Making Sanitiser Using T500 and Airstills

With the shortages of sanitiser products, we have come up with a recipe you can try, which creates a usable sanitiser suitable for home use. Most of the equipment and ingredients can be bought on our website, links to these are included. Please subscribe for more info like this, direct to your inbox.

Step 1 - Yeast and Sugar

Start with a turbo yeast (24 Hour is best because it’s so quick) Fast Pure or Classic yeast.

No need to sterilise the bucket and lid but please make sure they are really clean. Take the appropriate amount of sugar for the kit. This would be 6 or 7 kilos (if not in a mega rush with the 24-hour yeast we have found 7 kilos is the most economical mix) in nearly all cases. Any sugar will do but the cheapest is fine as we are not looking for a quality wash like we would need if we were drinking it.

Add the 21 odd litres of water to the sugar and dissolve well. The liquid temperature again in nearly all cases needs to be around 25C. Do not get it too warm as the yeast is very lively.
Now add the yeast to the container and loosely replace the lid (fill the airlock with water if you have one). Fermentation will start quickly especially with the 24-hour version.

Step 2 - After 24 Hours

After 24 hours check the gravity of the liquid and see if fermentation has finished? There will be no sign of life in the liquid if done. Leave it a couple of hours just make sure by again checking the reading is the same on the hydrometer. If it is that is great if it’s not, leave it a little longer. Although it’s saying it’s a 24-hour yeast it will take more like 30 hours as temperatures will fluctuate. Do not worry about this.

Once you are sure fermentation has finished, continue below.

Air Still

For Airstill owners you need to get rid of the gas from the liquid (this will have built up during fermentation as the yeast converts the sugar to alcohol CO2 will be given off). Use a paddle or one of our degassing sticks which you can attach to a drill.

Keep repeating this process until you can see the gas has been dispersed. Now we recommend adding the two-part turbo finings. Once clear siphon into the Airstill 4 litres at a time. Add a cap full of distiller’s conditioner. Run as you normally would. Collect between 800 and 900mls of distillate. Your alcohol will be around 60%. So now we need to redistil to get this up to around 80%.

Take about 3litres of the distilled alcohol and add this to the Airstill. Add about 500ml to one litre of ware. Now run and collect. The first two litres will be high strength so put this in one container and then run a further 500nls into another container. Check your ABV on both and you can start mixing all the types together to make sure you end up with 65% alcohol strength mix. I can’t tell for sure what strength each of these “Runs “will be as the strength at the start has a bearing but you will perfect your own version. See below for mixing.

T500 Still

For T500 users you do not need to degas or add finings this is not necessary. Siphon the” wash “into the still but leave the sediment behind (the dead yeast cells) as they will burn on the base of the still. Now add a cupful of distiller’s conditioner (no need for the ceramic beads). Once this process has finished and you have collected the alcohol dilute this down to 65% ABV (they say it is still effective at 60% but we like to have a safety margin built in).

Airstill and T500

You can now add a squirt of Aloe Vera Gel to the liquid to give it a colour and a slight smoothness. We prefer adding Glycerine as this does the same job but mixes better. About 50ml to 4 litres is good.
If you would like to add a flavour and colour. Take some of the alcohol 65% Alcohol now and add this to a jug. We can then add some botanicals like orange peppermint lemon lavender green mint (have a look through our list and find one that works for you) and soak in the alcohol for about 6 hours mixing regularly. This is not effective in water must be alcohol. This will pick up the smell (and taste although that is not an issue) and will also add a great colour to it. This can then be added to the bulk. We now suggest adding a small amount of glycerine (if not added earlier) 50ml to 4 litres. Shake well and you are good to go.

If you want some small bottles we would recommend that Poundland, Home Bargain, and B and M do a pack of 3,4 or 5 travel bottles (around 80 to 100ml in size) with spray and pumps which are perfect for the hand sanitiser. Cost between £1 and £3 depending where from (Poundland is the cheapest).
Might well be worth putting a label on which says keep away from children and not for human Consumption.

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Making Sanitiser Using T500 and Airstills