Home Distiller

Aquarium charcoal reads on the packet...............activated charcoal removes odors and particles.

Can I use it for filtering spirits?

if you are going to filter git the right stuff, I hear that stuff is nasty

Dnderhead wrote:if you are going to filter git the right stuff, I hear that stuff is nasty

yes........ I know a guy who tried it. its nasty.

buy the food grade stone carbon. its the best

Fair enough. Thanks for saving me a mistake. But the stuff is so small, how do I effectively remove the dust without losing half my coal?

boil it, strain it, boil it. do that many times till the water comes out clean.

I thank if you stir it up the fines will be suspended and the bigger stuff will settle,then just pore them off

Like these guys said. Do NOT use anything but carbon designed for filtering human drinking water. Mile High sells great stone carbon for cheap! One bag costs like $4.00 and it will filter like 10 gallons of 80proof (if your water is pure). Also I don't pre wash my carbon as I believe you loose some efficiency when you do I just take a gallon glass jar and cover the opening with an unbleached coffee filter as my collection jar.

I had a horrible vision of someone filtering through soft coal dust

To eliminate much of the charcoal from getting into the product, I use a filter that has a few inches of sand on the bottom, and then a few inches of charcoal above that. The sand helps keep that black dust at bay-- you get some but not as much.

""I had a horrible vision of someone filtering through soft coal dust""
much of it is coal ,it has been "baked" that burns out softer parts then steamed leaving it porous .therefor more surface.

you can recycle yer carbon too. throw it in a plain pan (no teflon, or coatings) and cook it till it glows red hot. then wash it real good. do this outside....it stinks. and be careful when you start, all those fumes yer cookin off the carbon are flameable. they will flash.... i found that out first hand, lost some facial hair that day.

Also a good source for activated carbon of extremely high quality is respirator mask filters. I know where I work we toss out brand new unopened ones all the time due to expired shelf life. Pretty sure they will work fine for filtering your hooch after they become outdated though.