Home Distiller

I just distilled this gin:

juniper 100g
coriander 27g
angelica, cassia, liquorice, grains of paradise, cubeb 50g
orange and lemon peel, ginger, orris root, cardamon, nutmeg 5g

in 4.5-5L gin wash (80% pure 3x distilled through pot still)

taste is OK, hard to tell really, I am not a big gin fan it always is kind of weird.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to "soften" a pretty strong flavoured gin with a lot of bite? for example with rum i would add vanilla and a bit of molasses but with gin i have not a clue.

tonic, i guess??

80% abv? Are you watering this down to 40%?

If you have more neutral spirit you could cut it. Think of it as adding your gin concentrate to flavor the neutral to taste.

Redistill it once more?

I'm interested to hear what works.

Watered to 40% or 50% or so. I am doing this blind as my alcometer broke. Taste is a bit to strong but fairly clean. Going without thermometer and alcometer really helps pinpoint tails transitions as you have to do a heck of a lot of smelling and tasting. That's also tough with gin because the fragrance of the botanicals overpowers the smell of the liquor itself.

run off until you git a clean product,then add botanical ,then run again if wanted, it is almost impossible to "clean" it up after.

I have a VM reflux still but saw somewhere on this site that someone made a small potstill out of a coffee pot and added juniper berries and a recipe to make gin. My question is, has anyone combined this with their neutral to make gin, and if so is it strong enough?

My problem is that it turns out too strong

I used the following recipe which I got from this forum


Bombay Gin

1 litre recipe litres
Neutral spirit 1
Juniper berries 44.1 g
Coriander 6.3 g
Bitter orange peel 1/4 tsp
dried licorice root 1/4 tsp
Star anise 1/4 tsp
Cardamon 1/8 tsp
Cinnamon stick 1/4 tsp
Zest of sweet orange 1/8 tsp
Zest of lemon 1/4 tsp
Zest of lime 1/2 tsp
Clove 1/4 tsp
Rosemary leaves pinch

My method was to distill the neutral as normal but pass it through the macerated materials

see this thread for the botanical filter http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 30&start=0

this batch came through very similar to that batch , the spirit a pale yellow and about 88%

when I broke it down 50/50

it went cloudy and far to strong

I had this problem last time

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 81&start=0

I have diluted it down several times with 40% neutral spirit , but is still cloudy and strong

increased the alcohol to 50% by "diluting" the resulting gin with 88% spirit

maybe worth diluting it a fair bit with water , removing my copper mesh from the reflux still and redistilling to see what happens

open to suggestions

I was not going to post this reply as I did not want to steal the post from Still-in

but after second thoughts I feel that the post is not active and I have had good success

I have re-distilled my gin that I had diluted with 88% spirit

what a difference

a lot smoother with a different flavour profile

no colour

no cloud

It had been suggested in a previous post of my to re-distil

I had been a little hesitant to re-distil as I have a 5litre super reflux still , purchased before
finding the forum , may have got the 25 litre still or made one if I had known

Interesting I should have done it earlier , my copper mesh was fairly dirty

and I did not want to change anything as I was getting good clean neutral spirit after getting
electronic control over my heating element

When it came time to dilute my gin it did not go cloudy -- tested a bit before making the final step

OK, I want to build a small still similar to the one on the main site under flavouring and gin (I am adding the picture from the site). My question, is how hot can a glass coffee pot go without cracking. I have a small electric stovetop burner that I would like to use.

Bushman, is it really worth risking having hot high proof alcohol splashing onto a hot element if the glass pot were to break...??? Surely you can do better without laying out a lot of cash...

I've always thought that picture looked like there were dead flies floating in kitchen grease...

I thought a hops back would really work nice for such things but $$$$$$$$,
a tea kettle,coffee pot or a pot would be much cheaper,

rad14701 wrote:Bushman, is it really worth risking having hot high proof alcohol splashing onto a hot element if the glass pot were to break...??? Surely you can do better without laying out a lot of cash...

I've always thought that picture looked like there were dead flies floating in kitchen grease...

I know but I have most of the parts laying around and I just want to experiment. Found a pot that is made for a stove top plus I have a portable small one burner electric stove top that I can run and not make a mess in the kitchen. I will probably build something better in the future but just like to tinker and learn new things.

rad14701 wrote:Bushman, is it really worth risking having hot high proof alcohol splashing onto a hot element if the glass pot were to break...??? Surely you can do better without laying out a lot of cash...

I've always thought that picture looked like there were dead flies floating in kitchen grease...

Now if you had a thin, wide metal bowl that you could put on the element under the pot, of capacity sufficient to hold the contents of the coffee pot.....

Bushman wrote:OK, I want to build a small still similar to the one on the main site under flavouring and gin (I am adding the picture from the site). My question, is how hot can a glass coffee pot go without cracking. I have a small electric stovetop burner that I would like to use.

that picture contains a perfect example of composite cork. cob

The Baker wrote:Now if you had a thin, wide metal bowl that you could put on the element under the pot, of capacity sufficient to hold the contents of the coffee pot.....

That's a great idea, I agree with rad that we cannot be to safe. I will make sure I put every safety feature I can think of before making the run.