Calling the Gin Distillers and Botanical Alchemists for Help

Kapea

Regarding gin stock solutions - they make for determining a good starting point for botanical ratios.

You can science the shit out of it if you want to. I did. The real magic comes from repeated tries though. Get your process and base spirit dialed in. Then just keep making adjustments to your botanicals bill until you make the gin you like. There are no rules for gin.

"I have not failed. I've found 10,000 ways how not to make gin...".
-Thomas Edison

bill9700

Thanks for all the advice and information, I dropped my Hydrometer so lost a day tracking one down.

First I need to clarify a few things, the smell/nose of my coriander essence is like a Dead Mouse. if you ever had mice in your house and used poison the unfortunate animal after eating the stuff looks for the warmest place in the house to curl up and die, the smell from such a small animal slowly cooking on the pipes is pungent unpleasant and fills the house for a couple of days. That's the aroma my coriander has !!

Secondly I used a total of 550ml - neutral cut with spring water to 46% and 100 grams of coriander seeds. I made a copper chamber for my botanical installed above the distillation column. My interpretation of a Carter Head in a glass still.

bill9700

I've made good progress. following @grim thoughts about diluting I used a pipette and added 1ml of neutral to 100ml then checked the aroma, I continued until the unpleasant aroma was no longer - this was just 10ml or 10% of the volume. I added this back to the smelly stuff the bad smell was still there, I then diluted all the essence with spring water down to 46% it now has a pleasant aroma similar to Hay. and all the flavours are there just a little more dispersed.

Tomorrow I'll distil the same quantity of coriander and neutral in my Laboratory glass still reconfigured as a pot still, I have the coriander in a jar steeping in alcohol on the radiator at 21 degrees C, however looking at the Jar it does look like the proportion of botanical to liquid is wrong, I think diluting with more water is probably necessary to ensure I don't burn the botanicals.

I want to extract the full character of the botanical while stile producing an essence. Has anybody got any experience of producing botanical essences for compounding gin. I guess Its going to be different for each botanical, I looked at Hendricks on Wikipedia and presume they are using different stills for different botanicals.

I just checked my Jar of coriander that's steeping for 24 hours and it smells like Cat Piss. hopefully that will not come through when distilled in the pot still.

Thanks Guys I will report on tomorrows progress.

My aim is to distil all the botanicals into separate essences, any ideas on how to make cucumber essence?

Bill

bill9700

Hi @xymurgybob I'm working on individual essences so I can develop my own gin by compounding, as @grim points out synergy and or masking is important with a blend of botanicals, I don't expect the result of distilling a blend of botanicals to produce the same product as compound the same proportions of essence, however I feel it will get me close. Do you have an ideal proportion of botanicals to liquid in your 5-liter Erlenmeyer? Thanks Bill

bill9700

Just read what @Kapea said about CRACKED coriander in beer, I pounded my coriander seeds in my mortise and pestle I should have mentioned this earlier but just assumed I did the right thing! is this my mistake? when I say pounded basic I added a small handful at a time and cracked every seed, obviously this meant some got pounded but the aim was simple to crack the seeds.

zymurgybob

I don't have the exact recipe close, but generally if amount of juniper is x, coriander is x/2, cinnamon is x/20, and most other botanicals x/100, except less for the b;ack pepper.

Kapea

By cracked I mean running them through my roller-type grain mill.

Botanical stock solutions (aka essenses) do not give you the same aroma and flavor profile when you compound as when you do an all-in-one run. The interactions between the botanical components when extracted simultaneously is different than when blended after extraction.

I am an all-in-one gin basket guy (StillDragon GB4). No macerations for me. I only have one boiler and I did not want to contaminate it with botanical residues.

However, while rerunning some leftover stock juniper solution I discovered using a juniper infused base spirit during my all-in-one gin basket runs. It adds a nice complexity to my gin that I did not get from a neutral base spirit.

Any residual left in the boiler from the juniper infused base spirit washes out easily. My other spirits have no trace of juniper in them.

One thing I've had confirmed repeatedly in my gin studies is, aside from being juniper based, gin has no rules. (And many people are pushing back on the juniper rule these days)

Find what you like and figure out how to repeat it.

GD50

Thats the key. Repeating something that is good. My first batch turned out really good but i tweaked on the run which i should not of done as it makes repeating most difficult. Make your decisions before you start and stick with it.

bill9700

Today I made another 1/2 litre of Coriander Essence with my glass still built up as a pot still and the coriander macerated for 24 hours in 46% neutral prior to distillation. I have defiantly got a better product with a good aroma, it is also more complex indicating that coriander is best distilled this way but not conclusive as unfortunately I bought this coriander from a different supplier.

My conclusion is to distil all the botanicals that are roots bark nut seeds and berries by macerating then pot distillation, and the flowers petals and leaves I will place in the steam path at the top of the distillation column.

Up to now I have pounded my botanicals in mortise and pestle immediately before macerating, is this the correct method?

