The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

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FranklinNewhart
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by FranklinNewhart »

For those of you that might not be following the Banana thread that Banana Wash turned into 425 litres. But this is the Lemon Thread so don't worry about the Bananas right now.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

Franklin this is not the Lemon thread. this is the Geist thread! It is a maceration and infusion processed spirit, if you please. So Lemon washes and Banana washes do not belong here. Will you please avoid hijacking threads? thank you.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by Kareltje »

Well, I might as well tell about my beechnutgeist.
I collected the nuts from a roof, so did not have to pick them up from the ground. Next time I will place some sheets or the like under the trees.
Tried to peel them, but that was hard, so I first roasted them. That made the outer in inner skin brittle and I could then peel them without looking, letting my hands do the job and focusing on something else.
Got 450 gr of roasted, peeled nuts.
These waited two months for an opportunity to macerate and still them.
As I have no mill I put them in 500 ml water and blendered them. Got a quite thick dough, which I diluted with 500 ml 85 % to macerate for 48 hours.
Then I took my 10 ltr still, put some pebbles at the bottom, put the mash in it and 2 ltr of hot water. Slowly stilled in pot still mode until the very end in 4 hours. First 100 ml 65,5 % as heads, then collected in jars from which I composed 750 ml as product of 39 %. So I got 15 % of the alcohol as heads. I think I have some heads and some tails in the product, but it tastes all right to me. Total amount of heads, heart and tails was about 1,3 litre of 35 %.
The mass in the boiler was not scorched, but it had turned into a very firm cake that stuck very well on the bottom. Took me quite some effort to loosen it. Judging by the inside of the boiler the 3,5 ltr mass had risen to about 6 litre.

I know Der Wo advised to run it twice, but as I had such a small amount I decided to run it only once and make cuts during that run.
A part of it I plan to use as a bargain to get 1 kg of wallnut presscake, so I have enough to run it twice.
One of my neighbours already gets a pain in his stomach after eating one (1) beechnut. I wonder how he will respond to a sip of this Geist. According to what I have found the nasty compounds (cyanide, fagine, trimethylamine) vaporize or are destroyed by heating or even warming the nuts.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by der wo »

How did the heads taste/smell like?
Yes. If it has heads and tails in the middle cut, probably the single run method is to blame for. 500ml 85% in total 3l is 3l 14%. 14% is too low for a single run. Either run it twice or use a reflux column.
Or don't dilute as much. Potstill single run with 40% in the boiler. With nuts perhaps it tastes good with higher proof. But I am not sure.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by FranklinNewhart »

cuginosgrizzo wrote:Franklin this is not the Lemon thread. this is the Geist thread! It is a maceration and infusion processed spirit, if you please. So Lemon washes and Banana washes do not belong here. Will you please avoid hijacking threads? thank you.
Just to note Geist and Lemoncello is made out of lemons. Start with a lemon wash. Distill the lemon wash. Infuse the lemon spirit with lemons. Drink said Lemoncello or Geist if you please with a wedge of Lemon. Suck said Lemon Wedge after consuming refreshment. :twisted:
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

FranklinNewhart wrote:
cuginosgrizzo wrote:Franklin this is not the Lemon thread. this is the Geist thread! It is a maceration and infusion processed spirit, if you please. So Lemon washes and Banana washes do not belong here. Will you please avoid hijacking threads? thank you.
Just to note Geist and Lemoncello is made out of lemons. Start with a lemon wash. Distill the lemon wash. Infuse the lemon spirit with lemons. Drink said Lemoncello or Geist if you please with a wedge of Lemon. Suck said Lemon Wedge after consuming refreshment. :twisted:
Well, not exactly. Limoncello is made infusing neutral with lemon zests. Of course you may use a lemon wash instead (or a UJ for what it matters). But that is beyond this thread nonetheless. Der wo sorry for messing your post: won't do it again
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by NZChris »

Kareltje wrote:I know Der Wo advised to run it twice, but as I had such a small amount I decided to run it only once and make cuts during that run.
The problem with doing that is that you throw away low boiling point volatile organic compounds with the heads and high boiling point volatile organic compounds with the tails. These are what make up much of your flavor. You can choose to compromise your quality by leaving excess heads and tails in your final blend, but it's not something I would ever do.

You don't have to grind nuts into flour to steep the flavors out of them. Cracking them will do. I bash mine in a mortar and pestle, steep at least 24hrs, then pour them through the gin head into the pot. A bit of fine stuff gets through to the pot, but not much.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by Kareltje »

I am not sure how the heads tasted, but they smelled mainly roasted and heady. I might have overdone that a bit. Unfortunately my smell and taste are bad and I know someone who can taste and smell very good, but she does not do alcohol! I did not find it repulsive.

