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Gin Class at Moonshine University

They used this still, 3 groups of 12 made 1 liter batches.

ESSENTIAL OIL Steam Distillation Steam Distiller

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  • The 'crowd sourced' recipe.

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  • edited April 2015

    @CothermanDistilling said: They used this still, 3 groups of 12 made 1 liter batches.
    ESSENTIAL OIL Steam Distillation Steam Distiller

    How quaint.
    I am looking at my GB4 with new eyes.

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

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  • Thanks @CothermanDistilling for the post and the great pics.

    I take it the recipe you posted is based on distilling pure single notes and adding back proportions of each distillate to the ratio described?

  • No, that was mixing those ingredient amounts in grams and distilling with 1 Liter of 100 proof, collecting about 600 ml Ours was maceration, the other two were basket type distillations.

    Here is a video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2sRRzg2BLE

  • The Still Setups

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  • Interesting note for @grim , the room was loaded with everything explosion proof, but no sprinklers... lights, swithes for agitators, even an xp pump with a really cool switch/outlet combo made by appleton. Well, except our lab stills and aquarium pumps, fed by an extension cord through an open garage door...

  • @CothermanDistilling said: Interesting note for grim , the room was loaded with everything explosion proof, but no sprinklers... lights, swithes for agitators, even an xp pump with a really cool switch/outlet combo made by appleton. Well, except our lab stills and aquarium pumps, fed by an extension cord through an open garage door...

    Ha.....just enough to placate and get the CO signed off.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited April 2015

    Yeah, our XP pump has a 30 foot cord on it. 30 feet of cord was cheaper than the Appleton Plugs and Receptacles (would have easily been a grand to add a receptacle closer.)

    I'm telling y'all, the easiest solution is to just get rid of everything.

  • Did they display the "use a vice grip to pinch the return hose" method of controlling water flow that I patented last year?

  • @FloridaCracker said: Did they display the "use a vice grip to pinch the return hose" method of controlling water flow that I patented last year?

    necessity is the mother of invention :)

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • No, EVERY still that was complete on the floor at the ADI conference had a Danfoss valve on it... every one...german, hungarian, even the Chinese ones... the nice Chinese lady followed me when I peeked around back of the still to see the label that said Danfoss and in this case "made in poland"

    Oh, and several stills had tiny, xp gearmotor agitators that were attached by a DIN coupling similar to the new bubble cap tee sight windows... pretty much like I asked for back in the "stirrer not agitator" thread...

    Now for @smaug to get me the SD version of the 'bling' still that was there....

  • What's the bling still? Pix?

  • @CothermanDistilling said: No, EVERY still that was complete on the floor at the ADI conference had a Danfoss valve on it... every one...german, hungarian, even the Chinese ones... the nice Chinese lady followed me when I peeked around back of the still to see the label that said Danfoss and in this case "made in poland"

    Oh, and several stills had tiny, xp gearmotor agitators that were attached by a DIN coupling similar to the new bubble cap tee sight windows... pretty much like I asked for back in the "stirrer not agitator" thread...

    Now for smaug to get me the SD version of the 'bling' still that was there....

    was there any particular Danfoss type/model that was preferred?

  • @CothermanDistilling said: No, EVERY still that was complete on the floor at the ADI conference had a Danfoss valve on it... every one...german, hungarian, even the Chinese ones... the nice Chinese lady followed me when I peeked around back of the still to see the label that said Danfoss and in this case "made in poland"

    Oh, and several stills had tiny, xp gearmotor agitators that were attached by a DIN coupling similar to the new bubble cap tee sight windows... pretty much like I asked for back in the "stirrer not agitator" thread...

    Now for smaug to get me the SD version of the 'bling' still that was there....

    NO WORRIES Michael. That is a definite priority.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Thanks for the pics and info Michael. :-bd

  • AVTA is the only type I have eve seen...

  • Hi CD

    What is "Corains" in the 'crowd sourced' recipe?

  • edited April 2015

    Grains of paradise, methinks. Note the cup labels in this picture:

    @CothermanDistilling said: image

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

  • I use a glassware still like those to make essential oils and hydrosols for soapmaking. It never occurred to me to use it for making gin. I think it would be difficult to transfer the trial blends made in glass over to production runs on a larger still/gin basket. Lots of tweaking on the production side to replicate what you made in the pilot batches.

