Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi Folks

Just built a botanicals basket to try out in a gin run in a few weeks. I just used a stainless kitchen strainer that is held below the boiler lid with a large clip washer that I made. My question is this. Will the vapour pass through the botanicals that are suspended in the strainer or will it by pass the botanicals taking the path of least resistance around the strainer into the pot? Not sure what the outcome will be at this stage. I may have been better trying to get the botanicals into the bottom section of the pot. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Les

Vapour will always take the path of least resistance

I did see somewhere you could get a little spool piece that held a gin basket fitted to the lid of these types of stills and you then mounted the column on to that.

I’ve only ever pot stilled macerated gins even though I own a Carter Head but I have heard of people having success suspending the botanicals in the pot just below the still mount. As Stig has already said though, the vapour will try to take the path of least resistance so you may find you end up with a fairly light gin.

Have good seal against wall or as proffeser said hang it in the vapour and it will work :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks for the comments Folks. Didn’t really think this through until after the build. Your comments confirm my suspicions. Might modify the stainless washer that I made to use it as a tie off point for copper wire. That way I can put botanicals inside the column inside a piece of cloth and use the wire to stop the bag falling out. Will also try macerated gins as well. The next step will be to start playing with recipes and quantities. This may end up being a long and endless learning curve. I’m sure there will be plenty of questions coming your way over the next few weeks. Thanks again.

Cheers

Les

I found this excel file. Not sure where. Maybe on this site, but heres is the link
Sorry deleted file as it was corrupt ??

Try again with the Gin Profile in excel
sorry still wont down load

Hi Folks,

Decided to try macerating botanicals in a 40% neutral for 24 hours and then running it through a pot still. Odin’s recipe looks like it might be a good starting point for gin making. Anyone out there tried it? Was thinking about using orange or mandarin peel instead of tangerine as I have some growing in the back yard. If I make up a 5l batch (x5 according to his recipe) would I put in the peel of 5 oranges? That seems to be quite a lot? Any suggestions for other botanicals that may improve the flavour? I think there is going to be a lot of experimenting in the coming months trying to come up with some really nice tasting gin. The possibilities are endless. Hope you guys can put forward some suggestions to help me start on this journey. Thanks in advance.

Cheers

Les

Odin's Easy Gin recipe is a cracker. I used orange instead of tangerine and it turned out great. My advice would be to go easy on the orange though as it can be a bit overpowering.

Thanks PG.

What sort of quantities would you suggest for a 5l batch?

I'm not sure off the top of my head but there's a formula floating around the forum that you can use to determine the quantities. If you can't find it, googling Odin's Easy Gin should get it.

Professor Green wrote:I'm not sure off the top of my head but there's a formula floating around the forum that you can use to determine the quantities. If you can't find it, googling Odin's Easy Gin should get it.

Might have been this one Prof, I can't give the credit where I got it from but it's a good reference:

X juniper
X/2 coriander
X/10 angelica, cassia, cinnamon, licorice, bitter almonds, grains of paradise, cubeb berries
X/100 bitter & sweet orange peel, lemon peel, ginger, orris root, cardamom, nutmeg, savory, calamus, chamomile

If we use X = 20g, then X/2 = 10g, X/10 = 2g, X/100 = 0.2g (200mg).

Multiply by the number of finished litres. Using only one of each division provides 32.2 grams/litre, leaving considerable room for adjustment and addition.

This is only a guideline, so keep in mind that variations to this pattern bring out different flavours and back-flavours, a different nose, a different aftertaste and mouth-feel. Also remember that the spirit, regardless of the distillation method used, must be as clean as possible (absolute minimum heads and tails) because re-distillation is for the purpose of adding the botanicals, not fixing the wash.


Chocko

Chocko6969 wrote:

Professor Green wrote:I'm not sure off the top of my head but there's a formula floating around the forum that you can use to determine the quantities. If you can't find it, googling Odin's Easy Gin should get it.

