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The Big Gin Thread

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  • edited March 2015

    @Kapea said: Bombay Sapphire watch out! I'm a gunnin' for ya... :))

    Use Recipe # 4 in the guide ;-)

    you might need to "stretch" the output a bit to get it closer to the original...

  • I don't have almonds, Grady O'Paradise, or cubeb, but I'm gonna run the rest to see how it goes.
    My first all-in-one...

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • what country is your juniper from? Monterey said 'yugoslavia' on their website, I hope their juniper is not that old :-\

  • edited March 2015

    Well I read what you read. Everybody claims their juniper is from Yugoslavia. Hey they're spice merchants, not geopolitical experts. I know for certain it's not from Jupiter.

    Very nice juniper NTL. Best price by far.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • show me where Yugoslavia is on google maps.. :-) mountain rose's is from albania..(out of stock, but I have a pound of it)

  • Show. me where Dixie is on the map. It may technically be gone for nearly 150 years, but any self-respecting Southerner knows right where it is. :)

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • @Kapea said: Show. me where Dixie is on the map. It may technically be gone for nearly 150 years, but any self-respecting Southerner knows right where it is. :)

    Right out my door :))

  • Lots of Dixieland in New Orleans. Also a small town just north of Dallas, Texas. Population 12.

  • replying to post below in this thread, not 'what's in your glass', to keep one of my favorite threads in order

    @Kapea said: My latest batch of gin. I am really getting it dialed in.
    This time I got the gin basket botanical charge very close to what I want. Licorice adds a surprising amount of sweetness without adding a lot of licorice candy flavor.

    The change I made on this run was doing a reboil of some leftover one-note-songs of juniper, corriander, and angelica as the base spirit. Methinks there may be something worthwhile in the reboil concept.

    It's only a couple of hours old and it is delicious. Can't wait to see how it is after a couple of weeks of resting.

    You still at the licorice (root I assume) at 1/12 the juniper, did you use it as it comes from the supplier? have you ground it, and what do you think of it compared to anise or fennel? I have not done a distillation of that yet.

  • We have done the following in the past week or so (all sourced from rose mountain, and 1L of 100 proof in glass lab still unless otherwise noted):

    • Juniper (100g) 3y old in bag (rolled with rolling pin in plastic bag)
    • Juniper fresh (100g) (rolled with rolling pin in plastic bag)
    • Coriander Whole (100g)
    • Coriander Ground (100g) (as coarse as my burr coffee grinder will go)
    • Bitter Orange Peel (100g)
    • Sweet Orange Peel (100g)
    • Lemon grass (10g)
    • Cardamom seed (10g) ground in burr coffee grinder
    • Orris Root (tried to grind finer than supplied, just gummed up the burr on my grinder)
    • Pink peppercorns (10g) (not ground, as not really true peppercorns)
    • Black pepper (10g) un-ground (not happy, so re-did)
    • Black pepper (10g)ground coarsely in old hand coffee grinder
    • White peppercorns (10g) un-ground (need to redo)
    • Fennel Seed (10g) un-ground (not happy, so re-did)
    • Fennel Seed (10g) ground lightly in old hand coffee grinder
    • Anise Seed (10g) ground lightly in old hand coffee grinder

    On the 'to do' list:

    • angelica root
    • lavender
    • tarragon home grown
    • oregon grape root, hand picked near aspen, co...
    • lemon peel (local, fresh)
    • orange peel (local, fresh)
    • cassia
    • blue vervain
    • bitter almonds
    • basil of different types
    • cubeb berries
    • and I guess licorice root...
  • I measure my botanicals in grams per liter of finished gin (you can take the man out of the lab, but you can't take the lab out of the man, as it were)

    I buy my botanicals from Monterey Bay Spice Company. Orris, angelica, licorice roots come in "cut and sieved" form. I do no further processing of those. Juniper and coriander come in whole cone or seed form. I do no further processing of them. Cassia bark comes in traditional "stick" form. I cut it down to pieces that are around 2mm cube-like squares with scissors. Dried orange peel comes "chopped" in pieces that are 2-4mm cube-like chunks. I do no further processing of them either.

    Those are the seven botanicals I am working with at the present time. I would like to add bitter almond, grains of paradise, and cubeb to the mix, but I cannot find a reasonably priced source for them. Once I get the big seven dialed in I'm going to add some whole black peppercorns to the mix. I love the taste of fresh black pepper.

    The chopped licorice root is rather fibrous, and looks like small bark chunks mixed with hairballs. However, it is quite effective in this form. Licorice root has 30-50 times the sweetening power of sucrose. At 3g/L it provides a very nice perception of sweetness in the finish, while providing little anise-like spiciness.

    I do a bit of forensic investigation of my spent botanicals. I take them out of the gin basket, sniff them, pull them apart, sniff them again, and taste them. I want to determine how much of the desirable compounds have been extracted, and how much are left.