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

  • So I recon my ideas of distilling each grain separtedly and then blending for bourbon were not that crazy after all. Seem it works in other products. Good info.

  • Can't believe you stole their idea Hoochy.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • :-h

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • @luckyliqueur yes, grains of paradise, 1/100th the juniper amount is about right... the sage and cardamom would be best at 1/200 or 1/300... that is the purpose of this procedure...

    @Kapea - it is more about getting the ratios close, yes, scaling up and changing type/shape of still/head will change things, but getting the ratios right is extremely helpful...

    @captainshooch While the samples were single botanical infusions, every production distillery I have spoken to mixes them for production....

    Another thing we have talked about here and Clay kind of eluded to is the effect of sending a complete run through the botanicals... and knowing what doing a complete run via a pot still gets you vs either using a column or just the beginning of a run... the lower proof at the end helps pull out water-soluble compounds...

    Yes, if you think about that for a minute, it kind of throws one of our concepts under the bus... he said they had problems when they switched gin baskets mid run, they had to set that batch aside and re-ran it with all new botanicals then blended with a regular run for their barrel aged gin to avoid dumping it......

    Also, with the glass stills they warned us and we saw.. err smelled it for ourselves, there is an off flavor, even when using one of the best commercial GNS's on the market (they went on for a while about how they are not all the same, and prefer a certain one) in a glass still... kind of a smelly foot odor that you have to air out quite a bit...

  • Clay showed us his new still at Corsair, affectionately called 'Cartman'... about 500 gal I think and oil filled bain marie due to small space and no current boiler at their bowling green facility

    I did not get to snap pics of the photos he showed us of the inside, but the description:

    24" gin basket with 4, pie shaped, multi-layer baskets in it, and the wheel on the front rotates a fan-blade shaped rotary valve that closes it off in an attempt to either keep the botanicals cooler during still warm up, or limit vapor escape if filling after warm-up.

    There is supposedly a twin to this $40k Vendome unit somewhere out west, I forgot where, my brain was full...

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  • Oh, and if pushing through a gin basket, a pressure relief and gauge are a must, you can get a 'stuck mash' in a gin basket fairly easy Clay said.... they layer their basket like a spicy veggie lasagna...

  • edited April 2015

    Thank you for posting this @Cothermandistilling I am working on finding my gin voice on a hobby level. Seeing how a pro company is doing the same thing on a parallel track is interesting.

    I use my own neutral for the base spirit. 3X. A strip and two passes to azeotrope through the VM column. No stinky feet.

    You've got me thinking about when I insert the botanicals into the gin basket. It had not occurred to me that there might be a downside to having them in there during warmup. Using 3X as my base spirit, there are no cuts needed on my infusion runs. Inserting botanicals timing can be addressed with a thermometer placed under the Carter head inlet.

    Very true about how long you leave the botanicals in the vapor. Some botanicals give up desirable flavors at the very end of the run. Others give up "wet hay". Figuring that out is part of the fun of pilot batches.

    One note songs (single botanical infusions) are good for blending trials, but are limited in their usefulness too. There is a synergy in all-in-one infusions that you cannot emulate by blending one note songs. The ONS blends will get you in the vicinity, but the real deal comes when you blend the jars collected from different stages of all-in-one runs to get the flavor you're looking for.

    I am able to run effective 1L trials with my half barrel keg boiler configured as a pot still with a GB4 Carter head attached. But boy do I have a lot of 1L bottles of "almost gin" sitting around now. I'm saving them to run back to neutral again when I get another keg boiler so I don't stink up my neutral boiler with gin botanicals. I'll probably experiment with botanicals in the boiler then too.

    My soapmaking/essential oil making partner who I share the glass still with is a Mormon, so the idea of using it for gin trials never really occured to me. My GB4 does an excellent job of it anyway.

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

  • I spoke to an award winning Aussie gin maker who has been doing it for a long time and he said that over the last twenty years GNS here has improved out of sight. He said he still runs it once through his 8 plate column to clean it up though.

    He also said it's cheaper than the water he cuts with :))

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited April 2015

    I wish that were the case here! My cut water falls out of the sky, for free. >:D<

    The stinky feet thing has me thinking though. I mount my GB4 on a torpedo with no plate in it (all stainless steel). Next time I'm going to put a bubble plate in and see if copper contact makes a difference.

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

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