Personal pages/Season 2021/Gin making

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