    I find that all of the botanicals have become mushy in texture and have given up most, if not all, of their desirable aromas and flavors. Juniper retains the most aroma and flavor, but is still pretty well spent. It's interesting to note that the aroma of spent juniper is reminiscent of the aroma of spent hops.

    Aside from the cassia bark, I do not do any further processing of my botanicals. I believe that you get a better cross section of volatiles this way. Vegetal components from the surface areas are extracted at the same time more volatile components are being released from the interior. I believe with a fine grind the volatiles are extracted quickly, leaving the vegetal remains to be worked on by the vapors over the majority of the run. This leads to a predominance of grassy/hay-like flavors in the finished product.

    If I had older, less fresh botanicals to work with, I might be tempted to crush them lightly (bruise them)with a mortar and pestle to open them up a bit.

    Proportions are relative. Each batch of spices has varying degrees of desirable compounds in them. Recipes need to be tweaked when a new batch of a botanical is used. The cinnamon content of the cassia bark I have now is so high, I only use 0.3g/L.

    I also make a "redhot" cinnamon vodka with 1.8g/L of cassia and 3g/L of licorice that kicks ass big time.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • edited May 2015

    Yes,,, professor @Kapea.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • FYI - On the grains of paradise , they are best at about 200:1 Juniper to G of P... they are THAT strong, so the smallest package will do you, send em through a coffee grinder or maybe just tap them with a clean hammer to crack them and a wonderful aroma comes out...

    My orris and angelica were about like the orange peel, sounds like yours were pre-ground....

    I did forensic investigation on a whole black peppercorn after distilling through 10g of them... bit into it and POW, nearly full strength... I won't do that again!

    Yes, some things give grassy notes when ground, coriander is supposed to, but have not sat down and analyzed other than the ground is stronger...

    I may try that cinnamon vodka, thanks!

  • @Smaug said: Yes,,, professor Kapea.

    @crozdog was generous in sharing his knowledge of gin in the Gin Operations Guide. It has been very helpful to me. In return he asks that we share what we learn, here.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • edited April 2016

    Just received my new toy

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  • edited April 2016

    Hi boy and girls, new to the gin process, bourbon and rum down pat. Just a quick thanks to all the community for their openness to share info. Cheers @punkin for the link, purchase to come when in stock.

  • so you put a screen in the bottom of the top container and add 'stuff'... all sorts of 'stuff'

    I added 100g of fresh roasted, corase grond coffee and boiled 1000ml of 100 proof neutral through it to get 600ml, topped off to 1000ml with water and I have 100g/liter liquid that is addictive as crack cocaine..

    Oh, and the backset was better coffee than most diners ;-)

  • @richard said: Just received my new toy

    Time to start building up the library.
    Anyone done up an excel spreadsheet to spit out recipes?
    This is high on my list of things to do.
    If the samples are standardised then it should be pretty easy to convert the 'mixed by hand bottle of perfection' into a repeatable, single batch, production recipe.

  • edited April 2016

    My recipe for gin is: for 45 litres of clean neutral spirit @ 45% in still, I crush the juniper, coriander and cinnamon with a mortar and pestle.

    150g juniper
     50g coriander seed
     10g orris root or angelica root
         (some people are allergic to orris root, I prefer angelica)
      1g dill tips
       5 cardamom pods crushed
      3g black peppercorns (or 50-50% with pink peppercorns)
         Pinch of carroway
     1/2 tspn lavender flowers
       1 big basil leaf
     1/2 tangello zest - absolutely NO MORE!
     1/2 lemonade zest - absolutely NO MORE!
     1/2 lisbon lemon zest - absolutely NO MORE!
     1.5 stick cinnamon
      3g Rose buds, optional, for a Hendricks style gin
    

    This is done in a SD gin basket in a simple pot still with an enlarged section. See picture... This gives a lovely flowery gin that can be quaffed all day long on a hot summer's day. You never tire of it.

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  • @jacksonbrown said: Anyone done up an excel spreadsheet to spit out recipes?

    yep.. just gotta search ;-)

  • That's a great starting point but not quite what I had in mind.
    I'll work on it.

  • edited April 2016

    I have one worked up and it is attached. I tried my first recipe and I think the proportions I have here are really very heavy when compared to what is required. I tried two recipes that I havent included here by making Gin via maceration and they tasted like Gin but they juniper was very strong and because it was macerated came out with a lot of Juniper oil and it was a nasty tea brown. I just finished the bottles so I am going to try and make some more and back down on the amount of ingredients per litre. Electric Eds recipe here is about 20% of what I have seen as being posted on the percentages.
    Included in this file is the classic recipes with their ingredients. I have a couple of my recipes that I have come across by reading about Gin. The proportions of Juniper to Corinander to cardomon as the main flavours appear to be pretty common when you research gin recipes. But its up to you really.

