I've ruined my gin.

[Welsh and Foolish]

Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie so forgive my naivety. I have a question about rectifying gin. I have been purchasing neutral grain spirit, macerating it with my botanical recipe, and distilling it in my 10 litre alembic still. I accidentally added too much tails into my container and now the flavour is completely ruined. Because I pay duty on the alcohol I would love to re-use it. Should I redistill it in my copper alembic still, or should I filter it through carbon? Or both?

Thanks for your help friends, I really appreciate you guys.

Mark x

[Ballyhoo]

Seems like you just need to re-distill being more careful with your cuts. But who knows how the botanicals will fare - if you add more botanicals it might overpower it but on the other hand if you don't add they might disappear. I don't think filtering will help.

[Welsh and Foolish]

Thanks for the comment. I would love to distill it back as clean as possible and start again. Could I do this? An a slightly different note, what do people do with the tails? It tastes terrible but there's useful alcohol in it.

[Ballyhoo]

I would run it again on a low flame and then do it again with new botanicals. Do your cuts on the second run. Then save your tails to add to a later batch.

[OtisT]

Hi. I like to make gin with the cleanest neutral possible so I would suggest you first dilute what you have down to 40% and redistill it slowly, making cuts to removing foreshots as well as the worst of the heads and tails. Next dilute the cut down to 40%, macerate with fresh botanicals then redistill slowly, again pulling foreshots. Advice on collecting and making cuts for gin is contained is in many gin threads, like Odin’s EasY Gin.

What to do with tails? You have a pot still so not as many options. I mostly toss tails these days, but many like to recycle them by saving up feints from many runs until they have enough for an all feints run? Without a fractioning column and the ability to compress fractions, it may not be worth you time, though it could be educational to do at least once to see what you personally think.

Otis

[pope]

If your NGS or GNS isn't clean enough you should distill it as a 'vodka' or neutral to purify it. I don't know enough about NGS yet to know if it includes fores, heads and tails as well as hearts, but if it does you certainly should rectify it properly before you start transforming it into a gin. I think it'll be worth the effort! Otherwise if you're making cuts on your pot-distilled gin while also cutting out your heads and tails, you will probably be losing desirable gin characteristics that will flatten/simplify the flavor and aroma profiles you're after.

[Welsh and Foolish]

Hi. I like to make gin with the cleanest neutral possible so I would suggest you first dilute what you have down to 40% and redistill it slowly, making cuts to removing foreshots as well as the worst of the heads and tails. Next dilute the cut down to 40%, macerate with fresh botanicals then redistill slowly, again pulling foreshots. Advice on collecting and making cuts for gin is contained is in many gin threads, like Odin’s EasY Gin.

What to do with tails? You have a pot still so not as many options. I mostly toss tails these days, but many like to recycle them by saving up feints from many runs until they have enough for an all feints run? Without a fractioning column and the ability to compress fractions, it may not be worth you time, though it could be educational to do at least once to see what you personally think.

Otis

Thank you so much for your comments Otis, it's much appreciated. And a huge thanks for pointing me to the correct thread on this website on collecting and making cuts. I will definitely head over there this evening and mull things over. I just feel like such an idiot for spoiling an entire batch, but I guess it's all part of the learning process.

Mark

[Welsh and Foolish]

If your NGS or GNS isn't clean enough you should distill it as a 'vodka' or neutral to purify it. I don't know enough about NGS yet to know if it includes fores, heads and tails as well as hearts, but if it does you certainly should rectify it properly before you start transforming it into a gin. I think it'll be worth the effort! Otherwise if you're making cuts on your pot-distilled gin while also cutting out your heads and tails, you will probably be losing desirable gin characteristics that will flatten/simplify the flavor and aroma profiles you're after.

Yes, you're completely right. Thanks for this Pope, I really appreciate your insights and comments.

Best wishes,

Mark

[still_stirrin]

...macerating it with my botanical recipe...

Mark, are you sure that your recipe isn’t the problem? What is your recipe?

Some of the botanicals need very little to hold balance with the juniper and corriander. If it’s out of balance, that could be the source of your disgust. A commercial GNS should be relatively clean of tails (by process).
ss

[NZChris]

Hang on a minute. Before you make mistake number two by following the advice you have gotten so far.... how do you know you stuffed it up? What's wrong with it that leads you to thinking it has tails in it?

