Using the Air Still - Making your wash, distilling, and using essences.

hi I'm Richard from labrie we have a retail outlet here in Chesterfield and one in Liverpool and hopefully you will have seen us on the Internet as well we'd like to talk to you today about the S tilt this is an exciting new venture and it's a way of making your own alcohol your own distilled alcohol to be able to make your own spirit I think you need to check the legality of making your own alcohol there is a disclaimer at the end of the video and there is one on the website as well so depending on where you're based you need to look at this so the first thing we've got to do is we've got to start by making some alcohol and what we're going to do is we're going to use a fermentation and they they call it that the spirit people call it a wash so we're going to make a wash using some special yeast and we're going to use either six bags of sugar or seven bags of glucose powder brewing sugar the brown sugar will produce a slightly cleaner taste to the spirit the sugar is obviously slightly better value for money the choice is yours as to what you do if you're looking for maximum quality I would strongly recommend using the glucose powder if you're looking for value for money and use sugar perhaps it might be worth trying it both ways and you make the decision after you've tried it so what we're going to do is we're going to take 21 litres of water and we're then going to add our sugar to it so if you bear with me all the equipment that we're using is beautifully clean and in most cases we would recommend that you sterilize it as well using a recognised cleaner sterilizer one thing we would always recommend is if you've got a bucket without graduations measure out 21 litres and 25 litres and just mark it with a black pen on your bucket we're just going to take the temperature of that now and to make sure we're somewhere in the region of where we want to be yep we're up to 30 so we're just about right for that now one thing to bear in mind we're looking for that start temperature of 30 if you find your temperatures not quite right then just take some out with a jug use a jug whips them out and put some more in you can adjust it with hot or cold to get your temperature to 30 degrees okay so now we've got our temperature we're now going to take the sugar and add the sugar waters at 30 degrees C we've got we're using glucose powder so we've got seven bags of glucose powder that's seven kilo bags that were using and we're just going to add that directly to the bucket in she goes and I will add the remaining six making seven in clover so we've added six and here is our seventh and final bag that we're going to use the reason that we've got seven kilos of brewing sugar as opposed to six kilos of granulated sugar is that there is a percentage which is unfermented all in the brewing sugar that's why we have to increase it by at least 10% so we've got the seven kilos of brown sugar and the six kilos of ordinary sugar now this particular yeast the triple distilled yeast loves to start at 25 and we'll explain in a minute why the temperature's going to drop to 25 when the sugar is added two things that have happened now our liquid temperature has dropped from 30 to 25 which is great because this yeast we won at 25 when we get it going the second thing that's happened is that the volume has gone from 21 litres to 25 litres with that addition of sugar so we're now going to add our triple distilled yeast now the triple distilled yeast is the only yeast that we should ever use with this air still this yeast is so pure it produces a wash which has no are flavors at all or as little as possible and it's the one that because we're using this air still it has to be the triple distilled so I'm going to add the triple distilled yeast now to our bucket in there are nutrients and absorbers the absorbance are absorbing your flavors that are given off but just to help with that process as well we've also got some carbon now the carbon is quite firm so we just need to manipulate it with our hands to get it back into liquid and that we've got no big lumps at the bottom so just give it a good good good going-over like this and just get it all nicely dissolved this is black and it's very very dark and if you get it on your clothes you're not going to be very popular so be careful when you add this in she goes now I'm just going to squeeze make sure we've got everything out of that carbon and got it added to the bucket so the carbon is also going to act to stop those off flavors being given off and we're going to give that now a stir just to make sure that's nicely dissolved and the yeast is now in solution what we can do is we can take a hydrometer reading by dropping this into the bucket this is quite useful when you take a hydrometer reading you've got a reference point to what the gravity of the liquid is and this will measure the gravity the higher the gravity the more potential alcohol we have of getting out of this what we always recommend is give it a stir drop the hydrometer in take a note of the reading give it another stir drop it in again if it's showing the same reading you know you've done a good mixing job if it keeps going higher and higher because you you've not mixed it properly then keep repeating the process until you get two readings the same on your hydrometer so take a hydrometer reading and make a note of that what we're now going to do is we're going to put the bucket lid on put that into place there nice and tight and we're going to add an airlock to it the airlock we're going to just half fill with water so we'll just put the tap on there to get some water to come through and as you can see the water is sitting in the top of the airlock there half filled with the red cap going on to stop it from squirting all over the place that goes into place