Home Distiller

How are you guys filtering?
I plan on putting a rinsed charcoal (homemade) into a permanent coffee filter lined with a paper filter.
But I havent even made the damn still yet!

Why are you planning to filter. When you haven't built a still yet? You should be thinking about building a still setup and tried and true recipes that you won't need to filter.

Well, I work as a Liquor Batchmaker. I filter through carbon filters there. and I've seen other distilleries filter similar to what I planned on doing, if I felt it nessasary after a few test batches.

And I just wanted some input on how others were doing it, and if they were at all.

@ RedRum,

If you have a correctly designed Still, operated the Still correctly, prepare and ferment the mash wash correctly there is no need filter the sprit product to obtain a quality sprit product.

Regurds,
Coaster

After proofing I have been throwing a couple of chunks of washed and dried bbq lump charcoal into quart jars for a few days. Just trying to get some of that old moonshine flavor out of it. This is after the toasted wood chip soak to give it some color and some flavor. Then I strain it through double cheese cloth. Makes it a bit more drinkable I think. Course it could just be my imagination.

my big mouth has no filter and my liver tries to keep up.. when it fails, all the dirty stuff comes pouring out

bigwheel wrote:After proofing I have been throwing a couple of chunks of washed and dried bbq lump charcoal into quart jars for a few days. Just trying to get some of that old moonshine flavor out of it. This is after the toasted wood chip soak to give it some color and some flavor. Then I strain it through double cheese cloth. Makes it a bit more drinkable I think. Course it could just be my imagination.

You might want to throw the charcoal in before the toasted wood soak. The charcoal will remove some color. I'd try it once atleast...

All I use is one unbleached coffee filter after it is done aging to keep the charcoal bits out.

i just put it in the spirits and leave it,
taste it every so often untill you get what you want or can handle,
i had some screw ups that i fixed by leaving the charcoal in it for up to a year,
it was from home made wine that was undrinkable,

I made a pretty cool filter out of the tube from a keg.
I turn the dip tube upside down, put the ball in a coffee filter and drop it in. The crimps will hold it from falling through.
Then I fill'er up with carbon... fish tank kind.
After trickling through, it seems to work pretty good.

RumBrewer wrote:I made a pretty cool filter out of the tube from a keg.
I turn the dip tube upside down, put the ball in a coffee filter and drop it in. The crimps will hold it from falling through.
Then I fill'er up with carbon... fish tank kind.
After trickling through, it seems to work pretty good.

This is not good. fish stuff can have some contaminants that you dont want in spirit grade stuff. Also may not have the correct micro and macro pore sizes to remove the parts that you would want to remove if you are determined to use carbon on your spirits.

I used carbon filter when I cook with turbo yeast, but I have switch to baker yeast and I have found that you do not need to filter when you cook with baker yeast. The stuff comes out so much cleaner when using bakers yeast.

frozenthunderbolt wrote: This is not good. fish stuff can have some contaminants that you dont want in spirit grade stuff. Also may not have the correct micro and macro pore sizes to remove the parts that you would want to remove if you are determined to use carbon on your spirits.

Link to better option?

RumBrewer wrote:

frozenthunderbolt wrote: This is not good. fish stuff can have some contaminants that you dont want in spirit grade stuff. Also may not have the correct micro and macro pore sizes to remove the parts that you would want to remove if you are determined to use carbon on your spirits.

Link to better option?

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=27971

Link to better option?

http://www.brewhaus.com/Activated-Carbon-C90.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

fullhouse wrote:Link to better option?

http://www.brewhaus.com/Activated-Carbon-C90.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Thanks! Just what I was after!

if you buy the small charcoal water filters at most big box stores you can cut off the plastic outsides and you find that they are a pipe shape,
about 1 inch center hole with 1 inch wall tube,

all you need to do is plug the bottom with copper and pour spirits down the center hole,
super fast and easy, and sold almost everywhere,

white_likker1 wrote:

RumBrewer wrote:

frozenthunderbolt wrote: This is not good. fish stuff can have some contaminants that you dont want in spirit grade stuff. Also may not have the correct micro and macro pore sizes to remove the parts that you would want to remove if you are determined to use carbon on your spirits.

Link to better option?

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=27971

Thats a nice simple filter white likker but if you could make the spirit enter the bottom and exit at the top like on a parrot it would be more effective as when it runs downwards like you are doing now the spirit tracks through the path of least resistance in the carbon.

retlaw wrote:if you buy the small charcoal water filters at most big box stores you can cut off the plastic outsides and you find that they are a pipe shape,
about 1 inch center hole with 1 inch wall tube,

all you need to do is plug the bottom with copper and pour spirits down the center hole,
super fast and easy, and sold almost everywhere,

Not that I'd ever advocate mixing plastic and booze, but Britta Water pitchers are quite effective..... so I've heard.
Side note to that, want to see why you don't mix plastic and booze? Pour 92% alcohol in a britta pitcher. It almost immediately cracks the pitcher. But you could cut open the cartridge and just use the charcoal.

RumBrewer wrote:

retlaw wrote:if you buy the small charcoal water filters at most big box stores you can cut off the plastic outsides and you find that they are a pipe shape,
about 1 inch center hole with 1 inch wall tube,

all you need to do is plug the bottom with copper and pour spirits down the center hole,
super fast and easy, and sold almost everywhere,

Not that I'd ever advocate mixing plastic and booze, but Britta Water pitchers are quite effective..... so I've heard.
Side note to that, want to see why you don't mix plastic and booze? Pour 92% alcohol in a britta pitcher. It almost immediately cracks the pitcher. But you could cut open the cartridge and just use the charcoal.

Not to be riding your ass here man, but there are also people who have ended up with blue spirits as the booze leached colourings out. The only two possible and acceptable uses for a britta filter are to clean the water that you cut your spirit with, or at the outside as a weird way to buy safe carbon (once you have removed EVERY trace of plastic)

frozenthunderbolt wrote:

RumBrewer wrote:

retlaw wrote:if you buy the small charcoal water filters at most big box stores you can cut off the plastic outsides and you find that they are a pipe shape,
about 1 inch center hole with 1 inch wall tube,

all you need to do is plug the bottom with copper and pour spirits down the center hole,
super fast and easy, and sold almost everywhere,

Not that I'd ever advocate mixing plastic and booze, but Britta Water pitchers are quite effective..... so I've heard.
Side note to that, want to see why you don't mix plastic and booze? Pour 92% alcohol in a britta pitcher. It almost immediately cracks the pitcher. But you could cut open the cartridge and just use the charcoal.

Not to be riding your ass here man, but there are also people who have ended up with blue spirits as the booze leached colourings out. The only two possible and acceptable uses for a britta filter are to clean the water that you cut your spirit with, or at the outside as a weird way to buy safe carbon (once you have removed EVERY trace of plastic)

That's what I'm saying!
The pitchers are NOT alcohol safe! Not even a little!

Questions.

1.) Is it better to carbon filter 89% ABV and then dilute or the already diluted 43% ABV, or does it not matter?
2.) Does the filtration change the ABV?
3.) Do I have to remove the carbon after use and let it dry out? Or is it OK to leave it in the tube?
4.) How long does the carbon last?
5.) What does the carbon remove ( the stuff I filtered was cloudy and very vanilla, but the filtered spirit was clear tasteless and odorless.) Does any of the properties of the Vanilla and Saffron make it through the filter?

These sites should answer some of your questions.
http://www.carbochem.com/activatedcarbon101.html#Types" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
http://www.norit-americas.com/carbon-se ... /beverages" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Sounds like a waste of perfectly good and expensive vanilla beans.