The “air” still - distilling as easy as making a pot of coffee

on this episode of doing the most we're going to talk about one form of distilling that we missed covering in our distillation video and that is the air still this is VI's air still it is a water distillation system and that's because as this slide is about to tell you you should really check your local and National laws before distilling anything other than [Music] water but now that we've got that out of the way let's talk about this thing so you've seen potentially our other video on distillation and three different ways you can distill spirits and if you haven't seen that video I'll put a link to it in the description on this video but in this one we're talking about one way that you in the comments and on Discord let me know that I missed which was air still distilling so this isn't using a reflex still or a pot still and it's not freeze jacking using fractional freezing in order to concentrate certain compounds from a liquid but an air still does work very similarly to a pot still and I'm going to show you how that works here in a minute [Music] so big thanks to viver for helping out with this video they provided the device that I could use to show you all how this works we do have a promo code check that out link is in the description so you can pick one of these up for yourself this is beaver still and as you can see this one has been put through the paces in the week since it arrived here I've run about 10 gallons worth of stuff through this and so it uh it's been thoroughly tested at this point so this here is your Reservoir the pot essentially of your pot still type device and this is where the liquid goes inside of here is a heating element that turns things into steam and inside of here is the cooling and condensing mechanism that condenses the steam back into liquid so both of these are powered as you can see there's this little kind of daisy chain that connects the top to the bottom part and I'll warn you to be careful when you're putting this on the still make sure to hold this up above so it doesn't accidentally go into your liquid I know that from experience so hold that up and then put it on it goes on like this and then the daisy chain plugs in down there this part plugs into the wall the disadvantage to an air still of this size is you can only run about 3 and 3/4 L worth of liquid through it I learned pretty quickly not to fill it up to the full line because then you will get puking and puking is when solids come up through your still and get into the reservoir that you're distilling into and a lot of times that looks like murkiness cloudiness color something like that getting into that Reservoir setting it up is super simple you just pop the top on plug the daisy chain in and then plug the thing into the wall crazy easy and it's got a digital display on the front so it's pretty simple simple to set the temperature and the time that you want to run it for and let it [Music] ride distilling with a countertop air is kind of like making coffee you set it and mostly forget it this thing does use charcoal filters and those are up in here so you just kind of Pop That loose there you are filters in there and I was running about 5 gallons of time on one of those filters and seem to work just fine basic safety things with this model again you want to be aware of where that daisy chain cord is so it doesn't end up in your liquid you don't want to overfill it cuz like I said earlier it can lead to puking it can also lead to the top of the unit kind of lifting off and some of your Vapor escaping so again just don't fill it all the way up to the fill line and then I found great success in running it kind of low and slow as you ease up into the distill in temperature range which is generally about 200 to 210° F couple of other things whatever remains inside of here after distilling is done is going to be very hot so please be cautious about that don't burn yourself when you're emptying it out also this thing's going to get crazy gunked up on the inside especially if whatever you've put in there has a bunch of solids or Yeast or whatever and so my recommendation wipe it down as soon as you're done but a magic eraser works wonders to get that stuck on Gunk off of there it took about 4 hours to run 5 gallons through this in what's called a stripping run the stripping run is essentially trying to get all the alcohol out as fast and efficiently as you can and then it took about another hour and a half to run the spirit run which is when you put all of your distance it back into the still and run it again very slowly so that way you maximize your gains and that way you don't get any puking or vapor loss on your spirit run so in the typical distilling process with a pot or reflex still you'd be also running low and slow so you could make cuts and pull out the flavor from the heart of your distillate so you get the best tasting batch to blend everything together right from the good stuff in the middle there's a lot more information about that in our other distilling video and making Cuts is not really something I would recommend on an air still because the quantity that you're running through is so incredibly small so what I would recommend to do if you were going to you know dream about running Spirits through this thing is that you should run it out to about 40% ABV once you get any below that you're going to start getting more and more water content from the Tails of your distillation so when this stripping runs you'll run it until you start to dip below 40% ABV then cut it off and save that for a Spirit Run and then in the spirit run you're looking to run it low and slow and collect about half of your initial starting volume so say you started with 3,000 ml from your stripping run after your spirit run you should end up with around 1,500 ML and that will be in the roughly 75 to 80% ABV range and I I have to put out a quick disclaimer for all you air still experts who are eager to get at me in the comments afterward this is going to be a very very basic primer on countertop distillation so drop a comment if there's anything you think I missed but I beg you air still experts for your grace as I walk folks through this beginner guide so with all that context out there and I know it's a lot of information that you might need to double back through later let's actually look at setting up the still and what it looks like to run it so you basically start by