In order to remove fusel oils and other harmful impurities from moonshine, double distillation with cutting off tails and heads is not enough. Additional thorough filtration is required, and carbonation does the best job of it. Charcoal is an excellent absorbent that cleans and softens the drink and also gives the distillate its characteristic vodka flavor.
Traditionally, birch charcoal is used to purify moonshine, but the coconut charcoal that has recently appeared on the market has surpassed it in efficiency, and has gained a well-deserved popularity among distillers.
Activated coconut charcoal is made from coconut shells by heating it at 1,000 degrees until it burns out completely, while keeping out air. This production technology increases the number of pores, which significantly improves its adsorbing properties, and is called the activation of coal. The total pore area of just one gram of activated carbon is one thousand square meters, which is very impressive and explains such a high cleaning power.
The size of the pores is also important - pores of different sizes contain different molecules, and that is why not all coal is used for cleaning. Fusel and other harmful particles easily penetrate into the pores of coconut, besides, it has a number of other advantages over other filters:
- Economy... For high-quality purification, only 10 g of coconut charcoal is required per liter of distillate.
- Environmental friendliness... Edible coconut charcoal is an absolutely natural product that does not contain any impurities or additives.
- Efficiency... Due to the pores of different sizes, coal binds 80% of fusel oils and 90% of esters.
- Reusability... It is possible to restore the absorbing properties of the used filter by washing it with 2% hydrochloric acid solution or alkali. Thus, all the accumulated substances are burned out, and the charcoal is activated again.
- Removal of color, odor and off-taste.
- Minimizing a hangover... The cause of a hangover is poisoning with fusel oils, which are present in excess in unrefined moonshine.
- Ease of use.
reference: It should be noted that in the process of carbonization, the distillate loses its aroma, so it is better to filter fruit moonshine in another way, and this one is suitable for a product made from sugar or grain.
Proper carbohydrate at home
Purification of moonshine with coconut charcoal is carried out after the first distillation and is divided into two stages: infusion and subsequent filtration. This requires only a clean container, cotton wool, and the coal itself.
Infusion - exact proportions
- Dilute distillate with water up to 40-50 °, and if planned, even lower - up to 18-20 °. The percentage of alcohol directly affects the quality of cleaning - the larger it is, the worse the cleaning is, since the molecules of strong moonshine are tightly bound and impurities are poorly adsorbed.
- Prepare coal- crush, if it is in briquettes, and rinse with dust to avoid staining. The smaller the coal fraction, the larger the area of its contact with the moonshine and the faster the cleaning.
- Put the washed coal in a container with moonshine, at the rate of 2 tbsp. l. per liter, is no longer needed, since excess coal will not affect the degree of purification. Mix everything well and leave for at least 2-3 hours, shaking the liquid every 20 minutes.
Cold slows down adsorption, so it is advisable to infuse at room temperature.
Long-term infusion of coal is meaningless and even harmful, because over time, its pores fill up and stop absorbing poisons. If the adsorbent is not removed in time, everything harmful will return back to the drink.
A video in which the whole process of carbonization of moonshine is clearly visible:
Filtration
- Strain the infused moonshine through cotton wool wrapped in several layers of gauze or bandage. Such filtration removes coarse coal suspension, but the dark shade still remains. The dust is safe and does not affect the taste, but it does not give the drink an appetizing appearance.
- To give crystal transparency, a filter from a coffee maker or an ash-free cellulose filter is suitable, into which you need to feed moonshine in a thin stream or drip.
- Filtered moonshine re-distill, or bottle for further storage.
Important! Coconut charcoal for barbecues or hookah is not suitable for cleaning, as it contains substances that improve combustion or aromatic additives that will spoil the moonshine.
