Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

PM sent mate (solar power aint an Airstill ;-) )

Frank wrote:PM sent mate (solar power aint an Airstill ;-) )

Yes I realise that :handgestures-thumbupleft: But as I understand your original post you are using your solar powered/generated electricity to "drive" your Airstill for free :dance:

- thanks for the PM - useful Statistics for NZ and Philippines were I also live/commute.

Can I join this club? I recently bought an Air still and will run my first wash though it next weekend.

Shame they don't make a 30 liter airstill. :handgestures-thumbdown: Modifications anyone? Not having owned one I don't know whether you could possibly attach a bigger tank. Make a dandy potstill substitute.

warramungas wrote:Shame they don't make a 30 liter airstill. :handgestures-thumbdown: Modifications anyone? Not having owned one I don't know whether you could possibly attach a bigger tank. Make a dandy potstill substitute.

I can't see the difficulty in building something like that - to make it easy use an off-the-shelf boiler, then make a head with a copper coil, preferably with fins, add a fan and bob's your uncle. I would be amazed it it hasn't been tried somewhere. I am not entirely sure but scaling up may make it less efficient.

This thread seems to have died, but I thought I would relate something I have just discovered.

I was getting a poor yield, I use a water distiller and hence the boiler is more powerful than an alcohol distiller. (570Watts)

Technically this is supposed to not matter as, well the alcohol boils off before the water right? In other words there is a "window of opportunity".

I began to suspect that the distillate was exiting the still too warm (actually hot) and that I was getting the angels drunk at my cost.

Well, I recently received an SCR controller earmarked for my new MacBoka so lashed it up to control my Air still - full power to get up to drip and then half power for both strip and spirit.

I seem to have doubled my yield, doubled my ABV (same thing by the way don't get excited), and the distillate exits the nozzle at room temperature meaning I can catch the magic 20% mark immediately.

On top of that the spirit seems to be cleaner even though this is just a strip/spirit run (as opposed to the triple distil I have been doing).

Down side: at least twice the time maybe more - I have been processing a 23L batch for 2 days - That's ok when you are retired like me but...

Bundaboy wrote:That's ok when you are retired like me but...

i thought my 7 hours on a 28L single run (whiskey run) with a 2" bubbler was a long time. 2 days whoa :scared-eek:

WTDist wrote:

Bundaboy wrote:That's ok when you are retired like me but...

i thought my 7 hours on a 28L single run (whiskey run) with a 2" bubbler was a long time. 2 days whoa :scared-eek:

Yeah, it WAS an experiment and proved a point, but you can read elsewhere what happened at the death...
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7581&p=157277#p157277

I should add I have a couple of days of filtering to do now - there HAS to be a better way of doing that!

kobold wrote:thank you guys, you are awesome (did i just say awesome?). i will contribute as i go. i am making kombucha wine and some or all of it will go into the still :pray: i will post about that for sure, in a month.

i forgot to say, the rum recipe above can be used for whisky by swapping to malt extract or spray malt.

Did you end up stilling the kombucha wine? How did it turn out. I know someone that makes it and the thought has crossed my mind once or twice...

Is there any plastic in ethanol path vapour/liquid in an airstill?

The entire thing is plastic

On outside watched couple teardowns seems all stainless inside :think:

Mine was plastic all the way

bluc wrote:Is there any plastic in ethanol path vapour/liquid in an airstill?

I've got a Still Spirits model. Its all stainless along the vapour path. It came with a plastic attachment clipped on the output end, I just threw that away. I believe there is a 'water distiller' model which has a fair bit of plastic.

Thinking it may be good for macerated gin and clearing infusions..
:think:

Was good for running old port through

Bought an airstill to try for gin. Vapour pisses out everywhere if I undervolt using my controller then fan on top also slows down and vapour still pisses out. What am I missing?

Small change run fan on its own plug and undervolted it to about a 3rd bought it under control. Mine is a cheap ebay one not a still spirits model. 750w I believe. Safe enough now.

But if people buy these and use them as is especially in caravans they are extremely risky.. :angry-banghead: