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What's in your Basket?

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  • Well there ya go, maybe macerate the orange or add to a gin basket. If properly dissolved shouldn't be an issue for immersion

  • not that i know of or in my experience

  • Any ideas for things to throw in the basket to run some rum through ? Or what's a fun thing to use with vodka all easy sourceable items wanting to show my father how the basket works over the holiday. I have a good stock of both neutral and barrel aged for a year rum

  • edited November 2015

    You could try an Ouzo run with the gin basket. That would make a very delicate drink i reckon and it would be perfect for a demo as the spices all come through one after another on a pot run i reckon they would on the GB4 too.

    Pastis/Arak/Ouzo

    All pretty common kitchen ingredients, as always fresh is best. I'd do it with neutral rather than rum and if it was me I'd add some cheap box wine to the boiler charge.

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

  • All in a gin basket

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  • Care to share quantities of these

  • That appears to be a sneaky photograph

  • Can't give away any secrets @popcorn but here are some guidelines for a balanced product.

    2:1 ratios cinnamon,peppercorns,orange peel, vanilla : cloves,nutmeg ginger allspice. So let's say 10:grams of c,pc,op,v : 5 grams c,n,g,as

    Fresh ingredients will be different, so be careful particularly with ginger and orange peel. Go easy on the cloves and nutmeg and feel free to up the cinnamon, peppercorns. You will need to make a light caramel for colour or oak on light/medium char barrel... Or both

    Now you gotta do the work like we all do haha. Enjoy your thanksgiving!

    @grim, we are all pretty open about what we use, people are very interested and enjoy smelling the mason jars with the fresh mixed botanicals and spices in when they come to visit. Actual weights are on lock down

  • A little donation to the group... An Excel Spreadsheet (XLSX) for your Gin Basket..

    I would be happy to add a few common items if I missed something.. (No, I am not adding bacon)

    set the batch size, set the desired grams per liter, and you are set.

    The right two columns are if you made single botanical extractions to use, this is especially helpful when the concentration is .005 grams/liter and you are making 100ml to test...

    xlsx
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  • @CothermanDistilling said: The right two columns are if you made single botanical extractions to use, this is especially helpful when the concentration is .005 grams/liter and you are making 100ml to test...

    To get .005g/L in a 100mL sample you will need a balance with a resolution of 0.0005 gram (half a milligram).

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

  • Good on ya, Mike for sharing.

  • @Kapea said: To get .005g/L in a 100mL sample you will need a balance with a resolution of 0.0005 gram (half a milligram).

    No, not with extractions you do not...

    You make an extraction, a 1000ml batch with 10g, and dilute 10:1, now you have a solution that is 1gram per liter.. now you just use .5ml (an insulin syringe works great) and you have 0.005 g/l

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  • And I can tell you that you can tell the diff between .005g/l and 0.010g/l of Grains of Paradise very clearly side by side with all other Gin botanicals in balance and the same.

  • Here I am doing blending of extracts to dial in our regular and our cucumber gin, next step is a small scale simulation of the full size 100L batch... unfortunately, 2.3KG of juniper will not fit in the GB4, (and I want to run the full spectrum of vapor through the juniper so changing baskets is out for that one) so I am macerating the juniper, coriander, (and cucumber for that one), removing, rinsing, and then distilling with the remainder in the GB, possibly tweaking the final 100L with extracts if needed..

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  • edited November 2015

    Why not run what will fit in the GB4, and reduce the volume proportionally? e.g. instead of X liters of base spirit through 2.3kg of juniper, run two batches of 0.5X liters through 1.65kg. Then mix the two half batches together afterwards.

    Dang it. Where's that GB8 when you really need it?! ;)

    @CothermanDistilling said: ...You make an extraction, a 1000ml batch with 10g, and dilute 10:1, now you have a solution that is 1gram per liter..

    And you have 10L of stock solution...

    I've found diluting stock solutions to achieve a desired concentration of a botanical tends to lessen the complexity the diluted botanical contributes. (some botanicals more than others)

    Using a calibrated (class A) volumetric pipette to deliver a small dose of full strength stock solution works better than diluting the stock solution to make measurment easier.

    I think it has to do with the kinetics of the chemical reactions between the botanicals in the final spirit.

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

  • Can run 2 x GB4's concurrently.

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

  • In series or in parallel?

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

  • Larry has some photos of them set up off tees i think.

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

  • @punkin said: Can run 2 x GB4's concurrently.

    I think I will make a crystal 8" GB...

    8x4 bowl reducer with a side port welded in, 8" sight tower with a perf plate on the bottom gasket, 2-3 glass sections, a 8x4 bowl reducer on the top and pipe to the condenser... probably need some bracing...

  • @Kapea said: Why not run what will fit in the GB4, and reduce the volume proportionally? e.g. instead of X liters of base spirit through 2.3kg of juniper, run two batches of 0.5X liters through 1.65kg. Then mix the two half batches together afterwards.

    because I have to make money

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  • edited November 2015

    @CothermanDistilling said: 8x4 bowl reducer with a side port welded in, 8" sight tower with a perf plate on the bottom gasket, 2-3 glass sections, a 8x4 bowl reducer on the top and pipe to the condenser... probably need some bracing...

    Sounds like it would work. No quick basket changes. I'm assuming you'd have a tap on the bottom for draining the juice, so an 8x2 if the side port is for vapour entry would do?

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

  • 8x4 lets me use my existing GB4 bottom drain plate

  • Two product condensers are a deal breaker.

    The problem with triclamp and this kit is that once you make a wye or tee, you usually find that rejoining that wye or tee is going to require a nonstandard/custom pipe length.

  • edited November 2015

    @Moonshine said:

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    With the three way ball valve, that's changing out the basket on the fly...

    Which is a way to make money AND do half batches... on the fly.

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

  • straight from the guys at award winning Corsair Distillery... 'will never try to change baskets mid run again, the product is not consistent, and you do not get the full spectrum of water/alcohol vapor through the botanicals'

    This is what they have Vendome make them... they call it 'Cartman'... as in "I am not Fat, I am big boned.." they did not throw this kind of cash down without some thinking and experience on the commercial level.... there is an 'iris' that they can close in case they need to fix a stuck botanical basket...

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  • Saying that, I am sticking with offset for the remainder of the botaicals because I like how it works, but I have to do large batches, and even 2 GB4's cannot do a 100L batch of gin, let alone a 380L batch, and that is what we need if I ever want to break into distribution where I will only make a buck or three per bottle. So maceration and removal of the high-volume ingredients is needed. Also, to keep consistency on our small level, If I have to add a tiny bit of extractions here and there to get the taste consistent, that is a no-brainer over non-consistency while adhering to the holy grail of the kintetic reactions of 'only' using the full strength botanicals...

  • All good mate i understand. Just for arguments sake (although i know there are other reasons it won't work for you) one could rejoin the two vapour paths and just use one product condensor.

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

  • Not to dog on punkin's solution, I like it, it is cool... cooler than I could have imagined 5 years ago... but with the regulations and business model the way they are for a pro distiller, there is no money to be made on that size... I wish it were different, but it would take someone working full time just on distilling Gin to make a distributor not laugh at you using a 2" condenser or two... hell, most people in the business laugh at me I am sure when they hear 50 cases a year in the first year and hope to go to 150 next year....

    Saying all that, I want to go back to being a kid where anything was possible! This grown up stuff sucks!

  • Got to see Cartman in person nice setup

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