Might have been this one Prof, I can't give the credit where I got it from but it's a good reference:

X juniper
X/2 coriander
X/10 angelica, cassia, cinnamon, licorice, bitter almonds, grains of paradise, cubeb berries
X/100 bitter & sweet orange peel, lemon peel, ginger, orris root, cardamom, nutmeg, savory, calamus, chamomile

If we use X = 20g, then X/2 = 10g, X/10 = 2g, X/100 = 0.2g (200mg).

Multiply by the number of finished litres. Using only one of each division provides 32.2 grams/litre, leaving considerable room for adjustment and addition.

This is only a guideline, so keep in mind that variations to this pattern bring out different flavours and back-flavours, a different nose, a different aftertaste and mouth-feel. Also remember that the spirit, regardless of the distillation method used, must be as clean as possible (absolute minimum heads and tails) because re-distillation is for the purpose of adding the botanicals, not fixing the wash.


Chocko

The finished litres is what I am finding hard to estimate. Because of the great variation in % that is coming off the still. Am I over thinking this ?
If I put in 10 litres @ 40% and put enough water in to cover the element say 10 litres I will have a % of 20 ABV in the boiler.
What is the best way to estimate the number of litres. ? :text-thankyoublue:

If it's all hearts, your going to lose 3-5% of what you put in, give or take, depends what % you run it down to, the output % dosent really matter for calculating that if your finished product is going to be 40% too - what's in there is what's in there... unless you run it hard enough (very) to average below that....

Ned wrote:

Chocko6969 wrote:

Professor Green wrote:I'm not sure off the top of my head but there's a formula floating around the forum that you can use to determine the quantities. If you can't find it, googling Odin's Easy Gin should get it.

Might have been this one Prof, I can't give the credit where I got it from but it's a good reference:

X juniper
X/2 coriander
X/10 angelica, cassia, cinnamon, licorice, bitter almonds, grains of paradise, cubeb berries
X/100 bitter & sweet orange peel, lemon peel, ginger, orris root, cardamom, nutmeg, savory, calamus, chamomile

If we use X = 20g, then X/2 = 10g, X/10 = 2g, X/100 = 0.2g (200mg).

Multiply by the number of finished litres. Using only one of each division provides 32.2 grams/litre, leaving considerable room for adjustment and addition.

This is only a guideline, so keep in mind that variations to this pattern bring out different flavours and back-flavours, a different nose, a different aftertaste and mouth-feel. Also remember that the spirit, regardless of the distillation method used, must be as clean as possible (absolute minimum heads and tails) because re-distillation is for the purpose of adding the botanicals, not fixing the wash.


Chocko

The finished litres is what I am finding hard to estimate. Because of the great variation in % that is coming off the still. Am I over thinking this ?
If I put in 10 litres @ 40% and put enough water in to cover the element say 10 litres I will have a % of 20 ABV in the boiler.
What is the best way to estimate the number of litres. ? :text-thankyoublue:

Yes you may be overthinking it a little but that's fine, once you get your head right it will become clearer.

When you say 10ltrs @ 40% I'm assuming these are heart of hearts. Use this dilution page: xcalcs.html
I nearly always go 35% but that's just me.
Just as an idea, here's what I do. I have a Gin head for vapour infusion in a SS basket. I only run small batches as this is what I prefer. I get about 3.5ltrs of heart of hearts, usually around 85%ABV and just add water up to about 20ltrs total. Very low ABV in the boiler but I'm safe in my mind and don't care about the extra heat up time. Fores only about 50ml discarded and then run the rest fairly slowly doing cuts of about 200-250ml, end up with about 20 jars or so, right down to about 30% as I've found this is when it gets a bit cloudy and too peppery.
So after it's aired and blended I usually get a bit over 3ltrs at about 75-85% and then dilute from there to 44%, giving about 5ltrs.
This is your magic figure, 5lts X (25-35gms or 32.2gms above) = about 150 odd gms of botanicals, which is what I aim for. I always take notes in a spreadsheet as I'm trying for consistency of a very nice Gin, and this helps enormously. Some people might use the 3ltrs of hearts as their multiplier but I think that would leave your flavour short, I'm fairly certain the multiplier is the finished product ABV.
I'm no expert and I'm only up to about batch #6 but it seems to be working out just nicely.