[Welsh and Foolish]

I would run it again on a low flame and then do it again with new botanicals. Do your cuts on the second run. Then save your tails to add to a later batch.

I had a go at trying to run it again today, but only a tiny run of 1.5 litres at 40%.

Here are my ABV readings per 100ml after cutting the foreshots.

1st 100ml = 83% ABV
2nd 100ml =82% ABV
3rd 100ml =79% ABV
4th=100ml =76% ABV
5th=100ml =71% ABV

TAILS
200ml=54% ABV

Are my readings typical or is there something not right?

Regards,

Mark

[Welsh and Foolish]

Hang on a minute. Before you make mistake number two by following the advice you have gotten so far.... how do you know you stuffed it up? What's wrong with it that leads you to thinking it has tails in it?

HI Chris,

I've tried to replicate a run from last week, following measurements precisely, but the new batch tastes really bitter and has that 'wet dog' flavour. The first run tasted pretty good in comparison.

[Welsh and Foolish]

...macerating it with my botanical recipe...

Mark, are you sure that your recipe isn’t the problem? What is your recipe?

Some of the botanicals need very little to hold balance with the juniper and corriander. If it’s out of balance, that could be the source of your disgust. A commercial GNS should be relatively clean of tails (by process).
ss

=
I never thought of that, you could be right. This is my recipe per 250ml of 96% NGS.
Juniper= 3.33grams
Corriander=2grams
Angelica root = 0.6grams
Orris powder = 0.6grams
Dried lemon peel= 0.2 grams

What do you think of this recipe? Really appreciate your thought Chris.

Regards,

Mark

[NZChris]

The bitter is from citrus run too deep and the wet dog is poor NGS. I was hoping for another answer.

I would run it again with the same botanical bill, then double it with high quality neutral to get back to the original ratio of botanicals to finished product.

[NZChris]

This is my recipe per 250ml of 96% NGS.

What abv do you knock it down to?

[OtisT]

In addition to citrus causing bitterness, that bitter you taste could very well be from tails too. I find the taste of tails bitter.

[Saltbush Bill]

You will always get bitter if you try to go to far with a gin run imo. In short your trying to keep to much of the run.
Collect in small jars through the run then blend back what you want to keep. Cassia is another which becomes very dominant late in the run and it can also make for bitter and musty tastes if you run to deep toward the end.

[pope]

Out of curiosity, do y'all save and re-run gin tails? If it's from pure high quality neutral but now tainted with bitter citrus compounds, do you find it's worth the effort to clean it back up and reuse the ethanol? Or just use it again to macerate and let those bitter compounds fall off the back (tails) end like adding feints to spirit runs?

[pope]

Welsh, have you done spirit runs on your neutral spirits? I think taking the gin botanicals out of the equation would make another small run very informative for you.

[NZChris]

Have you tried following Odin's Easy Gin method? It's pretty much impossible to make a bad gin with it, even with a slightly tailsy base spirit. The cut off volume leaves a high enough abv in the boiler that very little tails come over and I often use the later half from a heart cut of a double pot stilled tomato paste wash for an OEG style gin.

You don't have to re-distil headsy neutral to get rid of the nasties. You can evaporate them off with a bit of heat, or by leaving it out in a wide mouth container with a cotton cloth over it for a while.

[NZChris]

I don't re-run gin tails because it would take years to save up enough to be worthwhile running.

I also don't put my crappy tasting leftovers back into the still for the next run. I left them out for a good reason and repeatedly putting them back into the still with my finest new ingredients just sounds like a really bad idea to me.

[Saltbush Bill]

Pope ive tried running what could be termed "tails" again in the next gin run. I kept the last few jars from the previous run....in my case the tail end jars are always very cassia dominant.
I added these to the maserated boiler charge for the next run. It works ok as long as you dont add more fresh cassia to the new spirit in the boiler.
Doing it that way can work but it can also get tricky to control flavours and amounts. In short I wont be making it regular practice but may play with the concept from time to time for my own amusement and education.

[Welsh and Foolish]

This is my recipe per 250ml of 96% NGS.

What abv do you knock it down to?

I macerate at 60% ABV for 24 hours and then I run at 40% ABV. What do you think?

