Odin's Easy Gin

[Evil Wizard]

Hi Odin, can you please comment on the reason to toss the first 10-20mLs of the gin distillate? Does this contain a bunch of harsh and heavy oils from the juniper?

I like the result when I do this and notice that the first 10mLs louches very heavily. But I'm wondering if you can explain your reasoning.

Thanks.

[Beerbrewer]

So, ran an Odin's gin today but forgot to get rid of the foreshots (long day), should I go ahead with adding water and making into gin or add water down to 40% and run again?

[Expat]

Juniper and citrus tends to accumulate in the first few mills. Dilute a sample and taste it, if you like the results just keep it.

[Beerbrewer]

Thanks Expat, I'll give that a try.

[copperkettle]

What a great thread. For someone like me, trying this for the first time, the information here means I can proceed with some confidence instead of the usual anxiety that I'm bound to get it wrong. (Although of course that would still be possible).

I did my first gin run yesterday, using 10L of neutral produced from wine with a VM still and diluted to 43%, distilling with the botanicals in the pot still kettle (minus citrus) and following Odin's recipe but with a few variations:

- addition of cardamom, coriander, cassia, rose petals, angelica in the maceration (I'd already got them and it seemed a shame not to put some in)
- use of 10 clementines for the citrus peel, also in the maceration
- maceration for 48 hours instead of 24 (not intentional but life intervened)
- fresh peel from a quarter of a bitter orange and one stick of fresh lemon grass in the vaporisation basket (mainly because I have them growing here and wanted to see if I could actually taste anything in the gin as a result)

Using a 40-litre pot still, I took off 5L (the 4L prescribed in the recipe, plus an extra one just to see what it turned out like). I shut down after 5L with the temp at 85%. I discarded (drank, actually) the first 10ml, which indeed turned milky with the addition of water but after an hour or so turned clear again, and didn't taste bitter to my palate.

The result tasted like rocket-powered Fanta as it came off the still. Those clementines were pretty big, so perhaps there was more peel than there should have been, and maybe the extra 24 hours didn't help. I had good, fat, juicy juniper berries and lightly crushed them by hand in a pestle, but perhaps using a mill might have brought the juniper forward a bit more to be in a better balance with the citrus.

Anyway, I know the citrus should settle down a bit over 5 weeks, so I'll put the 4L into a container with some headspace for oxygen access. And I'll stick exactly to the recipe for the next batch I do, and see about blending batches at the end. I've probably got about another 6 or 7 batches of 10L to do before I use all the neutral I've got here, so I could ring a few changes in the botanicals bill along the way, and then enjoy a winter of blending.

[GCB3]

Hey CopperKettle. I’m with you, I love this recipe. I’ve done 4 or 5 batches. Some were with the 3 week maceration and some with botanicals in the boiler and citrus in the vapor. The punch of the 12/3 juniper/coriander ratio is perfect for my taste. But, the citrus is too much for me. Even with scraping all the pith out, it comes out too bitter. I have some that is about 4 months old and it still has a bitter, citrus bite. From others comments, I’m not counting on it improving. The good news is that it makes a great G&T with a strong tonic.
The last three runs I’ve cut the citrus to 1/4 of a peel per liter and it’s just about right for my taste.
Good luck to you.

[DSmith78]

I love the sound of rocket powered Fanta. Reckon it should be in the tried and tested...

[NZChris]

Using a 40-litre pot still, I took off 5L (the 4L prescribed in the recipe, plus an extra one just to see what it turned out like).

I find that the citrus keeps getting stronger through the run and that the last off the still can be very strong and shouldn't be included. If I am going to run a gin beyond Odin's recommended 400ml/l, I use less citrus.

[copperkettle]

Thanks for those comments - all helpful. So I'll halve the citrus in the next run and take the 5th litre off in 100ml portions, rather than filling a 1L jar. On the back of the hand that 5th litre starts with plenty of citrus and juniper, but leaves a vegetal, rather compost-heap aroma at the end. I can do without that!

