Hi Carol,
Thank you for your response to my first post as a newbie, I've had some good replies.
I have a ton to learn and had a double take when I read about CFW and Nutrigrain .... My research begins today, I love to experiment. So when I learn about cuts, heads, hearts, and CFW etc your post will make more sense. I am looking forward to it.
If I do have questions for you, how do I ask you? This is my first forum and it's very different to messaging or texting. Thanks Carol,
Cheers,
Steve
Carol wrote:Hi Steve
I have had a air still for over ten years and recently upgraded to a FSD 2" Boka and Pot.
Initially I used turbo and did not make cuts but at the time I thought I was doing pretty well. It tasted OK as far as I could tell, particularly when i was using essences from the Home Brew shop or strong flavours like coffee. I have learned a lot since joining this forum.
There are things that you can do to make your air still work better for you.
First thing I learned was that the air still was essentially a pot still - so whatever flavour (good or bad) goes in - that is what comes out. So if you make a better wash you get a better product.
So a cereal based wash like Cornflake Whisky is going to work pretty well. Turbo yeast tends to produce not so good flavours and once you have them it is hard to get rid of them ( I know that from experience!). CFW will give you a mild cornflake flavour which is not harsh and it is easy and cheap to make.
The diagram that is Japanese to you now shows you how to improve the product by distilling it twice. So you run the wash through the air still and then save the distillate. Then you dilute the wash and run it again and this time you make "cuts" so you save the distillate in jars in smaller quantities. Then you smell and taste it and try to distinguish the different flavours. So you will have heads and hearts and tails. Once I discovered this method I re-ran the Turbo distillate that had been in the cupboard for a very long time and it made a huge difference to the quality of the final product.
In the Newbies section there is a guide to cuts which is very helpful. If you use a good wash and make good cuts then filtering is not necessary.
Feel free to ask me any questions about the air still and I will try to answer them. It is good fun and with a few tweaks you can improve the final product.
Cheers
Carol