there and we can now leave this bucket in a temperature between 20 and 25 that's the ideal fermenting temperature for this particular yeast and this particular product it's going to take about seven days to do the fermentation the don't panic if it's a bit longer what we're looking for is that hydrometer that we've just shown you when that hydrometer has the same reading for two days then the fermentation is finished normally you'll get bubbles coming through the airlock as well which gives you a gauge that fermentation is taking place if you don't get bubbles don't panic always use your hydrometer to see whether it's falling and as long as that hydrometer is going further and further into the liquid so it's dropping dropping dropping dropping nowyou fermentation is taking place and we're looking for a finishing gravity of between nine eight zero and nine nine oh so that's at the very bottom end of this particular hydrometer reading of nine eight two nine nine oh so we're looking for the fermentation to show the same reading for two days fermentation is done and also we probably not got any bubbles coming through the airlock that's as I say going to take about seven days if the temperature is slightly cooler then obviously it will take slightly longer for that fermentation to take place so it could take up to twelve days if it's warmer it might take slightly less time but ideally we're looking for seven-day fermentation and for maximum quality we're always better having this slightly cooler than slightly warmer so don't think heat is good in fact cool is good but it will take a little bit longer for the fermentation to take place so what we're doing in the bucket is we're doing an alcohol wash we're trying to get lots of alcohol in there and when the fermentation is finished which we'll come on to shortly we'll have about fourteen percent alcohol in that bucket great so we've had seven days of fermentation fermentation in the bucket we're now going to check their hydrometer reading so we're just going to drop that in and what we do with the hydrometer just give it a little spin and that make sure there no bubble stuck to it and then we're going to read across the liquid line of the actual fermentation and that gravity should be in the region of nine nine oh two nine eight oh so I'm just looking at this and we have yeah we're about nine eighty five so we're going to continue with this I have to say I did check it yesterday as well and it was showing the same sort of reading so yep we're ready to go to the next step all right so what we've got to remember is that the yeast which has done the job of converting all that sugar to alcohol will give off co2 and we need to get rid of that co2 because it'd be present in the liquid and that's going to cause problems to fold when we've come to distill and also when we come to add the findings so what we need to do now is for the next well it might be a couple of days we need to get rid of all that carbon dioxide and we need to use something like a paddle or a degassing stick that we can put into the bucket and help to actually beat all the liquids all the gases out of the liquid so we just need to keep mixing mixing mixing getting rid of all those gas don't worry about the sediment at the bottom that will all get disturbed and it will be like a black mess in here so we're going to repeat that process this process here of mixing and getting rid you'll see all the bubbles and starting to come to the top of the surface and there's a bit of foam created on the top as we do it just keep doing it if we can repeat this three or four times a day for about three or four minutes that's brilliant you'll probably find you've done it in a day you'll know when you finished because the foam won't be so predominant there'll be less of it actually on the surface so we need to repeat that maybe for the next two days but all being well we can get it done within 24 hours now at the same time as doing the we need to look at the clearing process so once we've done the degassing we can then add the findings now the findings the turbo clear these are a two part finding Part A and Part B 1 is a positive charge 1 is a negative charge now with the findings they are vicious they really really will take all the rubbish out of there within 12 to 24 hours they're vicious there's loads of them and they're really strong now with wine and beer when we add findings we need to think of findings as the enemy because findings will strip out flavor color body bouquet all the things that we want to maintain in our wine and beer but in our spirit making as we've said we're trying to create this really neutral wash we want alcoholic water there really so we can use really vicious findings which are going to strip everything out in that particular bucket and as I say that's why we'll end up with something within 12 to 24 hours that's beautifully clear so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to add Part A Part A goes into the bucket and that we need to leave a couple of hours before we add Part B so in Part A we'll go now we're going to slip across the corner here and we've got Part A that we're going to add to the bucket so in she goes and I'm going to stir that that needs a good stirring in so we're going to stir that in nicely and then we're going to come back in a couple of hours and we're going to add Part B so we'll put the lid back on and I'll see you shortly all right so we're back again and we're now just going to take the lid off and we're going to add Part B so again cutting across the corner of the sachet like so this is the kite ISM that's going in now and I'm adding that to the bucket and all I'm going to do now is gently fold that in I don't want to figure a stir now just a gentle fold so when she goes and we're now going to put the bucket lid back on and we're going to leave