DIY moonshine filter
To speed up and simplify the process of purifying moonshine from harmful impurities, you can use another cleaning method - without insisting, through a homemade carbon filter. It is done quite easily:
- take a wide and deep funnel;
- line the bottom with gauze folded in 2-3 layers;
- put a couple of cotton pads on top;
- and another layer of gauze;
- followed by a layer of coal, 3 cm wide;
- cover it with the same layer as below (gauze-cotton wool-gauze);
- the filter is ready.
It remains to insert a funnel with a filter into an empty bottle and filter the moonshine through it with a thin stream. This method is less effective than the previous one, since the distillate is in contact with coal for a short time, insufficient for the complete adsorption of impurities. To improve the result, it is advisable to carry out such carbonization several times, each time changing the sorbent to a pure one.
Reference: the funnel is often replaced with a cut-bottom plastic bottle, but plastic is an undesirable material to interact with alcohol. It is better to use a glass cutter to separate the bottom of a glass bottle and use it for a filter.
Conclusion
To check the purified moonshine for the presence of harmful impurities, a small amount must be set on fire in a spoon, and if there is no oil stain left at the bottom after burnout, you can safely drink the drink. Correctly carried out filtration with coconut charcoal cleans moonshine from:
- fusel oils;
- aldehydes;
- acetic and formic acid;
- ethers.
And although it still does not work out completely, the organoleptic characteristics of the drink are significantly improved..
Purification of moonshine with coal is an important step in home brewing. Many do double distillation, but not all are able to purify with natural coal. First of all, coal attracts the remnants of fusel oils, forcing them to precipitate. After cleaning, the drink acquires a mild taste and a pleasant aroma without unnecessary impurities.
After purification, alcohol will not do much harm to the human body. This method is used when there is no time for double distillation. But not every coal is suitable for purifying moonshine. The correct choice of coal is the key to the good quality of the future drink.
How to choose coal
There are several types of coal for cleaning moonshine:
- woody birch activated;
- woody coconut activated;
- activated carbon tablets;
- charcoal from water filters or gas masks;
- barbecue coals.
Read our other articles on how to clean moonshine from impurities:
Panchenkov's nozzle also helps to clean the moonshine -
How to use a dry steamer to clean moonshine -
- a detailed description of the technology and tips
Birch charcoal and coconut charcoal are ideal for cleaning moonshine. Since it is originally made for winemaking companies that use it for filtration. They contain special impurities that allow you to absorb fusel oils.
Activated carbon in tablets is not suitable for the process, since it is originally made from animal bones and has a different direction in application.
Filter charcoal is suitable, but before use, you need to make sure that it does not contain additional impurities that will affect human health. If there is no information on the filter, then it is better to abandon the idea.
Kebab coals are a great idea if there are no coals for cleaning drinks. A fire with wood should be kindled, the smoldering elements should be transferred to a vacuum container and sealed so that the wood smolders better without air entering. When the coals are ready, they start cleaning any alcoholic beverages.
How to make coal for moonshine from different raw materials
Some craftsmen cook coal on their own at home. Burning oak and birch wood in a natural way, but this method gives the interaction of coal with oxygen, which is not desirable for coal. In large-scale production, it is made under vacuum, in this case, the coal is of good quality and is suitable for filtering alcoholic beverages. It is better not to spare money and buy good quality raw materials.
If you decide to cook it yourself, then you need to dig a hole with a diameter of 70 cm and a depth of half a meter. Cover the bottom with small branches and set it on fire. After burning out, they begin to put chopped logs. As they burn out, lay the next logs until the pit is filled with burnt wood.
Then you should create a vacuum for the coals. They fill the hole with leaves and earth. Leaving to smolder for several hours. After that, the charcoal is pulled out, sifted and packaged. During the ignition, do not use various chemicals, it is dangerous to health.
To make coal, you can use not only a pit, but also an iron barrel. To do this, take a metal container of 200 liters, with thick iron walls, put wood in it and also kindle it. But the choice of a barrel must be taken seriously, since for the manufacture of coal, it should not have residues from the previous raw materials. If there were oil products in it, then they must be burned out and only a clean barrel should be used.