    Gin recipes generic template (XLS)

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  • More good stuff, cheers.
    What I want to do is make up an essence collection with each botanical type thAT'S produced using exactly the same protocol i.e. same ABV in the boiler and same set volume to be distilled off.
    Then I will mix up the gin to taste and add some neutral too to get the flavor and strength right.
    Once I plug all those volumes that went into the mix into the spreadsheet it will give how many grams of everything need to go in the basket and litres in the boiler for a batch of x size.
    It's a bit of mucking around to set up and get the flavor library going but once done it should mean bespoke runs are as simple as mixing a cocktail, plugging in the numbers and weighing out what the spreadsheet says.
    Well that's the idea anyway.
    Is any one doing this already?

  • @DonMateo: How long did you macerate the juniper? My friend tried 48 hours and had the juniper crushed a bit - but it did not carry that strong over than we thought it will. Also, the macerate had no color. It was commercial juniper for cooking.

    StillDragon Europe - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Europe & the surrounding area

  • Actually I did a hot maceration which was I put all my ingredients into pot added a bottle of vodka and then heated it up to 50 deg and held it there for an hour. Then let it cool, and strained it out and then let it sit over night. I didnt crush up the botanicals at all. My next couple of tries I am going to go to about 25% of the proportions I have in the spreadsheet and see if that is a lot better. I have read a few places that hot maceration like what I attempted uses far less botanicals than a vapor distillation. It definitely was a Juniper type of Gin but it was really really strong on the botanicals and looked like brown tea. My Juniper was just commercially available Juniper. Nothing fancy. I am going to take another shot at Royal Gin, which is just Juniper, Corandier and some cardomon but at a lot less quantities and see if it works. If its not great I will probably drink it anyway. All in the name of advancing knowledge of gin production.

  • @jacksonbrown said: More good stuff, cheers.
    What I want to do is make up an essence collection with each botanical type thAT'S produced using exactly the same protocol i.e. same ABV in the boiler and same set volume to be distilled off.
    Then I will mix up the gin to taste and add some neutral too to get the flavor and strength right.
    Once I plug all those volumes that went into the mix into the spreadsheet it will give how many grams of everything need to go in the basket and litres in the boiler for a batch of x size.
    It's a bit of mucking around to set up and get the flavor library going but once done it should mean bespoke runs are as simple as mixing a cocktail, plugging in the numbers and weighing out what the spreadsheet says.
    Well that's the idea anyway.
    Is any one doing this already?

    you need to look at mine again... that is exactly what it does!

    It has rows of ingredients, and two pairs of columns ( one if you are using dry/raw ingredients, and one for using an extraction). My botanicals are 100/10/1 gram/liter solutions, that is, I took 1 liter of 100 proof, distilled off 600ml through 100 or 10 grams of that botanical, reconstituted to 1L for the solution (1g/L was diluted from 10g/L for accurracy reasons)

    1. Put a number in 'desired Volume' at the top, say .75 or 100 Liters
    2. put a desired concentration in, say 20g/l in for juniper..
    3. see that the juniper now says 15 grams or 150ml of the 100g/L solution (2kg or 20L of 100g/l solution for 100 L).
    4. You do not want everything at the same concentration, to show the example, lets use Grains of Paradise - I use it at .005g/L... so set the juniper to .005g/l... it says .004 dry and 0.0ml, neither of which is practical... now type in .005g/L into the actual grains of paradise row, which has a extract concentration of 1g/ml (I took 10g/ml and diluted) you will get the same .004g dry, but the ml, now says 3.8, which is totally do-able with a dropper or syringe!

    So after using it a bit, you should see by the numbers that for Juniper and Coriander, I use dry. If my volumes increase enough, other things may be used dry. If you are using less than 1-5 grams of dry, your accuracy/repeatability is going to suck!

  • Point 2 is where it falls down for me. It's only doing half the job. I want to enter the amount of solution I put in the sample along with any neutral to correct it.
    And then get the batch read out. Like I said, it a good starting point but not exactly what I'm after.

  • I am not following you, 'the amount of solution' is in the column 'E'

    the formula is =$C$3B6/D61000

    amount of solution to add = Volume desired * desired concentration / extract strength *1000

    you do that for each one, and top off to the desired volume

    the fields are blank until you enter values, is that is what gets you? I put sequential numbers in column B, you will see the other fields populated with the amount of either dry or solution to add.

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  • @CothermanDistilling said: I am not following you,

    Clearly, I'm not very good at explaining myself.
    Mine will start like yours then go backwards.
    'Extract amount' will be an entered field, (not calculated).
    Desired Concentration will be calculated (not entered) and the overall weight of ingredient will be per batch (not litre) and any included neutral and water will then be derived from that for an entered batch volume.

    I can see that yours works for what you need. It isn't what I need. Probably best I just show you once I'm done.

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