Beer_Baron wrote:Dirk McLargeHuge wrote: No, but I have a curious desire to see how this turns out. Go for it!
I am probably not going to pull the trigger for a while yet... I was hoping that some Kiwi or Aussie would chime in with some first hand knowledge about how well air stills work! Don't want to drop $$$ on something that is going to have the potential to blow up my house!
Not an Aussie or Kiwi but I own/use one of those stills for making small batches. Nor have I made applejack or rhum agricole using it. But this the same basic design as a standard pot still. Some pot stills run the condensor coil under water for conversion of the steam to liquid, but this is a pot still that uses a fan to cool instead of water.
I used mine to make some everclear as well as some Absinthe (you can get all the herbs to make it leagally). Both came out amazingly well. The everclear I put a half of a peach and tablespoon of suger in each mason jar. Good stuff!!!
Pot stills are the still of choice for making flovored liquor types as it does not strip away all the flavors like a reflux still does. Reflux stills are best for producing 180 to 190 proof runs. Pot stills are designed for performing several runs to produce the liquor. Now for the bad news, it is not as easy as it looks to make good booze. You have to understand flavor profiles and how to make your cuts in order to produce the beverage that you want. However, with the cost effective nature of these stills it is well worth the cost of it and something you can learn to do by reading some forums and a little practice. There is also some guidelines to making your cuts that you can use until you learn.