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My gin has an after taste note I do not want. Which of these 5 points is the most likely cause ?

craftspiritscraftspirits
edited November 2014 in Beginner's Talk

I have made 3 different batches of gin so far, trying to make an easy to drink gin. The gin doesn't taste bad at all surprisingly, except for a heavy note that comes through later in the taste, and does not seem to be related to the botanicals in any way. The bottom note seems to stick in the back of the pallet (I am distilling from bottled Viognier wine which I bought fairly cheaply because the nose was a bit strong and the winemaker didn't want it. )

Which one is it most likely to be?

  1. The taste is still from the poor nose on the wine?
  2. Because I didn't use activated carbon (Should this be done before or after stripping?)
  3. My copper scrubbers were not clean enough
  4. The wine had sulphur added
  5. I didn't get the spirits neutral enough

Thanking this forum in advance....

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Comments

  • FullySilenced
    edited November 2014

    (5) would be my first choice... carbon filtering would be performed after the spirit run to remove any additional smell or taste... copper is there to remove some components and when you want them removed to maximum effect the copper should be clean and scale free...

    Get those easy things corrected and then work on the more difficult one... whatever they may be...

    Happy Stillin,

    FS :D

  • CothermanDistilling

    5 would be my first choice...

  • FullySilenced
    edited November 2014

    well acutally 5 was my first choice as well... i typed 1. and then... 5 would ... the five was autocorrected out... (:| dang phone

  • MoonshineMoonshine

    @FullySilenced said: well acutally 5 was my first choice as well... i typed 1. and then... 5 would ... the five was autocorrected out... (:| dang phone

    Not your fault, forum thought you wanted to make a list and did some (unwanted) auto-correction magic. Fixed by removing the dot after the number. ;)

    Your Place to be >>> www.StillDragon.org <<< Home of the StillDragon® Community Forum

  • crozdogcrozdog

    I'm with the others. you generally want a nice clean neutral to base you gin on. Try a fast strip then a slow spirit run - use as many plates as you have + a packed section. Sample the resulting neutral then see if you need to carbon filter before doing your gin run

  • CothermanDistilling

    make your neutral twice as good as you think you should... and then make it even better...

  • TheMechWarriorTheMechWarrior

    To make a great gin you need to start with a great neutral. Given your starting material was poor you would need a lot of rectification at best. What did you do to take the wine through to a neutral?

    Cheers,

    Mech

  • craftspiritscraftspirits

    Thanks @crozdog and others. Good advice. @TheMechWarrior I stripped the wine to about 50%. Then did a further 2 distillations and the 4th through the botanicals.

  • grim

    First time (which was the last time) I ran a poor quality wine through my rig it created such a mess that I could still taste the off-flavors 2 or 3 distillations after the fact. In fact it completely destroyed the next whiskey run. I'd only given it a rinse down with water, shame on me. Even still, I swear after breaking it down and cleaning, I could still detect it. It was a bit of a sour/bitter note that became quite prevalent in the late hearts. Never again.

  • TheMechWarriorTheMechWarrior

    @craftspirits for reference I run wine through a "slow stripping" run though 5 plates and a packed section +dephlag. I then run the hearts through again even slower, makes a great sweet neutral but there's always a hint of the wine still present. Unless that is the base flavour you are after I'd recommend a wheat grain neutral for your gin.

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