Gin coming out Cloudy! Help needed.

[Junkaboy]

Hello.

Yesterday I did my first attempt at making gin, and it came out of the still cloudy.

This is what I did:

1 - I prepared a malt and sugar wash;
2 - Distilled it on pot still, taking generous cuts;
3 - Distilled again, this time as reflux collum, again making cuts and obtained 88% spirit, very clear in taste and looks;
4 - I infused my herbs and berries in this 88% distillate and let it rest for a few days;
5 - Filtered out the solids with fine paper filter;
6 - I charged my pot still with:
* 1 liter herb infused spirit
* 2 liters plain 88% spirit
* 5 liters mineral water
* 13 Juniper Berries (just to get a little bit more aroma)


Then I started the run, didnt worry about making cuts, since I had already cut the distillate twice on the original runs.
The whole thing came out slightly cloudy. Not milky, but enough so that I dont think it looks decent.

What could I have done wrong?
What are the main reasons a spirit would come out of the still cloudy?
Too much heat? I was in a bit of hurry, so at the beginning I think it might have been too hot...
Could it be the berries loose in the boiler? Could they release something under heat that might have cloudied the spirit?

Now, how could I try and salvage this?
Should I run it through again?
Would it help if I ran the cloudy spirit through fine paper filters?

Any help is very well appreciated.

Thank you

Junka

[Braz]

Just a guess, but I'd suspect oils released from your aromatics, especially the junipers in the pot. I doubt you can filter it out with paper filters. Maybe let it rest for a bit and see if it clears, but you may need to rerun it (at the cost of some flavor).

[Junkaboy]

I did some more testing, and found out that if I add some of my 88% clear spirit to the cloudy gin, it turns clear again, and then I can cut it back to strength.
Also, that made the taste more balanced, before it was too strong on the herbal side.

[Odin]

J,

What happened to you, is you got juniper oils over. No problem. Put in some neutral (some 25% extra) and it will go away. If not, put in another 25%.

This is what you should do next time you distill juniper berries: collect the first 5 to 10 mls and throw them away. Because that is where these oils come over in abundancy. If you do that, the rest of the collection will be fine (if not great)!

Odin.

[Junkaboy]

I forgot to post the follow up about this problem, but I didn't want to leave it at that, since it may help someone in the future.

I am pretty sure that my cloudiness problem came from juniper oils that didn't get properly separated.
Since I infused the botanicals in very clean distillate that I had previously run under slow reflux, making proper cuts, I was not carefull when I ran it under pot still to get the final product.

To correct this, I put everything back into the boiler along with some extra water, added another 6 juniper berries (since I thought I'd loose some aroma due to another distillation), and ran it slowly separating the jars every 100mls at first.

Turns out that the oils came in the beginning, and after that the gin came out 100% clear. Its been a great success, I bottled in small 200ml bottles and gave a few away to friends and family, now people beg for more every time they see me.



Once again I want to thank this community, it has given me valuable information to keep my hobby going.


Junka

[blanikdog]

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 3#p6785883 This will help,

[Junkaboy]

Thanks blanikdog. That clip to hold the bag seems like a pretty good alternative.

After that first attempt at making gin, I decided to try once more, this time using the vapor through botanicals approach.
I own a brewhaus PSII extractor, and what I did was place a small bag of botanicals on the very top of the columm, after the colling pipes, but before the vapor exit.

I must say that it worked as intended, and the end result is very nice.

I will try and find a clip like the one in OD's post, and test to see the diference in adding the botanicals before the vapor goes through the packed columm.

Junka

[blanikdog]

Glad to be a help. I reckon this method is the only way to go. The fores and heads will be a bit on the weak side but, that's ok as you don't want them. It just takes a while for the botanicals to get all steamed up and away she goes.

I made my clip from a large safety pin that knitters use for some reason. Go to a haberdashery shop and they will help you.

[guest5234]

dont worry...

Cotswolds Cloudy Gin and Tonic

Created: 10/11/2014
Have you ever wondered why your Cotswolds Dry Gin goes cloudy when water or ice is added? Well here’s the explanation…

We distil our gin incredibly slowly and we pack it full of botanicals. After an overnight maceration of our base botanicals; juniper, coriander seed and angelica root, we add in the remaining botanicals to our still for an eight hour distillation. This means that our gin has an exceptionally high botanical content allowing us to achieve the luscious mouth feel, even at 46% abv, coupled with the big nose and full flavour.

All of this flavour, aroma and mouth feel is down to the high levels of essential oils in our gin. At 46% and at room temperature these oils remain dissolved in the alcohol, but when you chill the gin or dilute it, the oils separate slightly causing the cloudiness you see in our Cotswolds Dry Gin. We could prevent this from occurring by chilling the gin, encouraging cloudiness and then filtering this out, but by doing so we would be removing the flavour which is contained in the suspension of these oils.

We’ve decided to keep our gin as it is; non-chill filtered, keeping the cloudiness, the full flavour and aroma and the mouth feel. Much like a fine single malt, we are celebrating the cloudiness and the flavour that this represents, creating and coining the ‘Cotswolds Cloudy G&T’ as well as the ‘Cotswolds Cloudy Martini’.

We believe that our customers will love the full flavour and aroma of our CDG and truly appreciate the choice to keep this cloudiness in order to create the finest gin possible.

Our perfect serve G&T consists of 50ml CDG, 200ml Fentimans Light Tonic, heaps of ice, garnished with pink grapefruit

[der wo]

Perhaps it gets cloudy because they would have to do stricter cuts to avoid it? And this would cost money?

Anyway, I don't care if a Gin is cloudy or not, but what you posted is pure marketing. Perhaps they even not tested if their Gin would taste better chill-filtered. The only important thing is to brag with their product, to adorn it with a natural up to date image, and to point degrading at the competitors...

[guest5234]

Perhaps it gets cloudy because they would have to do stricter cuts to avoid it? And this would cost money?

Anyway, I don't care if a Gin is cloudy or not, but what you posted is pure marketing. Perhaps they even not tested if their Gin would taste better chill-filtered. The only important thing is to brag with their product, to adorn it with a natural up to date image, and to point degrading at the competitors...

They are big players in the craft gin market and their gins are rated very highly, most of their gins are clear and do not cloud, the best tasting one I have tried is the one that does cloud. Maybe they have a point. Its the public that want a crystal clear product the same they want their beer sometimes at the cost of flavour. I work in a pub and the best taste of any cask beer is when you first tap it and taste it when it still has a bit cloud to it.

[bitter]

Look up Odin's easy gin. The smalls cuts at the beginning help decrease the cloudless.

Here is a pic of the gin I made last night (Odin's Easy Gin).

If your gin is cloudy add neutral till it just clears up.

B

[guest5234]

Look up Odin's easy gin. The smalls cuts at the beginning help decrease the cloudless.

Here is a pic of the gin I made last night.

If your gin is cloudy add neutral till it just clears up.

B

you made all that with an air still

[bitter]

Nope... I borrowed the air still just to do the Gin/botanical run. I used a 2" boka on 15g keg to make a very clean neutral. Was just over 7l of 45% and got the 7 750ml bottles plus the little extra in the glass to sample.

I think this is one good use of an airstill.. for things like this.. Otherwise.. next to impossible to make cuts on such small runs. I also find the airstill slow. First time I have used one.

B

[still_stirrin]

Ho, ho, ho. It looks like Santa will be jolly at your place tonight, doesn't it bitter?
ss

[bitter]

Yeah should be fun.. Gin and Guinness (made 5g) for tonight with family.

B