Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

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Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

Postby Arismac » Sat Apr 06, 2019 4:24 pm

You good people have got me thinking, again. I have an air still which I only use for distilling water. Could I make a small wash, say 2 litres using something like cracked corn or feed lupins, plus essences from one of the multi flavour packs, then multi still through the air still to produce a drinkable spirit?

The aim is, of course to produce something quite different taste wise. The T500 infuser is good but if you don't like the result it is a lot to throw away. Your thoughts please.
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Re: Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

Postby woodduck » Sat Apr 06, 2019 8:10 pm

It's my understanding that the air still is effectively a pot still so a brown spirit wash should work fine. I would probably stick to a tried and proven recipe to start with but it's totally up to you.
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Re: Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

Postby Wobblyboot » Sat Apr 06, 2019 8:44 pm

Never owned 1 but since it’s a pot still, strip a few times then do spirit run with low wines at 40%
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Re: Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

Postby fizzix » Sun Apr 07, 2019 2:05 am

Lots of folks successfully distill liquor with air stills.
Your cuts won't be sharply detectable as it's a pot still. But big deal.

Do you really want to use essences? I only ask as I used essences of all flavors
when I first started this gig, and never found any of them desirable. That's me, though.
Maybe consider a nice proven mash as woodduck advised instead.
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Re: Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

Postby Arismac » Sun Apr 07, 2019 11:46 am

All very good advice, many thanks. Underneath all this is that our neighbors and us have have found one of the "Gold Medal" essences that we really like. It is a sweet corn bourbon. But some will only drink with Pepsi, while most drink with aqua pura. So the challenge is on to try and reproduce the essence flavour with and without Pepsi.
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Re: Whiskey/bourbon from an air still

Postby dist » Sun Jun 07, 2020 5:40 pm

I know its an old thread, but for sake of anyone asking the same question in the future...

Air still can do ~10% 4L wash -> 1L product @ 40%-45%
Since you cannot control its speed, you get essentially a stripping run, as it is too fast.

When you distill lows the second time, your avg abv will be about 60.

The problem with that approach, is because it operates too fast, the quality of your product deteriorates on the second run.
It is not smooth at all, even after aging on oak.

The only thing that made the result even a bit palatable, was to use essence, but personally I wasn't impressed with the flavors.
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