this now for well let's say up to 24 hours it might come through quicker and what I'm going to do just going to put it there on the work surface so that we can have it to the height that allows us to do the siphoning what we're going to do is we're going to end up with lovely clear liquid with a thick sediment at the bottom a thick black sediment but all the liquid at the top will be lovely and clear and we're going to use a siphon to siphon this from this bucket into the one that we're going to have on the floor and that way in the bottom bucket we'll have about twenty four liters of lovely clear liquid so we'll come back and have another go tomorrow okay so we've now got 25 litres in the bucket we've got the thick black sediment at the bottom and we need to siphon the clear liquid off the sediment into our bottling bucket to do that we're using a siphon now the siphon has two features one it has an anti sediment trap so the liquid comes over the top and this doesn't go down to the bottom of the bucket it will sit on the bottom of the bucket but it won't draw a liquid from there so if this drops into the sediment it's not a problem the other thing that we've got on the sediment on the inside rate is we have an extendable tube with a bucket clip on now we reckon the bucket clips I'm really good when you're siphoning whichever type of siphon you use because it will allow you to keep two hands-free and then on this particular one we have a tap there are all sorts of different types of cycles available on the market this one is when it goes into the bucket we suck and make sure that the sucking is below the bottom of the liquid on the actual siphon there's one called an auto siphon awesome sighs that just pumps up and down that again great siphon that one you don't need to suck but again always try and get a bucket clip with it because it does allow you to keep you two hands-free so with this particular one we're going to put the bucket clip into place we're going to drop the tube into the bottom of the bucket and then we're just going to go and let it go once we've done that we'll come back because will then end up with some local clear liquid I'm just going to lift this up here so it's on on the side again this it's like alcoholic water fourteen percent alcohol is really no taste of it at all and what we're going to do is we're going to take that liquid and we're going to put it into our Leicester now the liquid we need four liters at a time to go into the air step so I'm going to move this out of the way and I'm going to get hold of the air still now and show you how the air still operates now this is the edge step basically it's a very inefficient pot still but it's incredibly convenient so as long as we abide by the principle of making sure that the wash we use for this particular machine produces a really clean base we'll end up with super quality alcohol that's why you must only use the triple distilled yeast don't try using any other yeast it will produce far too many or flavors the machine is a say it's a lovely little pot still incredibly convenient what we're going to do is we're going to take four liters of that 14 percent wash and we're going to put it in this air still now in the air still you might not be able to see this but we have just there a indentation on the inside of this beautiful stainless steel keg and that four liter indentation is what we're going to fill up to into this particular machine so our lovely clear wash here is going in they wear we're on our 4 liter mark if you wash is not 100% clear don't go to in a state of panic if there's a slight grayness to it we can get round that once it runs through the air still you'll actually find it's fine and it will come out lovely and clear so we've now put our 4 litres in we're now going to add our ceramic saddles which come with the machine in they go and we're also going to add three capfuls of distillers conditioning and I'm going to explain what those two things do and the reason why we're going to add them and we're going to put the lid on and we can then connect up so the top is now connected to the bottom and our mains is going inside as well and we switch on you can hear the fan is starting to run in the top of this fill so that is now starting to work and as we're waiting for that to warm up I want to just explain a few things to you distillers conditioning it's basically an anti foaming agent and it will stop foaming ceramic saddles are designed to break up the bubbles on the base of the machine have you ever made milk or put milk into a pan to make a nice hot drink if you do all the bubbles that sometimes form on the base of the pan can join together and create like a little mini explosion it pops like that the same can happen with the air still and the lid will start to move away and obviously with having the alcohol in it that is something that we don't want to happen so we add the ceramic saddles to prevent that and the anti foaming agent to stop it from foaming and actually causing the lid again to pop off purely purely for safety measures they should be added ok right so inside the machine we've got our 14% alcohol what's going to happen we're now heating up and we're going to heat up to 78 to wait - and that's why it's really important to make sure this particular machine is one that is designed for alcohol distillation as well as being able to do the other things it is set to a temperature between 78 and 82 at that point what will happen is the alcohol will come away from the water in a vapor format and it will come into the top of the Machine the vapors will then start to drift up into the top into a coil which is in the top of the machine and that fan that you can now hear will chill the vapors back down when they get chilled they'll turn back into liquid and they'll start to drip through our little nozzle that's how