Gin, Gin and More Gin

Post by **sltm1** » Wed May 06, 2015 7:41 am

I've been reading on making gin and my one question is this. Is the flavor as good using a gin basket on the outlet of your thumper as it is running pre-infused spirit's? With my thumper and a heads/tails/water mix as my base liquid, I start at 160p (heads) and hearts at about 150p then collect down to 115p then go to tails.

just sayin · Post by **just sayin** » Wed May 06, 2015 8:26 am

If you are making gin, you want only your cleanest neutral hearts in your still and or thumper.

DAD300 · Post by **DAD300** » Wed May 06, 2015 10:46 am

Remember there are three ways to make gin...

Pot Distillation with botanicals in boiler
Column Distillation vapor through the botanicals
Cold Compounding- Maceration of botanicals added back to neutral alcohol

Cold Compounding is the quickest way to get your botanicals right...

We macerate our botanicals separately and make an essence. Add that to neutral. Once you have a good flavor it takes a teaspoon to make a quart.

Post by **sltm1** » Wed May 06, 2015 12:47 pm

DAD300 what I'm planning is basically column distillation with the thumper, that should give the same results as doing it right in the column right?

DAD300 · Post by **DAD300** » Wed May 06, 2015 1:52 pm

Putting your herbs IN the thumper would kind of be pot method 1.5.

Putting a basket ON top of thumper and passing vapor through them, would be column infusion.

Post by **sltm1** » Wed May 06, 2015 2:43 pm

Than you DAD, basket it is on the inside of the thumper on the out going line.

Post by **still_stirrin** » Wed May 06, 2015 3:32 pm

sltm1 wrote:Than you DAD, basket it is on the inside of the thumper on the out going line.

Now I'm confused... Does your gin basket set inside the thumper immersed in the liquid in the thumper?

I believe if so, then it is what Dad calls the "pot method 1.5" since the alcohol is distilled in the boiler (1 x) and bubbled through the liquid in the thumper (1/2 x), netting the 1.5 distillation. The botanicals would be extracted into the liquid in the thumper as the vapors bubble through. Traditional pot distillation simply immerses the botanicals in the boiler (without a doubler).

Otherwise, can you explain (clarify) how you plan to do it?

As a side note, Odin's easy gin uses the "pot method" for the botanicals, following a short period of maceration. But he advises to use the column vapor line infusion method for the citrus skins due to the extraction efficiency.

I haven't yet made a gin but I am studying the resources so that I can. Looking forward to adding another product to my portfolio.
ss

Post by **sltm1** » Wed May 06, 2015 4:10 pm

OK, I got so excited when the idea sounded viable I went and made one just now. Guess my explanation kinda sucked a bit ( I understood me LOL)...so here's some pic's on a 14 yr old 5 mp camera.
1. First is the infuser attached to the out-line going to the leibig, inside the thumper. My liquid level never gets above the lighter colored copper on the bubbler arm, so it's never going to get flooded.
2. Pic of the body, it's 1.5 in round and 1 inch deep.
3. A pic of the stainless steel screen I have wired to the bottom (with SS leader fishing line).
I'll reconfigure the screen attachment later but for right now it's top loading and top emptying.

Just posted the pic's and have no idea why they came on in reverse order!!!!!

Post by **still_stirrin** » Thu May 07, 2015 2:29 pm

Thanks sltm1. That makes it a lot clearer.

Essentially, you've got the equivalent of a column distillation basket, just that it is mounted inside your thumper. Vapors will exhaust through the basket to your Liebig product condenser.

But you're "all in" when you start your boiler. The botanicals will be pushed through the whole cycle. From what I've read, others add the botanicals to the vapor path after drawing the fores and heads off. That way, you preserve the bulk of the botanicals' essence to the volume you collect, which makes sense to me, due to the somewhat delicate nature of some of the botanicals.

Good effort. Keep us posted to the progress and successes.
ss

Titus-a-fishus · Post by **Titus-a-fishus** » Thu May 07, 2015 3:02 pm

Or you could build a Carter Head.