For weeks I have been thinking about the best way to distill it, but the problem was the very small amount. The total result was about 1,3 litres of 35 % and I thought rerunning 1,3 litre in a 10 litre boiler would not work well. Diluting the initial mass to only 30 % would have given 1,5 litres with a lot of solid mass in it. I did not dare to do that.
I tried to buy a glass still of only 2 litres, but was just a bit too late to bid.

I did not dare to put it in the ginbox, as Der Wo warned for a very foaming mass.
So I felt I could either run it in pot still mode or use my empty ginbox plus spiral riser as a column. But I can not reliable cool my spiral and did not want to divide my attention during this run: my priority was preventing any danger of blockage and explosion.

As I stated: I hope to get 1 or better 1,5 kg wallnutpresscake, even if that means 3 stripping runs and removing of the solid cake. Or try the suggestion of NZChris.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by jb-texshine »

Someone posted asking about a jalepeno shine recipe and the best i could offer was to do it uj style...that having been said,it occurred to me,why not a jalepeno geist!
Yall got any experience making a jalepeno(or other hot pepper)geist?
Or wanna make an educated guess as to the flavor carryover?
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der wo
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by der wo »

Both capsaicin and piperine wouldn't make it into the distillate much. So a chilli or pepper or jalapeno -Geist has probably the aroma but not the hotness. What means, that you can use many jalapenos without burning your mouth probably.
I never tried, and I didn't find much information on the German forum, where normally is much info about all types of Geist.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by Lagtastic »

Any one of you ever tried this technique with Vanilla beans? I wonder what would the difference be between infusion/in the vapour path/mixed technique would be. :think: I suppose vanilla bean could be really potent if used in a too large quantity.

I already made some nice sugar syrup infused with beans but my experience is limited to that.

Any thought?
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by NZChris »

der wo wrote:Both capsaicin and piperine wouldn't make it into the distillate much. So a chilli or pepper or jalapeno -Geist has probably the aroma but not the hotness. What means, that you can use many jalapenos without burning your mouth probably.
I never tried, and I didn't find much information on the German forum, where normally is much info about all types of Geist.
You're wrong. I just tasted some and it has plenty of heat.
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der wo
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by der wo »

NZChris wrote:
der wo wrote:Both capsaicin and piperine wouldn't make it into the distillate much. So a chilli or pepper or jalapeno -Geist has probably the aroma but not the hotness. What means, that you can use many jalapenos without burning your mouth probably.
I never tried, and I didn't find much information on the German forum, where normally is much info about all types of Geist.
You're wrong. I just tasted some and it has plenty of heat.
Good to know. Could you share the recipe with jb and me?
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by NZChris »

I didn't make it, but I believe it was jalapeños steeped for a couple of days and distilled.

I wouldn't call it nice, even without the heat.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by jb-texshine »

I think I'll give it a try and see what I come up with just because the question comes up so often but personally I preferred to eat my peppers. I honestly can't even it tasting good but what the hell,I got a still and free time,lol!
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by der wo »

To clarify, my opinion about this is only because I searched on wikipedia the boiling points of the hot compounds in chilli and pepper.
Capsaicin has 215°C and piperine has a melting point at 128°C. I know, not everything in distillation is about boiling points (if we think about the methanol confusion for example). But such high boiling points are a strong indicate, that the distillate will not be hot.

Edit: Thanks jb, looking forward to your results.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by NZChris »

I reckon my Tai Terror steep tastes better and looks the part. This Chilli Vodka looks tame, but it's hot and hasn't got the flavors I would want.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by FranklinNewhart »

Well I am back here after a long time waiting for three carboys of lemon wash to ferment. Man it took a long time. So to get all the flavour I could, I took the reflux off the still and ran it in pot mode. My still is in segments so I can do things like that. So now I have a bunch of alcohol that only seems to have the lemon flavour in the tails. Nice stuff though. I found out this stuff is called Cedratine. I have set this aside by itself. Next I took a bunch of the hearts and put all my Lemon Zest that I had saved into that and let is steep now for a few days. I am going to check and see how the flavour is with that today. That should also be classed as Cedratine. I have found out that Cedratine is also made from Citron which are melons with a Lemon Flavour. I am also going to make up a Simple Sugar Syrup with fresh Lemons to make some Limoncello. So when I am done I will have three different Lemon drinks to compare and see which one I like most.

