Home brew

Bought a home brew spirits kit for myself and my partner for christmas.  It’s an Air Still kit, uses a simple electric pot still design with an air blast condenser – no water jacket required.  The whole kit is a fermenter vat, the still (which is about the size of a small urn), and a filtration system which is basically a plastic strainer bowl set with plug-in carbon cartridges.  I’ve already acquired a second fermenter.

 

A single “batch” costs just over $10 for the kit of sterilizer, sugar (high solubility dextrose), a carbon suspension slurry, the yeast and a two stage finings system.  It also includes the carbon filter cartridges used to polish the finished spirit.  That will produce two liters of 40% alcohol spirit, to which you then need to add flavouring escence – about $8.50 a bottle.  The only other consumables are a smidge of sterilizer solution, the odd replacement gasket and a tiny bit of anti-foam solution for the still itself to stop fluid carryover.  Call it under $15 for a 1 litre bottle, not bad.

 

I’ve been thinking about this for literally years, but the full reflux still systems are just too cumbersome and large for what I want it to do.  These Air Stills are brilliant.