distillation works water obviously boils at 100 our alcohol is boiling at 78 to 82 this is how we get a separation and this is how we get the alcohol out of the liquid that we've got in the machine so with this particular machine we're going to collect about 800 mils of alcohol we've got a collecting chamber here which comes with it and the collecting chamber is a three-part which again I'll move on to in a minute but this moment in time I've got a container here which I'm just going to put underneath there to actually collect the drips the first hour the machine will heat up and it will then get up to temperature at the end of the first hour we will start to see dripping coming through here into our collecting chamber and at the end of the second hour we will have collected about 800 mils of 60% alcohol okay so that's quite strong and I think it's important to say we don't really want to collect any more than 800 mils some people like to only collect 700 some people will go up to 800 I personally will collect 800 so we collect 800 mils we then need to dilute that 50% with water so our eight hundred mils are now going to be increased 1200 mils we've reduced the alcohol strength from 60% down to 40% right at 40% we can now consider it to be vodka what we've got to do though is we've got one final little process to do we need to run it through our black carbon cartridge now one thing to remember alcohol will not be treated successfully from carbon unless it's less than 50% so it's no good running this 60% alcohol through a carbon cartridge we have to collect it first and then dilute it down the carbon cartridge that we run the alcohol through should be used once so each time you put 1.2 litres of alcohol through it you should then dispense with it and use another one these are just designed as I said before to take out the remaining impurities from the alcohol soak them 30 20 minutes in hot water before you start and then just run your alcohol through them so we're going to dilute it down and this is our carbon cartridge here the black carbon cartridge goes on the face of this collecting chamber this needs to be soaked in hot water for about 20 minutes before we start that releases some of the pores and allows the alcohol to start to come through and that will quite simply sit in this particular container here and we can let the liquid run through into this bottom chamber so we've collected it in here we're diluting it we're adding it and it's going to come down into the collecting chamber with a nice little lid that sits on the top of it as well so depending on how long it takes for the alcohol to run through the carbon we don't need to worry about any infections or anything like that not that we'd get it at that strength of alcohol so we're going to let the liquid run through there that carbon cartridge can take up to well anything between four and eight hours for it to run through don't worry if it takes longer than longer it takes the more efficient it is being and the more impurities it takes out so time is not an element just put it in there put the lid on go to bed when you get up in the morning should all be done now one thing that I haven't mentioned is some people will think that it's necessary to remove the first fifty or hundred mils of alcohol that comes through there if you read any books or anything on alcohol distillation everybody will tell you to remove the first fifty two hundred milk with this particular machine and provided you've used the triple distilled yeast the carbon and the Claire that we've shown you at the start you've absolutely no need whatsoever to remove any of those it's called heads you don't need to worry about a heads with this particular machine and that there is a minut amount of methanol in this particular thing and methanol is the thing that people worry about that you probably got 1/10 of the methanol in that that you would find in a bottle of commercial whiskey what we recommend as well is don't forget you've now got 24 litres a totally clear alcohol which we're putting in this machine each time it goes in the machine we're going to take four litres so each time we've got six times four litres going in that machine from our 24 litre bucket of lovely clear alcohol each time we're getting eight hundred mils diluted down to 40% alcohol we're going to go from eight hundred mils to twelve hundred mils strength sixty down to forty so we've got one point two litres so we're going to get six times one point two litres of alcohol from a twenty five litre bucket we're going to get seven point two litres at forty percent alcohol you're getting roughly ten bottles of vodka every time you do a wash and what we want to talk about now is what we're going to do with that vodka but before I do that I would just like to say I think it's quite important that you run it through quickly as you can so you've got that bucket you've got six passes to go through the machine try and get that through in a couple of days you don't want the alcohol hanging around at 14% it is likely to get infections not immediately but it will pick up infections so you leave it for a few weeks you're going to have a bit of a problem with infections try and get it done within a few days that way you keep your alcohol pure you don't need to worry about whether you're going to do your carbon treatment or whether you're going to add flavoring to it because you can keep the alcohol either at 60% or at 40% preferably in glass and it will last for a very very long time you can then flavor it as and when you want to at whatever stage so we'll come onto the flavorings now and we'll talk to you about the flavorings but just to recap we're looking at four litres in the machine we collect eight hundred mils at 60% that takes about two hours from start to finish dead useful as well as you've got a time clock put it on a time