[The Baker]

I am guessing English is not your first language; or maybe you just are not familiar with some sayings...
The English in your post is perfect.
But you said 'on the back of the hand' and more usual would be 'on the other hand'.

I would love to speak another language fluently.

Geoff

[The Baker]

I am guessing English is not your first language; or maybe you just are not familiar with some sayings...
The English in your post is perfect.
But you said 'on the back of the hand' and more usual would be 'on the other hand'.

I would love to speak another language fluently.

Geoff

[copperkettle]

I am guessing English is not your first language; or maybe you just are not familiar with some sayings...
The English in your post is perfect.
But you said 'on the back of the hand' and more usual would be 'on the other hand'.

I would love to speak another language fluently.

Geoff

Well thank you Geoff. I've been speaking English for 62 years, having started at around 1 year old, like most English born Englishmen. Glad to hear my fluency hasn't suffered despite now living in another country and working hard at a second language.

'On the back of the hand'...I meant I rubbed the alcohol on to the back of my hand to smell the aromas.

[copperkettle]

BTW your comment was funny, not offensive

[DSmith78]

I am guessing English is not your first language; or maybe you just are not familiar with some sayings...
The English in your post is perfect.
But you said 'on the back of the hand' and more usual would be 'on the other hand'.

I would love to speak another language fluently.

Geoff

Well thank you Geoff. I've been speaking English for 62 years, having started at around 1 year old, like most English born Englishmen. Glad to hear my fluency hasn't suffered despite now living in another country and working hard at a second language.

'On the back of the hand'...I meant I rubbed the alcohol on to the back of my hand to smell the aromas.

[The Baker]

I am guessing English is not your first language; or maybe you just are not familiar with some sayings...
The English in your post is perfect.
But you said 'on the back of the hand' and more usual would be 'on the other hand'.

I would love to speak another language fluently.

Geoff

Well thank you Geoff. I've been speaking English for 62 years, having started at around 1 year old, like most English born Englishmen. Glad to hear my fluency hasn't suffered despite now living in another country and working hard at a second language.

'On the back of the hand'...I meant I rubbed the alcohol on to the back of my hand to smell the aromas.

Gotcha.

Geoff

[tandemcart]

Hi all

I have been made about 100L of this gin so far, tweaking all the way.

Currently I use a TPW distilled once through my pot still. Diluted to approximately 20% and all the botanicals thrown into the boiler along with the booze.

Juniper berries, lemon peel, cardamom pods and bay leaves.


Run through with about half a litre of foreshots/ head taken off right at the start and keeping everything down until it's too earthy for my tastes.

The last 2 batches have been teaching others about distilling while they build a Nike smoke rocket for launching later this year.

Each batch producing around 25L of finished product and each batch only lasting around 3 weeks before running out.

I prefer to have it straight in a glass and sipped like a whiskey (and it is just as enjoyable) but it is also amazing in a G&T.

My next experiments are going to be with Angelica root, orris root and some other things if I can get my hands on them

Thanks for the recipe Odin and I hope you don't mind the tweaks to your recipe!

[Odin]

I don't mind the tweaks. The base recipe is the starting point.

Odin.

[aballister]

Hey all
i have a simple question, i've read that its dangerous to distill if what you're distilling is 40% or more abv, so after maceration and before distilling shouldn't it be brought down bellow 40%?

[Bushman]

Hey all
i have a simple question, i've read that its dangerous to distill if what you're distilling is 40% or more abv, so after maceration and before distilling shouldn't it be brought down bellow 40%?

Yes

[NZChris]

When I do OEG, I stick to his method.

[DSmith78]

When I do OEG, I stick to his method.

True that.

[cayars]

I've just finished reading this thread again for the 2nd time to make sure I picked up all the info everyone has contributed.
I plan on making a couple of small 1L batches of OEG this coming week. First batch or 2 will be the recipe as stated in the op post so I can use it as a reference. Seems my local grocery store has tangerines (at least on the website) so that will be a plus.

