Home Distillation Made Easy!
Alchemist
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Has anyone tried filtering with a basic pitcher style water filter, like a brita or pur? The replacements are kind of expensive, but it seems like an easy solution and nice to keep some refrigerated supply on hand.
Opus 27
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Theres quite a few no can do's there. Firstly Arylic Jugs such as Brita are not suitable for alcohol as the spirit will leech things out of the plastic in fact plastics aren't good for storing alcohol full stop. Not sure about the filling in those cartidges but everything I've read say's there unsuitable for alcohol. I think theres actually a thread somewhere on the forum about this.
Opus 27
Phantom
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there's little or no data about what actually goes into the britta filter elements, or what it does to water when it goes through it.......
So as per what Opus says, I certainly wouldn't chance using one for alcohol, after all it's good for getting hammered, but it's also one hell of a good solvent.......
Not sure if the britta jugs are acrylic, or whether they're polycarbonate. PC can be used with wine making, but only really for fermentation. If it's something that will need to be aged, it's always recommended to move it over to glass or stainless.....
Bottleofrum
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There is a main post on stillsmart website about this.
Jimmy
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There is indeed, and it took me bloody ages so please do read that first! :)
Opus 27
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Knew I'd seen it somewhere thanks Jimmy I've now read it again. It gives Ancient 1 more info than I could.
Opus 27
Alchemist
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Thanks Jimmy, I have the forum bookmarked and had skipped past the main blog. Sorry for not finding that before I posted. Great article, and I decided it is just as easy to toss in a few tablespoons of activated carbon that I par-boil. I got some great results from that, the difference was night and day from unfiltered stuff.
I soaked it for about a week, shaking the bottle occasionally throughout. Then I ran it through a tea filter to clear out the charcoal coloring. The only thing I noticed is there was a slight metallic or carbon aftertaste. I am going to try using less and filter out a couple days earlier.
Opus 27
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For curiosities sake I've just tried the method of putting carbon into the spirit. I normally use a Z Filter which takes about 150-170 grms of carbon and will filter 10 litres of 40% spirit effectively. I had 1.5 Litres of spirit that had not been filtered so decided to dump some carbon in and see what hapened. Not really having a clue how much carbon to use I put in 60 grms. Although there was hardly any smell to the spirit to start with I think I could detect a slight improvement after 2 days. However when I came to filter the spirit off the carbon I found the biggest pitfall of this method. I used two layers of coffee filters to filter it and although it looked clear after two passes I found I was still getting carbon residue on the filter paper after four passes. The final pass, number 5, was clean. Each pass used fresh filter papers.
Opus 27
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Opus,
From what I have been trying, I think the size of the vessel matters too (I know! that's what she said).
When I tried soaking the carbon in a 750ml bottle and twisting up and down, it worked miraculous after 1 week.
Next, I tried shaking around 2.25 liters in a big jug (4liters). Although the portions were he same, this batch still doesn't taste too great.
I think it would be perfect if there was an hour-glass shaped vessel that you could rotate a few times a day. It would be the best combo of soaking and filtering at the same time.
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