Purification of moonshine with charcoal
Strain the moonshine through the filter. To do this, a watering can is made from a plastic bottle, a piece of cotton is placed in its neck, you can wrap it with gauze for better filtration. Put charcoal on the next layer.
Before use, it must be rinsed and crushed into small pieces. If not rinsed, coal dust will settle to the bottom of the drink. And then you have to use tougher filters. At the rate of 1 liter, you need to use 50 grams of coal. And then each time change to a new portion. After filtration, the procedure should be repeated several times, this will improve the quality of the drink.
Purification of moonshine in the above way will make the product better and softer, but this does not replace double distillation through the moonshine still. If there is no possibility for repeated distillation, then after filtration, the moonshine should be insisted on various herbs, giving it a rich taste.
Purification of moonshine with activated carbon
Activated carbon is made from coconut shells, which is used in industrial production. Whiskey is purified with it, giving it a refined taste and aroma. Coal is also used in breweries. Resistant foam is a sign of an absorbed beverage from which tannins have been removed.
It is not recommended to use activated carbon if the mash was made from jam or fruit, otherwise the drink will lose its taste and aroma. But for a sugar body is just right. Do not forget that with prolonged contact of alcohols and coal, oxidation occurs, and aldehydes are obtained from alcohols.
There are several rules for cleaning moonshine:
- It is necessary to dilute the moonshine with distilled water up to 40 degrees.
- When cleaning with coconut, you should leave room for moonshine, otherwise it will overflow during filtration.
- After removing the fusel oils, the drink should be distilled again.
The quality of moonshine will not improve without re-distillation. Only if you follow all the rules can you get an excellent drink. By filtering yourself, you can save a lot of your budget. And if you make a beehive yourself, this process will be free.
Hello! We continue to fight for the quality of our drinks. The topic of my post today is moonshine cleaning with activated carbon. This method is very effective and is able to rid the distillate of 86% of the fusel oils it contains and 92% of the esters.
But if coal is used improperly in moonshine, toxic substances.
Make yourself comfortable, now I'll tell you everything in detail.
How coal cleans moonshine
There are a lot of pores on the surface of charcoal, which makes it an excellent adsorbent. It absorbs and retains harmful impurities (sivukha) contained in the moonshine.
Fusel oils are hydrophobic substances - they dissolve poorly in water, but they do it well in alcohol. Therefore, in order for the cleaning process to take place more fully, the moonshine must be diluted with water to a strength of 15-20%. Then the fuselage ceases to dissolve in alcohol and the coal readily absorbs it.
With the right approach, a very high degree of product purification can be achieved. Below is an excerpt from the book "Production of alcoholic beverages" (A. K. Dorosh, V. S. Lysenko)
Not bad, right? By the way, due to such high efficiency, it is not recommended to carbohydrate moonshine from fruit and berry mash or mash for jam... Otherwise, you risk losing the taste of such a drink. But for sugar mash this is what you need.
Harmful properties
This cleaning method also has a negative side. With prolonged contact of coal and alcohol, the latter is oxidized with the formation of harmful substances - aldehydes.
Again, I quote from the book by Dorosh-Lysenko:
From this it follows that the process must be limited in time - a maximum of 20 minutes.
To summarize the above: for maximum purification of moonshine from harmful impurities, it must be diluted to 15% strength and subjected to carbonation for 20 minutes.
Yes, I almost forgot. After cleaning, a decrease in strength by about 2 degrees is possible.
Varieties of coal
In this section, I will list the types that, with more or less popularity, are used by moonshiners to clean their drinks.
- Birch Activated Carbon(BAU)
Very popular with moonshiners. Sold in shops for winemakers, as well as in specialized stores, such as "Russian Chemist".
- Coconut (KAU)
As you might guess from the name, it is made from coconut shells.
