Anyone Recommend a Good Filter for Fluid?

[BayBoy]

Hi,

I'm making an aftershave by extracting organics with alcohol and water for 6 weeks.

I need to get the purest looking end-product possible. I want it to look like bourbon in a clear bottle. No specks or other contaminants.

What in your opinion is the best way to filter this? Cotton filter? Paper coffee filter?

Cheers!

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Gold coffee filter, followed by paper if the gold isn't fine enough.

 

[dixiedragon]

A coffee filter will get there eventually. I infused some liquid oils (olive, rice bran, sunflower) with alkanet. I had to leave it alone overnight but it did eventually make its way through.

 

[IrishLass]

My favorite strainer of choice is what is known as a nut-milk bag. I have this one I bought it at Wholefoods. It strains surprisingly quick and very finely. I own several fine mesh strainers, but none strain as fine as my nut-milk bag. I call it my little miracle strainer.


IrishLass

 

[earlene]

The nut milk bag is good, but you can also use a jelly straining bag. WalMart carries them, as do many places where they sell canning supplies. Here is what they look like:

I like the stand for holding the bag on top of the container. It allows for more height over the jar or pot or whatever.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Pantyhose, cut to fit inside fine mesh strainer. High tech, doncha know. :mrgreen: Coffee filters work well for chunky botanicals and powders.

 

[BayBoy]

My favorite strainer of choice is what is known as a nut-milk bag. I have this one I bought it at Wholefoods. It strains surprisingly quick and very finely. I own several fine mesh strainers, but none strain as fine as my nut-milk bag. I call it my little miracle strainer.


IrishLass

This sounds like a great idea. Though I wonder is a metal filter like this would be a good move since I assume the nutmilk bag will trap some of the extracted oils while a metal one should not. Maybe the metal one is a bit more 'turnkey'?

 

[Kittish]

This sounds like a great idea. Though I wonder is a metal filter like this would be a good move since I assume the nutmilk bag will trap some of the extracted oils while a metal one should not. Maybe the metal one is a bit more 'turnkey'?

You're going to have a little bit of loss no matter what you use to strain with. It should be pretty minimal with any of the strainers people have shown or mentioned here, unless you do something silly like overfill. Probably paper filters would cause the most loss of your extractives since they wick really effectively. As far as using metal, make certain you're using stainless steel, for pretty much the same reason you don't store essential oils in aluminum bottles (granted, it'd be a very, very slow deterioration with the tiny amounts present in your extracts but better to not even start down that road).

 

[Quri]

Thanks!

 

[earlene]

The beauty of a nutmilk bag or the jelly straining bag is that you can then squeeze the bag to elicit further drainage of the liquid, should you so choose. That doesn't work with the metal strainers. Also the size of the the container needed helps me choose which one I want. The gold metal coffee strainers are too small for any straining I've ever wanted to do. But then of course, I don't even drink coffee and my husband would probably not like it if I commandeered his coffee strainer.