Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Yep ginger makes a great vodka. One of my favourites. I use naked ginger. The stuff you buy in the shops with a bit of sugar on the out side of it. I have done it several ways, steeped, tincture, with stevia, I prefer it made with added sugar so it's a bit more like a liqueur. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Just reading this thread, The Doc suggests 200gm of Stevia (Natvia) for 1 litre of water
Is this correct?

I just went to my local supermarket, to find 95gm of Stevia was $11, making it a $22 purchase just to dilute into 1 litre of water
It also seemed like an awful lot, the 90gm jar was HUGE!, i find it hard to imagine that 200gm would even fit into 1 litre of water.

Is that what people do?

Cheers

NotBenStiller wrote:just a quick note - don't confuse stevia and natvia
Natvia can be used spoon for spoon the same as sugar. It contains stevia and erythritol.

You can also buy stevia powder by itself some places (health food stores usually) It isn't used spoon for spoon like sugar - it comes with a tiny tiny little spoon (maybe 1/16th of a teaspoon) that equals one teaspoon of sugar sweetness. It has a mild licorice taste as well.

If you use pure stevia spoon for spoon you will end up with insanely sweet with a strong licorice flavour.

Near bottom on page 3. U have purer one maybe, so won't need as much :think:
I'd like to try this too.

Thanks mate, i actually did read that. You might be right though.
And the Stevia product i found in my local Supermarket had an illustration on the label showing 1sp Sugar = 1sp Stevia.
Which made me think, wow that is going to be a lot, as the jar was 90grams and it was HUGE.

Some info on the ratio at the bottom of this page:
http://foodwatch.com.au/reviews/item/pr ... -side.html

Anyway, looks like my local Supermarket is a ripoff, its much cheaper in Woolies
https://www.woolworths.com.au/Shop/Brow ... geNumber=2

Looks like not all Stevia or Nativa is the same either, some are mixed with starch as a bulking agent.
http://natvia.com/products/natvia-200g-canister/

As compared too
https://www.hermesetas.com/data/en/prod ... ralia.html

To be honest, im still confused

I found this, anyone care to clarify if this is the case?

Stevia is the raw ingredient that goes into Natvia. Stevia on its own has a very bitter aftertaste. Natvia is a special formulation of Stevia Reb-A (best part of the Stevia plant) and Erythritol (a naturally occurring nectar), which makes Natvia taste like sugar.

https://changinghabits.com.au/natvia-a- ... ubstitute/

Ok, i think ive worked it out, the whole 1 Cup Sugar = 1 Cup Stevia confused the hell out of me
Sounded like a 1:1 replacement to me, no wonder 200g of Stevia in 1 litre of Water seemed Over the top.



So, going the recommendations on the label
Its is 20g of Stevia in 1 Litre of water to be the same as 200g of sugar in 1 litre of water

Is that what others have done?

1 Litre of 94% Tincture
1 Litre of water with 20g Stevia dissolved in it
Mix the 2 to fix or stabilise your Flavoured Vodka Concentrate
(I really thought it should be 1 Litre of 94% Tincture to 1.3 Litres of Water/Stevia to get to 40%, but anyway)
Then mix with a 40% Vodka to desired flavour strength?

I have just put a couple of Star Anise in some 96% Neutral to try make a liquorice flavoured vodka.
Anyone tried this before? I put 3 Stars in about 200ml. Didn't crush them but. Thinking maybe I should. Will try that next time if this tastes OK.

Need to get some Stevia/Natvia today to finish it with.

I would love to make gin in the style of the hunter valley distillery in the longer term. I did a side by side of their copperwave london gin with bombay sapphire, and damn near tipped the bombay out. The hunter valley gin was more viscous and had some residual sweetness with a great botantical profile with a lemon verbena or lemon myrtle flavour dominant.

Just wondering if anybody has a suggested ratio for using orris root similar to stevia as Doc referred to in his awesome post early in this thread. I intend to use the stevia syrup for a bunch of different recipes, but want to do some gin style tinctures until I have the equipment to do proper gin runs. Also any thoughts on amount of angelica root for the recipe below would be greatly appreciated.

There is a recipe in one of the gin threads for a mash that a member added 1 litre of 40% for 48 hours before straining and not diluting further. Was thinking of using a similar profile to theirs to make the tincture, but with a few changes:

1 litre 90-95%
1 tbsp fresh (or frozen) juniper berries
1 tbsp dried juniper berries
1 medium piece lemon peel
1 medium piece orange peel
1 peppercorn
1 cardamon pod
1 tsp coriander seeds
4 lemon verbena or lemon myrtle leaves
X? angelica root powder

would you crush all of these in a mortar and pestle or just add them to the spirit?