Also a very popular brand. This is what I recommend for use. According to the statements of many sellers, KAU has a higher cleaning ability than birch. You can buy it in the same place as the BAU.
- Activated carbon from the pharmacy.
Everyone has probably seen this and even tried it. You can apply it too, but there is one caveat. Pharmaceutical coal often contains auxiliary substances, mainly potato starch and sucrose.
I have heard from fellow winemakers that these additives make the moonshine harder. Frankly, I have never noticed the difference, but just in case I try to use only KAU.
- Barbecue charcoal
Some distillers use this too.
Activated carbon for alcohol purification is produced at 800-1000 ° C. If the temperature is lower, then resin may remain in it in a small, but sufficient amount to spoil our product.
- Household filters
You can clean the moonshine by passing it through a filter jug. He does his job well. True, in some cases, there is an increased loss in the fortress - about 5 degrees.
Moonshine carbonation instructions
So, below are several methods for cleaning moonshine with coal. As I said at the beginning of the article, before cleaning the moonshine, it is necessary to dilute it to 15-20% alcohol, then distill it again to increase its strength.
The maximum effect can be achieved if previously clean the moonshine with vegetable oil.
- Purification of BAU or KAU
- Coal is taken at the rate of 10 grams (heaped tablespoon) per 1 liter of sorting.
- It is washed with drinking water from dust.
- A regular plastic bottle is taken. Several holes are made in the cork and the bottom is cut off. A piece of cotton wool or cotton pad is placed under the cork and the required amount of KAU is poured.
- Well, then moonshine is poured and filtered. I run 3 times.
Alternatively, you can simply pour the charcoal into a sorting container and shake well. In this case, it is better to double the dosage. Keep the coal in the moonshine for no more than 20 minutes, then filter through cotton wool or filter paper.
- Cleaning with activated carbon from the pharmacy
Everything is the same as in the previous cleaning. Dosage - 45 tablets per 1 liter of moonshine. Crumble the tablets before use.
Laboratory analysis of cleaning quality
Here are the results of laboratory analysis of moonshine before and after coal cleaning.
The analyzes were carried out by a respected member of the Homedistiller forum under the nickname Alexander956. Here link on a post on the forum.
These data confirm what this article says - coal very effectively copes with fusel oils, and the quality of cleaning increases markedly with a strong dilution of moonshine.
The analysis was performed on raw alcohol from sugar mash distilled to a temperature of 99 degrees cubed, i.e. almost to the water.
The amount of impurities is indicated in mg per liter of anhydrous alcohol.
Reclaiming coal at home
Coal can be used several times, but over time it loses its absorbent properties. In industry, it is subjected to regeneration. This can be done at home as well. Perhaps not as effective, but still. How to do this is described in the same book by Dorosh-Lysenko. Instructions in the photo below:
That's it. Now you know how to properly charcoal moonshine. In combination with you can get a very high quality and tasty product.
In my plans I have articles on several more cleaning methods, so I suggest subscribing to new articles. I also encourage you to share your experience in the comments. I'm very interested.
And that's all for today.
Goodbye to everyone. Dorofeev Pavel.
As the masters of creating strong homemade alcoholic beverages know, coconut charcoal for cleaning moonshine does the best job with the task - getting rid of harmful impurities.
It is significantly superior in this to birch or pharmacy activated, well-known to every distiller.
So what is coconut charcoal? This is coconut shell burned without oxygen... In the process of charring, a kind of natural filter is formed.
Attention. You cannot use coal to clean moonshine. for hookah... Although it is also made from coconut shells, it may contain additives that are undesirable for moonshine.
In addition, its adsorptive properties are incomparable with the "correct" carbon, which is marked KAU-A... The abbreviation stands for: coconut activated carbon class A... It is he who is intended for cleaning from fusel oils.
When should you do carbohydrate?
It is worth resorting to the help of KAU-A in two cases:
- In order to qualitatively clean the primary distillate from the fuselage, kicked out without picking heads and tails, before re-distillation.
