Home Distillation Made Easy!
swill
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That sounds pretty cool Jimmy. I suppose your final spirit is running out at around 80%?
I've got 24L of wash sitting in the fermenter right now at around 20%. So when it clears in a week I'll do 6 runs, collect 6 litres in all, split it in two lots of 3 litres, add around a litre of H2O to each and run them through again, this time collecting (after removing 100mls heads), say 2 litres at around 80%. Sound about right?
Jimmy
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Yeah, if you measure the ABV before the second run then you can use the calculator to work out an exact yield and it tends to be pretty much accurate in my experience. If I triple distill I have got it up to 87% or so which isn't bad, obviously depends on what you put in at the beginning but 65 - 80% is reasonable for a cheapo tomato wash.
swill
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Righto, I'll do it that way for sure. When you say calculator is that an online one somewhere or just a hand held one with a formula? Forgive me for asking all these questions but what's the formula?
Jimmy
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No problem, ask as many as you like!
The best way is to check here:
http://www.stillsmart.co.uk/smartstill/how-do-i-make-alcohol-with-my-smartstill/
There is a link to the calculator but also the correct settings, about halfway down the page.
swill
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I changed my mind this afternoon and ran off 4 litres as an experiment. I discarded the first 100mls and collected 700mls. It came out @ 60%. Clear as rainwater and no smell at all. I added 300mls to make a litre @ 40%, took out 300mls and added a Samuel Willard's Kafe express pre-mix. (Safe). Wow! So good.
Then I took off another 700mls and added it into the next run. Distilling now. I'm gonna make some SS classic premium whiskey. I'm pretty fussy with scotch (no mixer, sometimes ice) so I'll let you all know how it goes.
Jimmy
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You should be able to get away with discarding less, some say as little as 5ml but I tend to go around 50ml personally - experiment and see what you think!
Ronbo
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Agree with Jimmy here, the 100mL discard quantity usually refers to a 25Litre run by those with column type stills.
With an air-still, you probably only need to dump about 15 to 20 mL down the drain 'the Devil's share'
But you need to do it each time.
Ciao.
swill
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Thanks for those ideas gents,
I discarded about 50mls on the second run. Adding the tails to the next wash was pretty good, distillate came out at 65% this time. There was a very faint sweetish aroma to the distillate that I picked up even after I added the SS classic whiskey essence. Now I'm gonna strip the rest of the wash (16L) and then double distil it, dilute to 40% and then filter it.
swill
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Well I didn't end up filtering it, just wasn't warranted. Came out at 80% and clean and pure and odourless. So I made vodka, very nice, more scotch, don't know yet, and drambuie, oh my goat!! Lovely.
I'm so happy with my new ss airstill.
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