Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Let's say I made a standard tomato paste wash, and put it through a still that easily does 95.5%+ABV, and aggressive cuts are made. Does carbon filtering still make much of a difference? Say I left the 40%ABV neutral with some carbon in a jar for a couple of weeks.

And, do stripping runs make much of a difference with such a still? Or is carbon filtering and stripping runs only truly beneficial for stills that don't do anything near an azeotrope?

Oh, and one last thing. All other things remaining equal, will a still that produces alcohol at, say, 90%ABV give much more of a hangover than a still that produces an azeotrope?

Yes, Maybe, Yes, Not necessarily.

SMOKEU wrote:will a still that produces alcohol at, say, 90%ABV give much more of a hangover than a still that produces an azeotrope?

Both stills will produce fores, heads, hearts and tails, The size of the hangover or the lack of will be dependent on how well you learn to make your cuts.
Like all things with stilling there are no short cuts or quick ways of making anything good.

It all depends on your taste buds.
Turbos through a 70% ABV Still spirits still then Carbon filtered tasted Great

Then when I had a VM that could do 95% + ABV I thought My turbos were tasteless and so stopped filtering .
(I couldn't taste any difference at that stage between filtered and not filtered because the difference was so dramatically different from before)

I switched to TPW washes and suddenly my Unfiltered Turbos tasted crap in comparison

I switched to WBAB (Weetbix all bran) and it had a preferable taste to the TPW

There is residual taste at 95% + .....sometimes its OK ...sometimes it not .

The doctor carbon filters his Neutral as do some other manufacturers ....I don't , I'm happy now ...but then I was in the first place too :wtf:

I think If I now tried carbon filtering I may again realize a difference .

Stripping runs followed by a spirit run will always produce a cleaner product.

Think about it, say you get 95%, the remaining 5% has got to be something, and this something has flavour. So when you strip, then water down the water will hold more of the flavours out of the spirit as it's then thinned out and less noticeable.. I have tried TPW single run through 5 plates and 500mm copper packing and it was not as clean as I would have hoped, but when I stripped and re ran it was clean as could be (at least as i could notice)

Stripping wash before running for neutral makes a big difference no matter what the still.

Carbon filtering will make your spirit cleaner and it's up to you wether you do it. It all depends if your happy with the product or not?

Some guys chase clean pure vodka and good luck to them.

I don;t really care for vodka so carbon filtering seems pointless to me, I like to get a nice spirit then put it on oak ;-)

There's been some very good feedback so far. Does anyone here add carbon to their wash? I usually add around 2/3 of a cup of carbon for a 23L wash.

Have you EVER seen ANYBODY here recommend adding carbon to a wash?

Nah mate, not to the wash.. thats hbs bullshit :handgestures-thumbupleft:

You may benefit adding to distilled and cut neutal spirit but will do sfa for a wash 8-}

Zak Griffin wrote:Have you EVER seen ANYBODY here recommend adding carbon to a wash?

Not on here. I'm not saying the following link is either right or wrong, I just want to discuss it from a scientific perspective.

"Another trick is to add some activated carbon to the wash (eg with the sugar) for during the fermentation period. This will take out the cogeners as they form. Just make sure that you filter/decant off this carbon with the yeast, so that it doesnt go into the still (and release the nasties when heated). Its a good way of reusing older carbon that has been used & washed several times, and may be losing its effectivness."

http://homedistiller.org/distill/polish

Second to last paragraph.

I have used carbon a couple of times in the wash,results where the bottom of the fermenter and spoon stirer got scratched and stained black,was messy ,and not a noticeable difference in end product .But that was when i used turbos which seem to need a lot more work to clean up.I use carbon only once ,unless ya know what ya doing cleaning carbon I think over use runs the risk of adding shite back into ya product.2steps forward 1step back.cheers hillzabilly

Have ya read this viewtopic.php?f=47&t=1888 plenty to read in this library.hillzabilly

before joining this forum most my info came from a hbs, my local hbs told me not to use carbon in the wash as any residue may start corrosion and prematurely were my equipment out, i dont know if he was right or wrong but its not something i want to test (another product he talked me out of :handgestures-thumbupleft: )

oops dont want to test :angry-banghead:

Hey guys. Did a few stripping runs this week and I may get to run a slowed spirit run tomorrow. I noticed tonight as I took a sample of the strip to test for % that there was a noticeable amount of nasties floating on the top. I was wondering if there is any benefit from charcoal filtering before the spirit run? I filter the final product anyways.
It’s probably my mind trying to complicate my life more ,it likes to do that
Thanks in advance for advise.

I would of thought that you would only filter after a slow and steady spirit run, after all the slow spirit run should do a fair amount of the cleaning up. The filter should in my mind do a better job when the spirit is already somewhat polished rather than all shaggy.
Ive never been one to filter though so thats just my thoughts. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Tin chucked I am with dan...filtering a strip will just waste ya charcoal. I don't filter either just rely on cuts.

Sorry, but what sort of floaties from what wash?
I have only done sugar washes so far, so the concept that something can survive being turned to steam and reform seems odd to me
Rum?

Thanks guys ,i thought so.
Sorry rc ,i was talking about the fusil oils i just couldnt come up with the right words.
I also am doing sugar washes.

Hi Tim, you won't need to as you wont be running that deep into tails and your still should be compacting the fractions enough to keep all fusels dropping back to the boiler during your spirit run.