Whole or Powder botanicals

Treatment and handling of your distillate.

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mburke78
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Whole or Powder botanicals

Post by mburke78 »

Hi I'm in the process of making gin and when I get to distilling it with botanical I am wondering if it's best to use whole ingredients or powdered? I'm using whole dried Junipers and going to steep these in the spirit for 24 hours but the rest of the botanicals I'm going to use vapor infusion. The only reason I can see not to use powered is that it might stop the vapors passing through the powder when it gets soggy. I'm going to use muslin and using a pot distiller.

On a side note I want to make a raspberry gin so is it best to flavor it when distilling with the other botanicals or steeping the raspberry's in the gin afterwards?

Thanks for any help in advance.
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Expat
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Re: Whole or Powder botanicals

Post by Expat »

Neither really.

Powdered is going to make you a hassle to filter it out prior to distillation, isn't appropriate for vapour infusion and risks scorching. Whole, and you won't be extracting the entire flavour profile. Generally its advised to crush your ingredients with a mortar and pistil or coarsely chopped in a food processor.

IF, this is your first attempt at a gin, its strongly recommended that you give 'Odin's Easy Gin' a try before anything more complex. It'll give you a basic understanding of the essentials e.g. blending before you experiment.

Hope that helps, Best of luck :thumbup:
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: Whole or Powder botanicals

Post by Saltbush Bill »

I use maceration for my Gin, as said above a course grind has given me the best results.
mburke78
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Re: Whole or Powder botanicals

Post by mburke78 »

I think I will give Odin's Gin ago and see how it turns out. Cheers for the tips guys.
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Still Life
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Re: Whole or Powder botanicals

Post by Still Life »

mburke78 wrote:I think I will give Odin's Gin ago and see how it turns out. Cheers for the tips guys.
Please keep us updated on how this turns out.
Being an Odin's concoction, I have all the faith.
Gin is one of the few things I haven't made. And like you, mburke78, I'm getting the gin bug.
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still_stirrin
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Re: Whole or Powder botanicals

Post by still_stirrin »

Odin’s EZ gin recipe is very well formulated. That is, you can scale it according to your desired product size. He also addresses the proper ratios of often used botanicals (referencing Zymurgy Bob’s formula with the x/2, x/10, x/100, etc). It will produce an exceptional/acceptable gin the first time through provided you adhere to his process guidelines.

I’ve produced delicious gins with my own character multiple times repeatedly using the rigorous methods. I even have a purpose-built potstill for finishing the gins in “small batches”. Delightful.
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