- For improvement already finished product, if turbidity is noticeable in it, or the taste and smell are not satisfied.
Peculiarities. Do not forget that some drinks (for example, or) it takes two to three months to get the final taste and cleaning too thoroughly can spoil the product.
How to clean it properly?
Proportions and dressing
Usual dosage: per liter of alcohol-containing liquid - 2 tablespoons of KAU-A.
Stir thoroughly, insist at room conditions.
The warmer (25 - 30 degrees) the moonshine, the faster the adsorption of harmful impurities and their precipitation occurs.
Infusion recipe
And then - interesting chemistry. Known among lovers of studying the properties of alcohol, the author of a book on this topic, Dorosh-Lysenko, claims that moonshine filled with coconut charcoal maximizes loses fusel oils in the first 20 minutes of infusion.
There is another recipe. In exactly the same dose, KAU-A is poured into the drink and infused for 1 hour.
Who is right? You can only find out in a practical way. By organoleptic properties (taste, smell, softness) of the drink, it will be easy to compare the initial sensations with those that will arise after cleaning.
Important. You should not use KAU-A when cleaning moonshine from grain or fruit and berry raw materials.
It is thanks to the presence of these components in the mash that a specific taste and aroma of the drink is achieved, which can be destroyed by cleaning. But he is the most suitable for. This is where you often need to remove the booze.
How do I use filtering?
With any method of infusion, moonshine must be filtered. This is done in a way known to every distiller:
- Take a plastic bottle of 1.5 - 2 liters, cut off the bottom.
- Several holes are made in the lid with an awl or a thick needle.
- A piece of cotton pad or cotton wool is placed in the neck.
- If they strive for perfect filtration at a time, they may not use the cap at all, but fill the neck with cotton wool or insert several cotton pads twisted into a roll into it.
- They put this "filter" on a jar, pour moonshine from the container where it was cleaned, wait until it flows, periodically adding new portions.
Sometimes it takes three to four filtration so that the result is considered excellent.
They also resort to filtration without insisting. Create a filter bottle as described above. A layer of KAU-A, washed with water from dust, about 5 cm high, is poured on top of the cotton wool, and the existing moonshine, which requires cleaning, is spilled through it several times.
Why is coconut sorbent better?
Decaying, the shells turn into coals with a semblance of multilayer cells, which can easily pass alcohol (or water), retaining all the impurities contained.
Naturally, the structure of the cells can be seen only under a microscope.
So, at the cooked coconut charcoal cells are very small, the same components of fusel oils will not "slip" through them.
A birch or pharmacy tableted cell has a larger one, therefore lower cleansing properties... It has been proven that charcoal created from coconut shells has special properties:
- selects from alcohol-containing liquid up to 80% (according to some sources - 86%) fusel oils and up to 90 - 92% of esters contained in moonshine;
- its use is economically profitable, since coal is required five times less than other types (the same birch);
- due to the lower dust content, after cleaning it is easier to cope with the filtration of the moonshine, the materials used for filtration (cotton wool, filter paper, thick cloth, etc.) are not clogged so quickly;
- gives the drink crystal transparency;
- due to the elimination of fusel oils and esters, the pungent smell and taste disappears when drinking.
Reference. In the industrial purification of alcohol, it is coconut charcoal that is used as the most suitable for this purpose.
How many times can KAU-A be used?
One and the same coconut charcoal can be used three times, after which its absorbent capacity decreases, since the micropores present in it are clogged.
It is argued that coal can be recovered by:
- pour distilled water over the spent coal. Water should be 3 times more in volume. Shake, stand for 20 minutes, drain;
- repeat washing 3 times;
- put in a heat-resistant container in an oven at 190 ° C;
- at first, neither the charcoal nor the oven door is covered. When the smell of alcohol disappears, cover the container with a leak, close the oven;
- fry for 6 - 8 hours.