clock or set your phone to make sure it bleeps at you at the end of two hours collect it we've then got eight hundred mils at 60% alcohol dilute it 50% with water the eight hundred mils becomes twelve hundred mils we're going to run it through the carbon cartridge final process once that's done we can then add our flavorings we're going to talk about the flavorings now we've now got roughly seven litres of alcohol and we've got to deal with that now that's 7 litres of alcohol think in terms of it being vodka if it's vodka then you might want to drink it as it is you might also want to add a flavoring because we actually do a vodka flavoring to it so you might want to add a flavoring but the choice is yours now if we're just having it as straight vodka it's going to cost you about 8090 pence here in the UK to make that once you add your flavoring you're going to take the cost up to a round to pound 40 a bottle so we're not looking at crown jewels for this particular product we're looking at real good value for money and great fun at doing it as well so let's look at some of the that we've got on the flavorings the most popular range that we do is a range called classic now these are sachets that will make up things like Tennessee bourbon which is our version of a Jack Daniels a whiskey a single malt whiskey a white run like a Bacardi we've got a spiced rum we've got a dark rum gin different types of Bourbons whiskey's a blue jewel which is very similar to a Bombay Sapphire a brandy we've got many more than the ones that I've just shown you there but each of those will make just over a liter they are our top quality flavorings they're the rolls-royce of flavorings they're super we've also got the top-shelf now the top-shelf do a range of bottles again for spirits and these are like so each of these bottles will do three times 75 CL bottles so you've got things like a cherry bourbon French brandy Citrus Vodka all sorts of different spirit flavorings and these ones work out at around one pound thirty one pound forty a bottle for the flavoring so obviously each of them will do three bottles so you're looking at around four pounds for those flavorings they will be added neat we also have a range of snatches so we've got things like peach pear blackberry and with each of these it will tell you on the back of the bottle how much to add so with this particular one it will say take 650 mils of alcohol at 40% add the flavoring add the base each of them come with their own base and they're color-coordinated to match the actual bottle so that you don't get it wrong and in there is sugars and thickening agents so you'll add those to the alcohol and the flavoring and we will then top-up 21.125 liters with plain water so each of these is going to make you one point one two five liters that's one full bottle and one half sized bottle so you get half sized bottle to try and a full-size bottle to put away for safekeeping so those are the synapses we also do a range of liquors and with the liquors things like coconut rum cherry brandy amaretto we do all sorts of different ones and again with these it will tell you on the back how much alcohol to take and the alcohol amounts will vary each them at each one and they will also tell you whether to add a base a B or C so in here we have the different types of bases that we do each of them have different amounts and will produce different levels of sweetness in the particularly cure they are all designed to match commercial equivalents so the strength of them will come out similar to a commercial and again we'll make one point one two five liters so we're topping up with water to one point one to five liters and the final ones that we do in this range are a range of cream at liqueurs and the creme liqueurs are slightly different we take the cream we had 250 mils of hot water to it mix it up we then take the amount of alcohol that it tells us on the back of the bottle well add the cream base which has already been activated with the 250 mils of hot water and again we'll top it up to one point one to five liters with some water and make sure it's well well stir we would also recommend that the creams are kept in the fridge we have a range of iconic yours as well the iconic yours slightly different we will pour this into a bottle a 75 ml bottle sorry a 75 CL bottle and we'll top up with vodka shake it and it's ready to go these are the simplest ones that we do and produce some excellent results as well and finally we have a range of vodka flavorings so we do things like vanilla lemon pea raspberry different types of flavorings in vodka and these are just designed to add a very very gentle flavoring to the vodka and to make them sort of very similar to some of the commercial ones that are available it's not a heavy flavoring it's quite a sensitive gentle flavoring particularly good and very very popular so you've got all the different types of flavorings we're always bringing new ones out we're always sort of looking at the range if a commercial one becomes available like the cherry bourbon or the honey bourbon we'll try and bring out an equivalent one as quickly as we can so keep your eye on that that's always changing okay I think you've had a pretty good recap now or a pretty good look at the whole steel spirits range the stills we also do bigger still so please look at those we do things like a tea 500 we do a lemak pot pot still so there are various of the stills available on the market but we love the air still it's really simple deadly to use and great value for money you

Channel: Love Brewing

Views: 225,765

Keywords: air still, home brew, make your own, sugar, alcohol, how to make, guide to, make a wash, love brewing, brewing, spirits, beer, wine, abv, distilling, essences

Id: P_6jiWEtTqM

Length: 35min 38sec (2138 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2015