My StillDragon Activated Carbon Filter

grim

Powdered carbon is far superior in color removal with minimal flavor impact, while this one will remove color, it would require a significant volume, but the worst part is it actually behaves like a normal activated carbon and is pretty indescriminate in what it removes.

Running it through the test column, the first 200-300ml was clear as water, but also pretty damn close to vodka. As I continued to run, color started coming through, but flavor continued to be stripped.

Ended up stopping at about 2 gallons, and recirculated the tank through the carbon for a bit.

Probably 50% removal of both color and flavor.

Don't get me wrong, it's impressive stuff, taking an 8 month old barrel aged whiskey and turning in into near vodka is a pretty serious feat. I would buy a bag of this stuff, if only to repackage it and sell it to the hobby guys. Lightyears better than anything else.

Now to find a way to more easily work with powdered that doesn't require spending $5k on a big plate and frame, and an ungodly amount of money on filtration.

GD50

Only ever filtered once before ( 2" straight downhill ) but made this up with bits from shed and three new 2inch sections. Thanks @punkin. I owe you freight.

Version one has a butterfly valve so i can put 2" filter paper after the valve and change it if it blocks.

Version 2 after the butterfly valve has a 2" to 4" and 4" filter paper and supporting screen and then 4 to 2 to increase filter area but it still can be changed if necessary.
I can put 25l in top tank and set take off sample tap on bottom to any flow i want into collection 23 l glass demi.
I will put screens in some section joints to keep the carbon in place.

Questions - do you think the increased filter area would be necessary ( assuming i wash the carbon well ) and is it ok to use lab filter paper ? How fast or slow would you take off?
I have a fair amount of TPW airing that has been thru 12 + 12 =24 plates at near full azeo. I understand about 50% is about right for the concentration to filter ??

After some very nice vodka for a test and then use the balance for my gin run. ( just experimenting )

Any suggestions welcome. Sorry for rough pictures as i just wanted to get an idea of heights. I had most of this stuff as i wanted to filter the Sinkona bark residue out after making tonic but never really got a brew that made the grade - should revisit that.

Spirited

Loads of interesting stuff here on filtration. You folks combined are a newbies encyclopaedia of knowledge (and a constant distraction) ;) I may have missed this but bare with me. I'm pulling some pretty hefty volumes of tails from my gin runs - all in the name of a good product in the bottle of course. Tails are about 30% abv, cloudy and pretty big on aroma/flavour. Is is best I run these through my just unboxed SD filter then redistill, or via versa. Have already redistilled some tails and removed colour but flavour/aroma is still present. Just wanted to know if anyone had experience of this before I go and ruin a few kilos of activated charcoal (pellets or powder).

crozdog

@Spirited it sounds like you are doing macerated gin. i can't help you with your filtering queries unfortunately as I run a GB4 and do all my gins as vapour infusion using nice clean carbon filtered neutral as the input. That means I run down to about 10% but only have botanical contamination to clean out of the GB4, the PC and parrot. a soak in 100% sodium percarbonate in hot water works well on them.

i bought some bulk water filter carbon a while back. rinse well before use to get as much dust out of it before using for the neutral. Always put cotton wool in the filter output & sometimes find i still need to run it through cotton wool a 2nd time if its new carbon as i get a very fine dust precipitating in the bottle