After cooling down, it can be used as a new product. But it is advisable not to rinse it again, it is not so expensive to risk your health due to low-quality moonshine.
Helpful Videos on Coconut Charcoal Cleaning
The process of purifying moonshine with coconut activated carbon:
Carbohydrate with coconut to remove turbidity and give moonshine:
Review of coconut charcoal for cleaning moonshine, benefits and uses, see:
Are you ready to use coconut charcoal to improve your homemade alcohol? Share it in the comments, recommend the article to your friends on social networks.
Moonshine in taste and quality is not inferior even to expensive strong alcoholic beverages, if it is fully purified. One of the available ways to rid home-made alcohol of unpleasant odors and harmful substances is to clean the moonshine with activated carbon. It removes most of the esters and fusel oils formed during distillation.
Why is charcoal filtration necessary?
In the distillate, a mass of by-substances is formed that worsen not only the taste of the drink, but also make it dangerous to use. These are fusel oils, all kinds of aldehydes, ethers, etc. Not all harmful impurities are removed by activated charcoal, but the use of the latter is still necessary. Filtering allows you to remove:
- up to 86% fusel oils
- up to 92% esters
Purification of moonshine with coal gives such an effect due to the presence of pores on its surface, which determine the excellent adsorbing properties of this material.
What charcoal can be used for cleaning
Not all types of coal are suitable for filtering your moonshine with them. For example, you should not buy pills from a pharmacy, since the effect described above will not be fully achieved. The pores of the tablets are too small and not suitable for the absorption of large molecules of fusel oils.
Therefore, it is advisable to clean moonshine with activated carbon at home:
- Using BAU-A (birch activated carbon). You can buy it in specialized stores for distillers or make it yourself.
- Using KAU-A (coconut coal). We give preference to this particular adsorbent, considering its cleaning ability to be the highest.
Lovers who are just starting to delve into the intricacies of moonshine often ask themselves the question of whether it is possible to clean moonshine with charcoal for the barbecue. In fact, this is not recommended. To filter moonshine, you need to use only an activated adsorbent, which ordinary charcoal for barbecue, of course, is not.
It is activated at a temperature of 1000 degrees. If the conditions are not maintained, many harmful substances and carcinogens remain in the product, and it is simply dangerous to eat moonshine, which was cleaned with ordinary charcoal. Therefore, even cleaning moonshine with activated carbon in tablets, and not with specialized birch or coconut charcoal, will be much more effective.
The aforementioned brands BAU-A, KAU-A are already initially manufactured for use in the alcoholic beverage industry. Also note that the "A" in the title means the highest degree of activity of the material. If you purchase grades BAU-B or BAU-V, please note that they are actually rejected coals in terms of activity in the production of BAU-A. The same must be taken into account when purchasing KAU, when it is planned to purify moonshine with coconut charcoal.
How to make activated carbon yourself
We will describe how to make activated carbon with your own hands, using wood raw materials for this, which will be a birch log peeled from bark and finely chopped (into chips about 3 cm long). Charcoal must be cooked with minimal access to oxygen, for this:
- Prepare a flat jar in which you will cook birch charcoal
- Punch about 20 holes in it, put the raw material in it and close tightly
- Put the jar on the fire, where organic gases will come out through the openings of hot coal and immediately burn
- When degassing stops, remove the jar from the heat and let it cool.
- Activated charcoal is wrapped in cheesecloth and placed over a large saucepan half filled with water
- Place the container on the stove, where the generated water vapor will activate our filter material
- Next, transfer the wet coal to a tin can with holes, which was previously used for degassing, put it on a fire to remove moisture
After you prepare the activated adsorbent for moonshine with your own hands, store it only in a dry, tightly closed jar without air access. Otherwise, coal will begin to absorb various organic molecules from it, losing its properties.