Thanks for your help so far. Bill

Kapea

ICYMI:
@crozdog wrote an excellent guide on gin making here:

Gin The StillDragon Way (PDF)

In addition to the GB4 specific information, there is a lot of excellent overall gin information in there.

CothermanDistilling

I add coriander to my jalepeno vodka, and people seem to dig it... and I crack it for that and my Gins with the same gap on my 320D as I use for grain, which is set at about 0.040" or 1mm

geoff400

@bill9700 said: My conclusion is to distil all the botanicals that are roots bark nut seeds and berries by macerating then pot distillation, and the flowers petals and leaves I will place in the steam path at the top of the distillation column.

Up to now I have pounded my botanicals in mortise and pestle immediately before macerating, is this the correct method?

You are bang on here, you could also put any aromatics in a basket hanging over the boiler and macerate very delicate products in 96% ABV NGS.

If macerating I would not pound up the botanicals prefer to let nature take it's course.

grim

You crazy cats watch the videos on YouTube of the guys doing supercritical co2 extraction on botanicals?

zizther

Is there anyone who can help give a rule of thumb for fresh orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit peel per litre if spirit.

geoff400

If X=Juniper quantity, most commentators have any of the citrus peels as X/100, but of course they are all variable so there is nothing better than your own trials with your own sourced products.

XEIP

@zizther, want to use fresh or dehydrated, macerated or infused?

zizther

@XEIP I have been using dried and maturating it.

I am now experimenting with fresh, and thinking about putting it in a basket when distilling. I have also thought about making a gin tea by maturating the peel and putting that (without the peel) into the boiler, but not sure that will work as well as using fresh with a basket.

XEIP

@zizther If it helps you, I only use lemon, by infusion, usually between X / 100 and x / 40, fresh, although fresh use for steam infusion is not normally recommended. Be very serious not use the white part, it is better to have to use a little more fruit than to have to get rid of unwanted flavors.

zizther

@xeip, thanks, that is usually the range I work with, good to know.

Kapea

I use fresh murcott tangerine peel. My murcott trees are ripening now. I prefer tangerine to orange or lemon.

Hendricks says they use fresh peels. That's were I got the idea from.

I picked up a 1.75L bottle of Hendricks at Costco for $65 today... SCOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!

Use a citrus zester or a potato peeler to remove the oily part of the skin without the pith. The pith is waaay bitter.

geoff400

I have not tried using fresh peel yet, going to be my next project.

Any comments on louching when using fresh peel?

XEIP

Not only citrus peels can give a gin louched, even if you do not use citrus, an excess of botanical material can produce it. Vapor infusion is helpful for this. Personally I'd rather worry about avoiding bitter tastes. (Produced by the pith) than by the louching. I prefer louch gin to an excess of bitter taste from the pith.

CothermanDistilling

@zizther said: Is there anyone who can help give a rule of thumb for fresh orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit peel per liter if spirit.

I use around 1/500th the amount of bitter orange peel, and even less sweet orange peel... I think I am at .06g/L bitter and 0.04g/L sweet... if I up them to say 0.10g/l, it would scream 'citrus gin'...

My suggestion is to 'dose' with a known solution, and it is easier to add bit-by-bit several times than it is to start over every time...well, maybe no easier, but less costly. and only do 3-4 tests before letting your palate take a break..

I make a liter at a time of orange peel at 10g/L, and for a batch of 4 cases, add 10-100ml of various 1/500 strength botanicals. For a liter of prototype, I will dilute the 10g/L to 1g/L and add a couple ml to a liter or half liter

oh, and check out the thread

Kapea

@geoff400 said: Any comments on louching when using fresh peel?

I have had no louching problems. My gin comes off of the still at drinking strength.

I do not contaminate my gin with anything before I drink it. I put the bottle in the freezer, and may add a slice of cucumber to the service glass, if I have a fresh cuke on hand.

zymurgybob

I use fresh lemon peel and my gin is right at the edge of louching, depending, I think on temperature. I tell customers that the louching is caused by the high flavor content, and that I suspect the reason traditional London dry gins were bottle in frosted glass was to conceal possible louching.

I figure if they prize louching in their Pernod or absinthe with water, they should prize my gin for the same reason.

geoff400

@zymurgybob said: I figure if they prize louching in their Pernod or absinthe with water, they should prize my gin for the same reason.

That's a good point, not sure if the gin market is quite ready for it yet though

Unsensibel

you could market the louching as a higher extraction content (= more botanicals = more premium)

Smaug

Not to mention that the old Italian gentleman prefer a cloudy lemoncello over a sparkling clean lemoncello.

geoff400

I love the positivity guys but I remember how long (and how much money) was put into the marketing of Hendricks gin with a slice of cucumber. They spent a fortune trying to get cocktail makers to even have slices of cucumber available to them along with the usual accompaniments. Daring to be different.

Kapea

It helps if you grow your own cucumbers.
However that can lead to having martinis in the greenhouse while you show off the fruits of your gardening skills to your friends.