getting everything plugged in and then put your liquid of choice inside the reservoir aiming to not overfill past the fill Line Pop the top back on and based on having run about 10 gallons worth of stuff through here I can tell you your best case scenario is to start by setting it at 190° F and then once it reach reaches that temperature Let It Go for 2 to 3 minutes bump it up to 195 Let It Go for 2 or 3 minutes once it reaches that temperature Let It Go for 2 or 3 minutes and then bump it up another 5° and so on until you eventually reach 21° F which is 1° below boiling water starting it out well below distl it comes out and then gradually gradually increasing that temperature gives you a slower kind of run up into the distl it coming out and what you're looking for is a steady trickle you don't want to be pouring distill it out you don't want a very very slow drop just kind of a steady trickle of drops tells you you're in the right temperature range and again that's going to be between 200 and 210° fah once the still hits about 200° some distl it going to start coming out and in the stripping runs I would advise to to just go ahead and toss the first ounce to 1 and 1/2 oz that comes off the air still there's some kind of nasty stuff in there and it's better to just get rid of it and mostly you don't want those flavors in your final product and in the spirit run you can be pretty comfortable just running out the first 2 ounces throw that out and then collect the rest of the distill it from the spirit run you are going to need a proofing hydrometer if you dare run Spirits through an air still you can pick one of those up on Amazon I'll put a link in the description these are made to measure the alcohol by volume of distilled Spirits it's the only thing they're good for they won't work in your wine meor cider or beer there's a different hydrometer for that but it's super handy for this so you know exactly where your ABV is when it comes out of the still and when you start proofing it down to hit whatever ABV you want it proofed down to because you're going to end up with something 70 to 80 ABV and you're probably going to want it in the range of 40 to 50 ABV and you can do that with spring water or distilled water so once we start to dip below 40% ABV we know we're done with that run and we can move on to the next one after 5 gallons of wine or meat or beer or whatever go through here you're going to end up with about 3 l worth of 40% avv liquid to run back through for your spirit run and here I'm just demonstrating a way that if you were going to use this to make distilled Spirits you could use it to make a schnaps like peppermint schnaps by just putting 10 candy canes on the rack that is included with the air still and leaving them in when you do the spirit run or you could just run the spirit run through for a neutral spirit so for your spirit run you'll put all that 40% alcohol into the reservoir of your air still and then this time unlike the stripping run I would advise you to raise the temperature every 2° instead of every 5° so run it up to 190 let it sit for a few minutes run it up to 192 let it sit for a few minutes run it up up to 194 and so on that way you're very very slowly raising that temperature and like I said this should take about an hour and a half to 2 hours for the Spirit Run where it took 4 hours to do 5 gallons worth in the stripping run but it's important to really take time with the spirit run so you can run out about half the volume that you did for your stripping run and measuring that that should be between 70 and 80 ABV for demonstration purposes we're showing this at 75% ABV and then you can just proof it down I had chat GPT walk me through the equation for how much liquid would be needed in order to proof this down and for me that was about 780 mL of filtered water after that just bottle away the air still provides a lot less control than you would have with a pot still or a reflex still but the tradeoff is that that it's almost as easy to distill as it is to you know make a pot of coffee the thing doesn't take up a whole lot of real estate and so I'm happy about that and you can use it for distilled water for distilling Botanicals making essential oils or you can dream about distilling hard liquor I also do like that I have significantly less safety concern running an air still versus say a pot still I may have set a pot still on fire before it's a it's an it's we don't talk about that's just not a thing I feel like I'm ever going to experience with this air stilt particularly because the heat mechanism doesn't actually touch the liquid and so there's very little risk of your liquid actually catching on fire because there's not a heating element inside of here it's beneath and it's got these silicon gaskets that keep it pretty well sealed as long as you haven't overfilled it or run it too hot overall I am very pleased with with this air still I wish I had included it in my previous distilling video but here it is content's here and you can refer to this video if you're interested in picking up one for yourself and a reminder we have a discount code so you can get some money off of your order of a viver air still check the link in the description for more details on that if you like this video hit that subscribe button ring that notification Bell so you don't miss any of our upcoming content on here and I know that I gave a very Bare Bones and basic covering of air still distilling and I left a lot out and that's because there are a lot of beginners watching this video and I don't want to beat anyone over the head with information they don't necessarily need but if you're an air still expert of course I welcome your comments down in the comment section tips and tricks and recipes throw them at me until next time happy fermenting and air stilling and [Music] cheers B creation fermentation irriation doing the most

Channel: Doin' the Most Brewing

Views: 5,464

Keywords: cider, cyser, maplejack, freeze distill, distillation, freeze, homebrew, homebrewing, maple, wine, howitsmade, hard cider, honeyjack, honey jack, distilled mead, honey vodka, maple brandy, honey brandy, brewing history, historical cocktails, jack rose cocktail, cocktail recipes, homemade brandy, homemade spirits, fractional crystallization, freezer jack, sugar jack, fruit wine, cidermaking, homebrew for beginners, stillit, distill at home, distill dorm

Id: X7bWoyFuf4U

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023