Personal pages/Gin making
Gin making
August 2019. With the yield from the apples being pretty poor, and having gathered some 25litres of 30-40% stuff, I decided to have a go at turning it into gin.
Recipe#1
200g of juniper, 100g of koriander. 10litres. The "botanicals" are in a piece of tea towel, old and quite thin, inside one of those for steaming vegetables, then inside pot#2, just over the output. The 300g seems like quite a bit, it's full. I'm wondering if it can be reused? seems like it should be reasonable. I'm not using the siebboden, nothing that could burn and I started the Bartscher at 10. I primed the thumper with the same stuff. I'm not expecting pot#2 to gather much liquid, it ought to quickly turn into vapour, but I can always empty it if I feel like it.
With the Bartscher at 10, pot#1 warms up to 80 in bout 20mins, after which the thumper hits 80 in about 5min. There is so much vapour that the drops form a small stream, I have to wonder if any vapour escapes out of the condenser? Makes me think about adding the other one, maybe buying the smaller one from the Brocki. After the first warm up, I reduced the Bartscher to 5.
The first few 50ml glasses did seem to smell of acetone, which surprises me. There should not be any methylalcohol. I took 6 x 50ml, then started with the bigger collectors. The first 250ml was 84°
After emptying pot#1, I processed the remaining 10-12liters, using the same gin basket contents. I figured the juniper berries and the koriander would be good for another round. All in all, I produced about 5litres of about 80°. I'm letting it wait for a couple of weeks before diluting and filling bottles. Aiming for 40%, it will be 14-15 x 700ml.
Result - disappointing. Too little taste/aroma, still the unpleasant smell/taste of the tails.
Attempt#2
June 2020. I have been collecting tails of course, two 25litre bottles. Have just today (May 31 2020) started filling up a third. I have added approx 200g of Junpier berries to one bottle, first soaked them in methylalcohol for a couple of weeks. 200g for 25litres does not seem like very much, I am now thinking I should add some more and some koriander too. The lenghty soaking might also make a difference.
- Bottle#1 - 200g juniper, methylalcohol soaked.
- Bottle#2 - 200g juniper, 100g koriander
- Bottle#3 - 200g juniper, 100g anisseed (from Coop 50% stock).
2020/09/05 Have distilled bottle#1, after having stewed for four months. The juniper berries all sank to the bottom. I added 10litres of water (approx). Yield was 4 litres at a total of 70 (to be determined), plus 400ml at 60 - the latter did not have a particularly strong juniper flavour. About 2litres of <30% to go back into bottle#3.
2020/10/25 Have distilled bottle#2, having stewed since June, so also about four months. I added 6-7-8 litres of water. Yield about 2.8 litres at 80%, then output dropped straight back to 30. Maybe one litre for bottle#3. This was my first run with the nex reflux cooler - I wonder if this nice high volume output and the steep drop is due to that.
August 2021
Being about halfway through distilling the 2020 mashes, the 25 litre glass bottles are filling up. Two full, a third going. Originally I wanted to keep the output from the same fruit separate, and then make a second run, but I screwed it up and accidentally mixed the outputs. I had hoped to have "clean" schnaps from Schneider, Golden, Boskoop etc.
Well, I don't. Not this time anyway. So instead I'll be making gin. I have studied the topic a little, watched some videos etc. There are two-three ways of adding flavour -
vapour infusion / gin basket.
macerated botanicals
combined, macerate the 'hard', infuse with the soft (fruit, peels etc).
I have also seen someone mention that keeping the macerated mix at 70C over night made for more intense flavours.
One recipe I came across on my internet ravels - "Odin's Easy Gin":
Per 1000ml of 45% ethanol: 14g juniper, 3g coriander, peel of one tangerine orange.
Macerate/soak for two weeks, filter out solids, then distill. (with immersion heater) Macerate/soak for 24 hours, then distill. (indirect heating).
New still I want to build a new, but smaller still for working on flavours. If I make ten 1000ml mixes, it has to be easy to process them. I think a 3litre pot will be a good option - 1000ml of mash, 1000ml water. I have two straight Liebig coolers, the 29/32 ought to work. Adding a gin basket might not be so easy though - unless I use one of the pasta cookers I have. Might be something to experiment with.
I guess I'll need to use 12mm copper tubing, otherwise I have difficulty getting the fittings.
Clean ethanol for making gin I currently have 2 x 25 litres of low-grade ethanol at 30% and 35%, respectively. I also have two 5 litre bottles of methylalcohol, that has been slowly evaporating over the years. For producing a clean higher volume ethanol, I intend to take 12 litres of the ethanol, add some of the methylalcohol and maybe 10 litres of water. Total volume about 25 litres, should make decent material for three-four runs. Maybe wait to finish the 2021 distillations, there are five 100 litre vats still to go. 5 x 3 x 1.5 = 22.5 litres. In principle, the methylalcohol should come right back out, but when I did