[Welsh and Foolish]

Welsh, have you done spirit runs on your neutral spirits? I think taking the gin botanicals out of the equation would make another small run very informative for you.

I haven't Pope, I will certainly do it if you think it's a good idea. Sorry for being naive, but what would I need to do for a spirit run? I purchase my neutral grain spirit from a big company in the UK and it arrives in my house at 96% ABV.

Regards,

Mark

[Welsh and Foolish]

I don't re-run gin tails because it would take years to save up enough to be worthwhile running.

I also don't put my crappy tasting leftovers back into the still for the next run. I left them out for a good reason and repeatedly putting them back into the still with my finest new ingredients just sounds like a really bad idea to me.

Sounds sensible. In the UK, I have to pay £27.84 on every litre of ethanol, so the tails I've kept in jars are worth quite a lot of money. The only problem, my rectifying license won't allow me to run it through a reflux column. So what do I do? Absorb it as a business expense? Try and use activated carbon and filter it? I lose about 25% of ethanol in the process of making gin so it quickly adds up to a lot of money.

Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

Mark

[pope]

I think I'm the less informed in this situation - I've never bought NGS so I wasn't sure if it contains anything except for ethanol and water. Do you have an SDS on your ngs to make sure it's just ethanol and water? I'm assuming it should be but worth checking. If you did a 1.5 liter 40% charge and could produce any heads or tails you'd know you had something other than pure ethanol on your hands.

[Saltbush Bill]

I macerate at 60% ABV for 24 hours and then I run at 40% ABV. What do you think?

Macerating at 40% for 24 hours is quite sufficient, but I doubt it makes much difference to the final product in the long run, 60 or 40 as long as its 40ish when it hits the boiler.

[Welsh and Foolish]

Have you tried following Odin's Easy Gin method? It's pretty much impossible to make a bad gin with it, even with a slightly tailsy base spirit. The cut off volume leaves a high enough abv in the boiler that very little tails come over and I often use the later half from a heart cut of a double pot stilled tomato paste wash for an OEG style gin.

You don't have to re-distil headsy neutral to get rid of the nasties. You can evaporate them off with a bit of heat, or by leaving it out in a wide mouth container with a cotton cloth over it for a while.

Hi NZ Chris, I've just been over to that thread, it has loads of views and comments, and I noticed that you were the first person to comment on it. I have one question...in the recipe it states "- Take 1 liter of 43% neutral (made from the hearts of a BW, fractionated all bran, etc. fermentation);" Does this mean to use 430ml of ethanol, or to use 1 litre of ethanol and then dilute that down to 43%?

I'm so sorry if this seems stupid of me, I just don't want to mess it up. The recipe says 12 grams of juniper, and for me 12 grams in 430ml of ethanol seems quite a lot. But I am a novice and have no idea what I'm doing.

Regards,

Mark

[NZChris]

I means to make up one liter of spirit at 43% abv.

[cayars]

I don't re-run gin tails because it would take years to save up enough to be worthwhile running.

I also don't put my crappy tasting leftovers back into the still for the next run. I left them out for a good reason and repeatedly putting them back into the still with my finest new ingredients just sounds like a really bad idea to me.

Sounds sensible. In the UK, I have to pay £27.84 on every litre of ethanol, so the tails I've kept in jars are worth quite a lot of money. The only problem, my rectifying license won't allow me to run it through a reflux column. So what do I do? Absorb it as a business expense? Try and use activated carbon and filter it? I lose about 25% of ethanol in the process of making gin so it quickly adds up to a lot of money.

Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

Mark

If you are paying that kind of tax on it then do what you need to to salvage it if you can. Carbon would be worth trying on a few liters.

Curious, how come you can't re-run it via your reflux column? Any way to cheat and use the tails to "sour" your mash after it's done fermenting (essentially just re-running it)?

You could try (small batch first) doing 5x time the botanicals needed for the spirit in the still. Do healthy/proper cuts then blend back neutral with the "essence" you just made. That would help you from having large heads or tails collections and 4/5th would have no heads or tails as it will just be neutral/vodka blended back with the gin essence you created on the still. I haven't tried it as I'm a gin newby, but I think Chris does something like this. Not only would this save you from having extra heads and tails but would also save valuable still time as well. You could try 2 or 3 times the botanicals as well to get your feet wet trying this.