I'm thinking of running this on the stove top 5 gallon still with 1 gallon thumper. I'm thinking of putting everything in the thumper (minus peels) and using the boiler as a steamer. I might try a batch directly in the boiler as well to see if there is any difference.

A couple of questions. First looking at the chart https://www.lovebrewing.co.uk/guides/st ... botanicals it seems like no commercial GIN is made with tangerines but most use lemon and/or oranges. So the question to Odin would be do you have problems sourcing Lemons or via trial and error found that the tangerine in your opinion was the best for a simple recipe? More of a curiosity question then anything else.

I took a look at my spice rack (sad) and noticed I didn't have most of the spices listed on that chart. I only had Cassia, Ginger (not intending to use), Nutmeg (not intending to use), Cumin (not intending to use) & Cloves (both ground and whole). Those spices I have all seem to be "outliner" spices not found in the main stream Gins so they will wait a while before I play with them, if at all. The fruits and Coriander I can get at the local grocery store and the Juniper berries were ordered off Amazon.

Cloves aren't mentioned on the chart but Odin made a comment about them on page 2 and also mentioned they could be used as a licorice substitute. Has anyone used cloves in a test batch or currently using it? Any comments on it you can add?

My third question is the proportion of Coriander used in this recipe. Coriander is used at 1/4 the Juniper levels while the link above and other Gin recipes typically have it at half the Juniper amount. Odin, was this based on your taste preferences as you thought the "traditional" 1/2 amount was too much? If you were making a more involved Gin (not easy gin) would you up the amount in proportion to the Juniper? Did you cut back because this is a maceration/boiler charge vs gin basket approach? Again just curious.

In your video How to make the perfect gin - iStill you use a boiler charge ABV of 30% vs the 43% here in this recipe. I've read the comments in this thread concerning this. My question is do you still prefer the 43% charge for the easy gin but prefer the 30% for more complex gins? Or is this more a matter of higher ABV for a dry gin while lower ABV for a softer less dry gin?

One final comment. Instead of all of us talking about peels or slices or whole fruit slices, we should give a weight for the amount of zest used. Of course the quality of the zest will always be different (like any spice) but at least having a given weight in grams is much less subjective.

Can't wait for the Juniper to get here to do a few runs and experience the OEG goodness everyone has been talking about! With several slightly different runs I might even have some left at the 5 week mark.

Thanks so much for all your valuable contributions over the years!

Carlo

[eastlondon]

Just a quick question about scaling this recipe up...

For quite a few years I've been distilling my variation on this recipe, with perfect results, but only doing up to about 2l at a time. I wanted to make some for a family party recently so started with 10l and scaled all the botanicals up x10 and discarding the first 20ml.

Unfortunately I got distracted at the start of the distillation and ended up not swapping collection jars until 100ml of foreshots had already been collected. "oh well' I thought, I may as well continue and see what the end result is like (I was expecting it to be drinkable, but much less citrus-y than normal).

However it tasted absolutely great, just louchey as heck!

Normally I'd associate louche-iness with having too much foreshot oils but, given I took away too much (according to Odin's advice), I'm now very confused!!

I now want to be distilling 25l for another party and I'm really worried about scaling it up again... any ideas?

[NZChris]

If you want robust, intensely flavored gin, unlike the wimpy commercial offerings you are used to, accept the louche as a sign of quality.

To get rid of the louche, dilute with a similar abv neutral until the louche disappears.

[eastlondon]

If you want robust, intensely flavored gin, unlike the wimpy commercial offerings you are used to, accept the louche as a sign of quality.

With all respect, is it really that black & white?

The reason I posted my question was that the recipe I've developed (roughly based on Odin's) has an exceptional taste, with no louche, when I make <2l of it, but louches when I scale it up.

I was wondering if the scaling might not exactly be 20l recipe = 1l recipe X 20 (or at least discarded foreshots X 2) and wondered if Odin or anyone had experience of this.