It's Spring in Canada now so now we get into Cold Season. I expect to be using all this nice lemon stuff poured into tea to make that famous cold remedy the Hot Tody. Lemon, Tea, and Booze.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by FranklinNewhart »

Had some of the stuff I made last night in a cup of tea. Earl Grey with I 1/2 ounces of 50% ABV Lemon. Wowzer. That will cure any cold or else make you forget you have one for awhile. I am thinking it will also go great in Ginger Ale as well as in Orange Juice. Might even use it to spike Lemonade this summer. Any place you would use a wedge of lemon this stuff will go great. Might even try sprinkling it on some baked fish. It would also be great to feed to the Christmas Cake. Our Christmas Cake is made a year in advance and kept in a sealed can. It get's fed once a month and come Christmas everybody enjoys our Christmas Cake. Fortunately my children are all adults now.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by Kareltje »

An update on wallnutgeist.
I got 1 kg of Californian wallnuts from Lidl, just a week before they made a special offer. :esad:
Roasted them a bit, tried to peel of all the fine skins and broke them. Then I blendered them in water and added alcohol: total volume of water/alcohol 47 %ABV 1 l per 500 gr blendered wallnuts. The mass became like peanutbutter but after resting I got a layer of yellowish, oilyish fluid on top of a sediment. After about 30 hours I put it in my boiler, added 2 l of hot water and heated all up at full speed. When the top of my riser got to 60 dgr C I tempered the fire. From the run I took the middle part (86 to 98 dgr C, 62 to 36,5 %ABV) to serve as product, collecting the heads and tails for later. Maybe a bit too far in the tails, but we'll see (taste) that later.
I wanted to run the other half in the helmet, but as the mass seemed too dense I did not dare to put all in the helmet. So I put half of it in the boiler and the other half in the helmet. Same procedure to run it.

I am still diluting to 40 %ABV and try to find someone who can really taste it. (There is a shop which organises whiskeytasting now and then, they should be able to give some comments!)
Technically there was a slight difference between the runs. I put a cloth and pebbles in the boiler, but the first run still resulted in some blackening of the cloth. In the second run this was much less, even seemed to clean up a bit.
Foaming was judged after the runs by looking at the sides of the boiler: a 3 l filling had risen to a 5 or 6 ltr height.
The mass in the helmet in the second run was quite porous, so my fear was maybe a bit unnecessary.
Blendering the nuts is not a good idea: it resulted in some small lumps in a mass of too fine a meal. Next time I will break the nuts in pieces the size of a juniperberry or something like that. The lumps in the mass after the runs were tasteless.
Oh, and everything gets a slight oily feeling, not unpleasant.

Then I tried some 500 gr of presscake. These I broke into pieces the size of berries and steeped them in the same 1 l alcohol/water mixture of 47 %ABV. The wallnuts have been pressed by a screwpress and I guess almost all the oil has been removed. As fresh wallnut contain about 62 %BW of oil, 500 gr of presscake is made of about 1 kg of nuts.
The cake is very dense and hard, like dogfood pellets. The 500 gr of cake absorbed the 1 l of fluid completely. I put the mass in the boiler, on top of the cloth and the pebbles, added 2 l of hot water and started to run. Heating full speed to 60 dgr C and then slowly going on. As during the first runs there was a regular sound from the boiler, like a heartbeat: blub blub blub. At the end of the run this silenced and stopped completely. This should have warned me!! :cry:
While the two runs with wallnuts ended at 101 dgr C and 4 %ABV, this one I stopped at 102 dgr C and 4 %ABV. The last sample seemed to smell a bit bitter, like the taste of the wallnutskins and maybe there was a very, very slight guess of golden shine in the fluid. After opening of the boiler the content proved to be a almost dry mass at the top and a badly hardened, very solid and partly blackened cake or concrete on the bottom. So 500 gr of presscake, 1 l booze and 2 liter water became a dry and partly scorched mass after extraction of 1,5 l distillate.
Luckily I can get my hand in this boiler (and out again too :mrgreen: ) to scratche the black mass out, but I think the cleaning of it will take at least another day! :evil:

I am not sure what to do with the rest of the presscake. It seems reasonable to use only 250 gr per 1 ltr booze, as the origin is 500 gr nuts and a lot of the taste will still be in the cake. Maybe after steeping it in water first, to open it up, and then putting it in the helmet to prevent scorching.
But I also think about dissolving it in water and ferment it with sugar, like a beer or wine. A half kilo of presscake and 1 kilo of sugar in 5 ltr should make a distillable beer. That is not a Geist anymore, but as long as it is tasty I would not mind.
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Re: The art of making a Geist (Lemon and Orange)

Post by asha31 »

Excellent thread..!!!
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