Steep for 5-7 days strain twice through coffee filters and then dilute with an orris root, stevia and glycerine syrup to use for blending with 40% neutral. I thought a very mild diluting syrup with orris root a little glycerine and stevia could make a pretty tasty blend and give a little residual sweetness I am looking for in the final product.

For the syrup, I was thinking

100g stevia-natvia form
x?? orris root
10ml glycerine
1 litre of water - made with Doc's syrup method.

Alternatively I could leave the glycerine out and just add to the final bottles at 3ml for 700ml.

Guessing the final tincture could be blended at a 50:50 ratio with 40% neutral, but won't know until I do some blending tests for the sweet spot.

Apologies for all the questions in a single post.

:text-thankyoublue:

Sorted the orris root and angelica root I think - both going in at 1/4 teaspoon in the tincture, and then will dilute with weak sugar syrup. Will post results once I have them.

So made a few flavours up with some tinctures I put on last weekend.
Really impressed with the Liquorice vodka I have made.
The bottles are made up from the tinctures to the right. Liquorice was 1/4 tincture to 3/4 neutral and the other 2 were 1/3 tincture to 2/3 neutral.
Will work on a vanilla one now. I had put some vanilla pods in, but they were pods that I had bought back from Bali and were nowhere near as good as what we can get here.

We just tried our Tinctures tonight, undiluted with neutral yet and boy oh boy, does it need it, the flavour that carries over is intense!
Lemon and Mandarin.

The Mrs was very impressed.

I grabbed a kindle version of Homemade Liqueurs and infused spirits by Andrew Schloss a few weeks ago. Great recipes. Did a few bottles of the lemon lime - with bitters and soda water it is downright dangerous. Going to be great for next summer. Have the indredients to do one of the coffee liquors from the next run. Will also do their triple sec style, looks delicious.

Also did a batch of infused gin ingredients for 3 days - can post recipe if interested. Three days was all it needed, the juniper comes through quickly, as does the lemon peel, angelica root and orris root. Takes on a medium strength black tea colour, and louches a funky green when tonic is added. Did a flight of this with the folks, along with an Edwards essence GB gin and a bottle of bombay sapphire.

Infusion was ranked first 2 out 3. Then edwards. Then bombay sapphire. Edwards needs about triple what is on the label, it is pretty dialed back for my palate. I get that gin to style is a clear vapour infusion, but have to say give me oils, louche and bags of flavour any day.

hi guys i also am confused on reading this thread with regards to Stevia, doc said 200gm stevia to a litre of water, thats 20 plus dollars of stevia should it be 20gm of stevia what am i missing at 20$ just for the sugar it is expensive!

Boardt62,
Did you come to a conclusion between 20gm and 200gm?
The way I read the 200gm it was like a cordial and you added the required amount to taste not the whole whole mixture.
I would be interested to see what you have come up with. Thanks

thegoose wrote:Hey Bluess

I used 500 ml of 95%
100g of stevia (natvia brand in tin from woolies)
625 ml total of water
15 kafir lime leaves rolled and sliced thinly

Just dissolve the stevia in 100ml of hot water with a whisk
Add 525ml of cold filtered water to that
Add to strained tincture

As for putting in a recipe that's up to the top brass maybe just putting the method in somewhere as it obviously has a pretty broad application range
Cheers

I followed this recepie and was very impressed with the result.
I also did a lemon lime and chilli version which is very enjoyable if you like a bit of a chilli burn. (7 Kaffir lime leaves, zest of 3 lemons and 2 birds eye chillis)

I think the lime recepie should be looked at for the tried and proven section. Its easy and yeilds great results

Danish schnapps
http://www.danish-schnapps-recipes.com/

Wobblyboot wrote:Danish schnapps
http://www.danish-schnapps-recipes.com/

Thanks Wobblyboot, great link / information. It's given me a good baseline for Schnapps and Liqueurs and I now have an understanding of the sugar additions.

Cheers

Wineleader wrote:

Wobblyboot wrote:Danish schnapps
http://www.danish-schnapps-recipes.com/

Thanks Wobblyboot, great link / information. It's given me a good baseline for Schnapps and Liqueurs and I now have an understanding of the sugar additions.

Cheers

They may call it schnapps but I'd call them liqueurs. I came across it while ago and just found it again. A good read for flavouring vodkas :handgestures-thumbupleft: