I originally posted this in the EOG topic and someone pointed out it should be reposted here, so apologies for the repeat if you read it there. First off, I loved the OEG method and full kudos to Oding there!!!!, Is it ever nice!!!! This was my fourth attempt at it, increasing the volume, correcting my execution and editing botanicals along the way and it feels like it is nailed! A few of us tasted it the other night, sand sisnce ... a few days after settling and we were all blown away! I can't wait to see how it is going to be in a few weeks.
I did the Gin run on:
- a boiler load of 13l of neutrals
- Neutrals were selected from a spirit run of a 22l load from a set of stripped TedFFV washes.
- Botanicals macerated for 2.5 days (just because that is what was convenient) included:
- 230g of cracked juniper berries (NB. locally picked
)- 80g of cracked coriander seed
- 20g of Angelica root
- 20g of Grain of Paradise
- 10g of Licorice Root (powdered)
- 10g of orange peel (fresh, washed, no white pith) --- I actually cut this down from my last batch.
- 2g of cardamom seed (slightly pulverized)
- 2g of lavender flowers
- 2g of orris root
That amounted to ~30g / litre so within the guidelines suggested I think.
After initial (2.5day) maceration, I poured the load through a muslin bag into my boiler. Lots of the finer stuff made it through but the berries and alot of the seeds was held in the bag and I hung it in the liquid keeping away from the internal element (1700w) ...it more or less succeeded but this seemed the sketchiest part of my process. I wish I could just dump the botanicals in without a bag. NB. I did not pick out the orange peel.
Ran nice and slow in pot still mode, my still had just 25cm of column. Followed Odin's method to a tee!
- Threw out the first 20ml and Collected the next 7l or so in jars: I was skeptical of the 40% cut prescribed by Odin (Wrong! I ended up
keeping and blending exactly 40%!!!!!)
- That gave me 5.2 l @81% ABV. I let it breath a bit, but kept lids on it over night.
- Next day, I diluted with distilled water. @55% ABV it was very clear.
- I split that into 4 jugs (1 jug of 1.5l 'reserve' kept at 55% for another experiment, and 3 equal vol. jugs further diluted to 45%ABV).
Those were quite cloudy!
Of the three:
- I left one jug as is. (I called this one RAW)
- 1 jug was blended with 45% neutral until it cleared. (It took aprox. 500ml I think) (aka. DRY)
- 1 jug was blended with half that neutral. (aka. UNFILTERED)
We sampled from all three last night. Very nice. As you would expect, The lavender and cardamom really come through in the RAW, less so in the DRY, but the Juniper is pretty pervasive through all three.
Surprises:
- I was surprised at how pungent the jars were immediately after distillation. It was changing over time, and the next morning I decided to blend the 40% cut, not knowing whether I would drink or re-distill. Did it ever change again once diluted and allowed to rest another day.
- Afterwards, I was further surprised at the next jars after the 40% cut. There was a spicey element to them that I wondered as to whether to include..... Next time.
We all loved this gin! And one comment we all resonated with was that it is very well balanced. The flavours are not fighting each other at all. So, I have the equivalent of 12 bottles and I will not refrain from drinking along the way, but I will have plenty left in a month to see how that progresses.
Of course, where it comes to botanicals, we always want to tinker with them: In my case, for this equivalent load I would probably add 1 gram of lavender, 5g of orange peel, and perhaps take away 20g of coriander to "make room" for it.
Anyhow, kudos and thanks to Odin for this process and method.... It is really nice. I think I might look alter my maceration technique to avoid a muslin bag and a few tweaks to the botanicals (of course!
) But I would not hesitate to just repeat this run as is! It was suggested that I use a collapsible steamer that can be placed at the bottom of my still. Worth a try!!!!Comments, suggestions welcome.