Air Still Pro (ASP) review
Not sure if this is useful for someone. Considering ASP has been available for a while.
Being a tinkerer, I was given 2 Airstill Pro's. Both had different issues. I figured if I can get one running, it will be good to play with.
Managed to get one running without issues, cleaned it, vinegar run followed by sacrifical 4l tawny port run.
Second one's either controller or thermal sensor seems to be malfunctioned.
Pros
- Managed to get 24l TPW processed in 4l increments over 6 days
- Rinsing and starting 4l mash takes about 5 mins in the morning. Turn on and goto work (partner is at home and keeps an eye on the still)
- Not having to clean/sanitise everything and setup water lines makes my Saturdays free.
- Second distill gives approx 91% abv, clean and acceptable neutral
- ASP seems to work best, when ambient is under 24c
Cons
- Its a mess to get saddles out, i feel design could have been like a long basket with saddles to take everything out easily
- Do not use ASP indoors, even at 20c ambient, vapour is not cooled 100%, a sizeable vapour escapes and stinks the area
- Even though instead of botanical basket, extra copper scrubber can be added, extra copper is never bad, right? Wrong, Manual specifically says not to put extra copper above the weir and I have to agree. With extra copper neutral had had this bad smell.
- After 6 runs, saddles are filthy, worse than 6 runs of T500, and distill had this nasty smell
- Internally silicon hoses used for 2 joints (for some its a deal breaker), it will not be easy to replace these with hdpe hoses
- I can't see myself using this for macerations, not enough compression for cuts
- Under warranty its all good, anything goes wrong, its pretty much a throwaway product
- For regular acceptable quality neutral, saddles need to be cleaned (boiled in vinegar-salt-water solution) every 6 runs. Can get away with 20 or so runs before still needs to be re-seasoned
Bottom line
- Great product, if you are short of space and time (as long as someone can keep an eye on it), and want to make acceptable quality neutral
- Twice distilled TPW is acceptable and felt better than store bought vodka
- If you have space, resources, water and can give up your saturday. T500 will produce better results and with 5x capacity. Otherwise airstill pro would be sufficient for acceptable neutral.
How i am using air still pro? I run 24l TPW over 6 days and collect it all in 5l demijohn. Dilute it to 40% and then run in T500 at approx 900w. Final distill when diluted to 45% abv, is smooth and loved by everyone.