Cheers,

Chocko

Chocko6969 wrote:

Ned wrote:

Chocko6969 wrote:

Professor Green wrote:I'm not sure off the top of my head but there's a formula floating around the forum that you can use to determine the quantities. If you can't find it, googling Odin's Easy Gin should get it.

Might have been this one Prof, I can't give the credit where I got it from but it's a good reference:

X juniper
X/2 coriander
X/10 angelica, cassia, cinnamon, licorice, bitter almonds, grains of paradise, cubeb berries
X/100 bitter & sweet orange peel, lemon peel, ginger, orris root, cardamom, nutmeg, savory, calamus, chamomile

If we use X = 20g, then X/2 = 10g, X/10 = 2g, X/100 = 0.2g (200mg).

Multiply by the number of finished litres. Using only one of each division provides 32.2 grams/litre, leaving considerable room for adjustment and addition.

This is only a guideline, so keep in mind that variations to this pattern bring out different flavours and back-flavours, a different nose, a different aftertaste and mouth-feel. Also remember that the spirit, regardless of the distillation method used, must be as clean as possible (absolute minimum heads and tails) because re-distillation is for the purpose of adding the botanicals, not fixing the wash.


Chocko

The finished litres is what I am finding hard to estimate. Because of the great variation in % that is coming off the still. Am I over thinking this ?
If I put in 10 litres @ 40% and put enough water in to cover the element say 10 litres I will have a % of 20 ABV in the boiler.
What is the best way to estimate the number of litres. ? :text-thankyoublue:

Yes you may be overthinking it a little but that's fine, once you get your head right it will become clearer.

When you say 10ltrs @ 40% I'm assuming these are heart of hearts. Use this dilution page: http://www.aussiedistiller.com.au/xcalcs.html
I nearly always go 35% but that's just me.
Just as an idea, here's what I do. I have a Gin head for vapour infusion in a SS basket. I only run small batches as this is what I prefer. I get about 3.5ltrs of heart of hearts, usually around 85%ABV and just add water up to about 20ltrs total. Very low ABV in the boiler but I'm safe in my mind and don't care about the extra heat up time. Fores only about 50ml discarded and then run the rest fairly slowly doing cuts of about 200-250ml, end up with about 20 jars or so, right down to about 30% as I've found this is when it gets a bit cloudy and too peppery.
So after it's aired and blended I usually get a bit over 3ltrs at about 75-85% and then dilute from there to 44%, giving about 5ltrs.
This is your magic figure, 5lts X (25-35gms or 32.2gms above) = about 150 odd gms of botanicals, which is what I aim for. I always take notes in a spreadsheet as I'm trying for consistency of a very nice Gin, and this helps enormously. Some people might use the 3ltrs of hearts as their multiplier but I think that would leave your flavour short, I'm fairly certain the multiplier is the finished product ABV.
I'm no expert and I'm only up to about batch #6 but it seems to be working out just nicely.

Cheers,

Chocko

:text-thankyoublue: Yes it seems consistency is the way to go and knowing what your still can do. I have just done a run of hearts, but only 2.7 litres of 40% so its will be interesting on how it pans out. I did use the calculators to try and estimate the final result at 42%, so I will see how I go. I think I might have went too low into the %. I have done the cuts in 125ml lots and I estimated I got 1.5 litres, but until I blend I will not know the percentage. 10th jar was at 30% so I don't think I will get 75-85%. I agree with what you say 3.5 litres minimum of hears at about 85% should result in 3 litres of 75-85% than to 44% giving 5 litres and this is the magic number.

Also keep in mind that flavours come and go depending on the %ABV coming out of the still.
You shouldn't really stop at 30% as depending on your botanical mix you might be excluding a number of flavours.
Rose is one that comes out at lower %ABV.
Collect in small jars (as you are, good work) and blend once aired appropriately.