How effective is the coal column for cleaning moonshine?

Homemade moonshine, made from good raw materials on a good home-brewing machine, is a wonderful drink. A good moonshine easily gives odds to many hot drinks manufactured by the factory. In order for the moonshine to finally part with the fusel spirit and unpleasant aftertaste, it must be cleared competently. There are many ways and devices, such as, for example, a coal column for cleaning moonshine, able to change the product beyond recognition.

Popular methods of cleaning moonshine

There are many ways of explaining how to clean moonshine at home: from the traditional to the completely exotic. Some of them are effective, others are not.

Cleaning of moonshine milk was made in Russian villages since the time of the king of Peas. A glass of cow's milk is poured into a three-liter jar of moonshine. About a day later, the gray mass of the unsightly species is collected and settles on the bottom of the vessel. Next, you need to as accurately as possible to drain the cleaned moonshine, not the sediment. The method is good only from the point of view of love for antiquity, in fact it is ineffective. Fusel smell of moonshine is practically not removed.

Similarly precipitates fusel oils, potassium permanganate, it works more efficiently, but also - not an ideal. After it, the drink gets an unpleasant aftertaste, and when cleaning the "advanced" moonshine from good raw materials (apricots, prunes, cereal malt, grapes), the aroma disappears completely, which one would like not to lose.

Carbon Filters

And yet most of the "experts" are inclined to think that the filter for moonshine should be used in coal, and not without grounds. Activated carbon successfully adsorbs on its surface most fusel oils. On the Internet, you can sometimes find a description of how to clean the moonshine at home by falling asleep in a container with a drink of a certain amount of activated or charcoal and then shaking. This is absolute nonsense.

In order to qualitatively clean the moonshine from impurities, it must be driven through the thickness of the adsorbent. This is how the coal column works to clean moonshine. There is a mass of folk, but effective ways to clean the product on coal, but without the column. The simplest of them is: several layers of flannel fabric are laid on the bottom of the funnel, an activated or finely chopped charcoal (from deciduous species) is poured on top, moonshine is dripped with a thin trickle or a drop from above, and a refined drink follows from the funnel.

For the sake of fairness, we say that with the cleaning of moonshine, an ordinary household jug filter with a simple cartridge based on activated charcoal is doing an "excellent" job.

The device of a coal column

The filter device is shown in the figure below. In fact, the coal column for cleaning moonshine is a pipe filled with adsorbent (activated carbon). The bottom of the pipe is a wall with a lot of small holes. A filter of blotting paper, a white flannel or, if dimensions are suitable, a cosmetic cotton disc is placed on it. The edges of the fabric filter should fit snugly against the walls of the pipe. It is necessary that small particles of activated carbon do not fall into the moonshine.

Then comes the filler (adsorbent). In its quality it will be more correct to use activated carbon for moonshine - birch or coconut. But it can be completely replaced with ordinary wood, finely crushed and slightly compacted. For efficiency in charcoal can be added medical, tableted. As can be seen from the figure, a coal column for cleaning moonshine can be made by hand. And the material can be very diverse: metal, glass or even wood.

The ideal way to clean moonshine

The algorithm for obtaining an ideally purified moonshine using a coal column is as follows:

• The first sublimation with the classical cutting off of "heads", "tails". A product with a strength of about 50 ... 60% is obtained.
• Dilution of the resulting moonshine with settled boiled water to a strength of 20 ... 30%.
• Filtration on a coal column (preliminary dilution is made because the stronger the drink, the more reluctant it gives charcoal harmful impurities).

• Secondary sublimation (again, "heads" and "tails"). The product obtained is perfectly purified, has a strength of about 70%.
• In this form, moonshine is enriched by insisting on herbs, berries, aging in oak, etc.
• If necessary, the drink is brought with boiled water to 40%.