Nevertheless, you need to understand that this method of preparation is significantly inferior to the industrial one, where the material is calcined at a temperature of 1100-1200 degrees and processed not with simple saturated, but with superheated steam under a pressure of about 2.5 atm. Naturally, its activity is an order of magnitude higher than that of coal prepared at home for cleaning moonshine.
Our advice to you, do not save and do not waste your precious time, but just buy high-quality coal, it is not expensive at all.
Recipe for filtering moonshine with coal
It is correct to charcoal moonshine before the second distillation, since for high-quality purification of alcohol it needs to be diluted to 15-20%. This requirement is due to the fact that fusel oils dissolve perfectly in concentrated alcohol and it is almost impossible to catch them by filtration in this case.
On the contrary, if alcohol is diluted, the solubility of this harmful impurity drops significantly, which makes it possible to adsorb up to 86% of this component on the surface of the filter element, for example, purifying moonshine with activated carbon in tablets.
As already noted, it is better to use coconut charcoal for cleaning moonshine, although birch charcoal is also good for these purposes. The process can be carried out in two fundamentally different ways:
- flow-through cleaning of moonshine through a carbon filter element
- pouring coal directly into the environment to be cleaned
Purification of moonshine by flow filtration
The first recipe will require some materials at hand, for example, a jug for filtering water, where you will need to pour the adsorbent. You can also make the filter yourself, for example, from a plastic bottle. For this, the bottom is cut off, holes are made in the cork, and the neck is laid with cotton wool.
The filter material should be spread in the proportion:
- homemade coal requires about 50 g per liter of filtered solution;
- BAU-A needs to be put about 12 g per liter of moonshine.
Moonshine can be passed through the made filter element up to several times, but the result will be worse each time, so it is better to change the coal after each filtered batch. It is recommended to rinse the amount of filter material required for the process with water to remove coal dust, which will also have to be removed from the filtrate later.
Filtration by pouring coal into moonshine
If the moonshine is cleaned with coal in the second way, that is, by pouring it into alcohol, then the filter element is taken with the calculation of 50 g per 1 liter of distillate. Manufacturers of the drink with many years of experience often recommend infusing the resulting mixture for 1-2 weeks for filtering moonshine at home, shaking it periodically. Then the drink is settled for another 5-7 days and filtered through a thick cotton filter.
However, such an approach to the purification of an alcoholic beverage contradicts scientific facts showing that only during the first 15-20 minutes of such processing, the content of aldehydes hazardous to health decreases, reaching a minimum value by the 20th minute.
Therefore, it is better to use coal within half an hour, then you need to remove it or, if necessary, repeat the procedure with a fresh portion of the adsorbent.
Coal dust removal
Next, we will consider how to clean moonshine from coal dust in order to make the distillate cloudy after filtration as transparent as possible. Immediately, we note that this procedure is not mandatory, since the mentioned dust is not harmful to health and does not in any way affect the taste of the drink. However, a good ashless filter can be used to enhance the appearance of the alcoholic beverage.
These elements are made from 95% pure cellulose and are cut in the shape of a filter paper in the shape of circles. For example, you can use the White Ribbon filter, which has a high filtration rate and a good ability to screen out coarse particles in the solution, like coal dust.
Filter reuse
Those who are just beginning to learn the intricacies of making a homemade alcoholic drink often do not know whether the same cleaning element can be used to filter different batches, as well as how many times it is allowed.
In fact, this should not be done, if only because when the pores of the coal are saturated with harmful substances, it loses its activity. Moreover, with further use, the adsorbent begins to give these substances back, that is, after using it, you will no longer receive a filtrate, but a solution saturated with aldehydes and fusel oils.
But if you are using used coal, then before you clean the moonshine, the material must be reactivated. To do this, it is treated with a 2% hydrochloric acid solution, washed thoroughly with water, dried and re-ignited. However, for high-quality filtration, it is still desirable to use fresh, manufactured in an industrial environment.
