash. Now this "spirit" run starts >70%. I'd generally collect 9-11 beakers @ 150 mL each. From that I'd generally get 600 mL of hearts + 800 mL of feints. Keep tossing the feints into the next run until you run out of wash (generally 5-6 total for a 25L fermenter bucket). Keep the feints from the last run for your next new batch. Each 25L batch would yield ~3L of hearts.

Good luck, have fun, keep reading. Tried & True Recipes are your new best friend.

Duck

[RockinRockies]

Still can't smell yet. Nasty sinus infection, finally on anti biotics. Never had a sinus infection before. Dang. Been out 8+ days.

I did pick up coriander seeds this time instead of powder.
Second batch of 1750L Odin's now macerating at 86 proof.

Got the air still dialed in and going to run a once run 1 gallon rum as slow as possible

[BadodaFremont]

What's nice about the AirStill is that each run is ~3 hrs. But it comes at the cost of volume per batch constraint.

When I read about the 1.5 technique on this site, I used it exclusively until upgraded to a larger system for whiskeys, tequilas, rums (not for neutrals). It is a time & space saver & also brings over more flavors from your wash (Odin's Rye Bread recipe was my go-to).

You start with your 4L charge & run it. Consider this your "stripping" run. It would start north of 50% & I'd take it down to ~10-15%. You'll end up with ~1L of low wines.

Empty your boiler, toss in the 1L of low wines & top up with 3L of wash. Now this "spirit" run starts >70%. I'd generally collect 9-11 beakers @ 150 mL each. From that I'd generally get 600 mL of hearts + 800 mL of feints. Keep tossing the feints into the next run until you run out of wash (generally 5-6 total for a 25L fermenter bucket). Keep the feints from the last run for your next new batch. Each 25L batch would yield ~3L of hearts.

Good luck, have fun, keep reading. Tried & True Recipes are your new best friend.

Duck

First I've heard of the 1.5 technique. I used it this weekend. Ran apple cider from my trees through my air still. Thanks for bringing it up!