: Gin head diagram (Copy).jpg (5.8 KiB) Viewed 4184 times

Post by **sltm1** » Thu May 07, 2015 5:51 pm

SS, I think I'm on the right track, for safety sake I'm gonna put a bit of copper scrubby in the 1/2" tube to prevent anything from floating up the exit hole. I think the hardest part will be blending....not to mention the plethora of recipe's I have to choose from!!! Keep you posted.

Titus-a fishus, that's a nice rig...but mine cost less than a $5.00 to make with leftover parts and a torch

Titus-a-fishus · Post by **Titus-a-fishus** » Thu May 07, 2015 6:38 pm

At 5$ you can't beat that.

Using a Carter Head is supposed to make a nice gin.
So I'm tole

TAF

frozenthunderbolt · Post by **frozenthunderbolt** » Sat May 09, 2015 3:51 pm

sltm1 wrote:SS, I think I'm on the right track, for safety sake I'm gonna put a bit of copper scrubby in the 1/2" tube to prevent anything from floating up the exit hole. I think the hardest part will be blending....not to mention the plethora of recipe's I have to choose from!!! Keep you posted.

Titus-a fishus, that's a nice rig...but mine cost less than a $5.00 to make with leftover parts and a torch

Start with Odins easy gin and adjust from there would be my advice - it's a solid recipe open to tweaking once you have run, aged and tried it

Post by **sltm1** » Sat May 16, 2015 9:55 am

Ok, good 1st lesson in gin making. Almost immediately, after the fore's and head's (6 oz removed from second run booze, wheat and UJ, 1.3 gallons of 92 proof mixed with water to create a 4 gallon wash of approximately 33 proof), the drip slowed down significantly!! Scared the piss out of me so I turned the boiler off thinking I might be building up pressure. Again, thinking about my infuser, I didn't like the screen I had put on the base thinking the holes might be too small and causing restricted flow of vapor so I went to town and bought a 2" tea egg made by Ecko. By the time I got back everything was cool enough to handle so I broke open the thumper to check my theory. Not only was the screen clogged, but some of the botanicals had moved up into the 1/2" copper tube!! Conveniently, the tea egg was a jam fit into the 1.5" copper infuser body so I loaded it up and started the run again. Again, the drip was slower than normal, but fast enough to remove any concerns. I recovered 3+ pints of 150-110 proof, let it set over night and proofed it down to 93 proof this morning. The smell is kick-ass!! Not much flavor, but with aging that should change. Now, approximately how long should I age it and air it the T-Pee way?
Recipe;
1 Tbs Juniper Berries
1 Tsp Coriander Seeds
1/2 Tsp Allspice seeds
4 Whole Cloves
All crunched up together in my grandmothers heavy old brass mortar and pestle.

NZChris · Post by **NZChris** » Sat May 16, 2015 2:10 pm

sltm1 wrote:The smell is kick-ass!! Not much flavor, but with aging that should change.

I doubt that. It's more likely you'll have to adjust your recipe.

If you have used a good neutral that has the heads removed there is no need to air it.

Odin recommends aging for five weeks.

Not everything benefits from being in the basket. Peels are best used in it. Most of my botanicals go in the boiler.

Post by **sltm1** » Sat May 16, 2015 2:16 pm

Ah-Ha, botanical's in the boiler...how about in the thumper, that's my next experiment. I think I might get more flavor there than from in the boiler.

NZChris · Post by **NZChris** » Sat May 16, 2015 2:22 pm

It doesn't matter where you put them if there ain't enough. I use more than you did .... to make one 26oz bottle.

Post by **Odin** » Mon May 18, 2015 12:51 pm

Herbs in the boiler always gets you over most taste.

Odin.

Post by **skow69** » Mon May 18, 2015 2:20 pm

What Chris said. I use 20 grams of juniper berries per liter. I dunno what a tablespoon is, but I'll bet it ain't 20 grams.

sweeps · Post by **sweeps** » Mon May 18, 2015 5:46 pm

A tablespoon of juniper berries is about 5 grams. A quarter cup per liter would be more like it.

Home Distiller

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