[cayars]

Nobody can answer that for you because we each source the botanicals differently. Your Juniper might be fresher or pack more punch then mine. My citric fruits might have more punch then yours. Each time you purchase them they might be different which means each batch could be slightly different as well.

Best you can get is rough amounts to use and we each need to build/modify off that. However at the one liter batch as per Odin in the OP message this works extremely well!

Something that works at 1 gram for one liter might scale to only 8 grams for 10 liters as the amount of "punch" builds up of that particular botanical. Your cuts of course matter and you have more leeway the more you start with in the boiler. If you get excessive louche you may need or want to experiment with a larger heads cut or tails cuts (mix them in slowly) to see where the louche comes from. You can then figure it out by that based on what comes early in the run and what comes later in the run.

[NZChris]

With all respect, is it really that black & white?

More like clear and white

To work out the bare minimum of neutral to add to a batch, I make a 100ml sample at my desired abv and 100ml of neutral at the same abv, then add the neutral a few ml at a time until it clears. That gives me the numbers I need to work out how much neutral to make up for the whole batch.

[eastlondon]

Nobody can answer that for you because we each source the botanicals differently. Your Juniper might be fresher or pack more punch then mine. My citric fruits might have more punch then yours. Each time you purchase them they might be different which means each batch could be slightly different as well.

Best you can get is rough amounts to use and we each need to build/modify off that. However at the one liter batch as per Odin in the OP message this works extremely well!

Something that works at 1 gram for one liter might scale to only 8 grams for 10 liters as the amount of "punch" builds up of that particular botanical. Your cuts of course matter and you have more leeway the more you start with in the boiler. If you get excessive louche you may need or want to experiment with a larger heads cut or tails cuts (mix them in slowly) to see where the louche comes from. You can then figure it out by that based on what comes early in the run and what comes later in the run.

Perfect answer that simple enough for even me to understand!

More like clear and white

Well yes

To work out the bare minimum of neutral to add to a batch, I make a 100ml sample at my desired abv and 100ml of neutral at the same abv, then add the neutral a few ml at a time until it clears. That gives me the numbers I need to work out how much neutral to make up for the whole batch.

Great advice!

[raz]

Hi, absolute beginner here, I want to do my first ever distillation using this recipe and I plan on using store-bought NGA. I was wondering if filtering the 96% spirit through activated carbon first would make it taste better (watered a small sample down to 40% or so and it was a little harsher than I'd like).

I won't be doing this for too many times, I'm only going to use the store-bought stuff for the first few runs till I get the hang of it, and then I plan on doing my own NGA once I'll get more comfortable with the equipment (and get the stuff I'm currently missing).

Also, would it be a problem if I'd do the 2 week steeping in a higher abv spirit than the 43% recommended in the recipe? Say around 70% and then water it down to 40% right before removing the botanicals and pouring it in the still?

[Expat]

Hi, absolute beginner here, I want to do my first ever distillation using this recipe and I plan on using store-bought NGA. I was wondering if filtering the 96% spirit through activated carbon first would make it taste better (watered a small sample down to 40% or so and it was a little harsher than I'd like).

I won't be doing this for too many times, I'm only going to use the store-bought stuff for the first few runs till I get the hang of it, and then I plan on doing my own NGA once I'll get more comfortable with the equipment (and get the stuff I'm currently missing).

Also, would it be a problem if I'd do the 2 week steeping in a higher abv spirit than the 43% recommended in the recipe? Say around 70% and then water it down to 40% right before removing the botanicals and pouring it in the still?

Re carbon filtering, I'd say No. It the NGS doesn't meet the clean neutral requirement you should run it through a column and make clean cuts.

Longer steep time shouldn't be an issue, I would not recommend increasing the he ABV though as you'll likely extract flavors that you don't want. Also unclear, what you're gaining from this change.....

Overall, I recommend staying as close to the recipe as humanly possible; it produces amazing results just as it is.

Side note slightly off topic for this thread, when you do start making your own neutral spirit, it's likely not going to be a grain base; sugar is just easier and cleaner.