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What's in your Basket?

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  • @grim said: Oh the left side (no column) - there is a vapor pipe heading up - on the right side, at the base of the column, you have another vapor pipe heading up - why two?

    If I understand the question the second vapor pipe is headed down, not up.

  • Maybe you are talking about the CIP manifold?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Yes the column can only be fed from the pot head. The side column base is the vapor inlet from the pot head and the drain back to kettle only.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited November 2015

    @jbierling - I see it now, thanks, I didn't realize the bottom of the column was sealed from the headspace of the boiler. For some reason that light blue doesn't show up well on my monitor.

  • I think that's a drain from the column back into the boiler. Might need a trap?

  • Is there an advantage to having the column mounted to the boiler vs free-standing like the gin head and PC?

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

  • edited November 2015

    @Kapea said: Is there an advantage to having the column mounted to the boiler vs free-standing like the gin head and PC?

    1. Saves a measure of floor space.

    2. Drain back plumbing is super simple.

    3. Saves a bit of cash to mount the column.

    4. Better heat transfer compared to classic side column set up.

      5.unique......for now. Till DYE copies it.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited November 2015

    @Unsensibel said: I think that's a drain from the column back into the boiler. Might need a trap?

    No. The drain tube drops well below the liquid level in the kettle.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • @Kill_Devil_Spirit_Co said: I have complete faith that will be able to do everything with the basket and not macerate, which apparently costs an arm and a leg when compared to vapour infusion. It will more than likely require more than a simple scale up to compensate for batch size and vapour speed, but I doubt it will require the quantities that a maceration apparently does. Hopefully let you all know in few months :)

    Maceration costs are significantly higher due to the need for more botanicals?

    With infusion only, won't returning the juice to the boiler make subsequent runs taste like gin botanicals, or require some serious cleaning work to remove residual flavors?

    Scaling up from pilot batches isn't linear, but it gets you in the ball park on the botanical ratios. Err on the side of too little and tweak with stock solutions until you get the all-in-one recipe dialed in.

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

  • edited November 2015

    @Smaug said:
    1. Saves a measure of floor space.

    1. Drain back plumbing is super simple.

    2. Saves a bit of cash to mount the column.

    3. Better heat transfer compared to classic side column set up.

    The extra weight bearing down on the boiler top is not a problem?

    (The quote feature is acting funny - changing the way I write things)

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

  • edited November 2015

    Not at all as we have moved from 3 mm wall thickness to 5 mm thickness.

    Also, in some instances the weight is distributed better than a single point load.

    Picture 5 and 5 vs a single 10 for example.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • @grim, everything starts on the left then gets redirected from the valves. I see your point though I could have combined that piping and moved the 3 way valve down and just had the 90 go to the next valve. Would have saved money on copper pipe but the plans are in. I'm happy to move onward

    @Kapea, I'm just going by the numbers people are posting. I'm using lets say 2oz for 10 gal of proof spirit vs 2 kilos for 26gal, spo i can only see that maceration is higher cost, assuming 100% sufficient use of the juniper. The cleaning isnt all that serious, I'm happy to scrub a boiler once in a while, that comes with the terrtory imo. My column will be isolated and has CIP anyway so not really worried abot that.

  • 230g Juniper and 115g ground Corriander tight fit... Corriander way to powerful, going to do a batch of just Juniper to blend with.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC14JrtfQTE

  • Great stuff. I stole it to add to my site, hope that's ok?

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

  • Didn't work actually, it may just be too new. I'll try tomorrow. Thanks again.

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

  • An iPad with a 32-pin connector! I saw one of those in the Smithsonian oncest.

    Cool explanation about the drain-back.

    I'm having serious modified sanke envy right now!

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

  • @CothermanDistilling said: 230g Juniper and 115g ground Corriander

    How much power are you running through it?

  • hey now... throwing perfectly good electronics away just because the manufacturer and app developers write inefficient and fat code is very un-green! I have three of those iPads, one original (in the kitchen for google drive recipe folder), this iPad2 on the BCS, and an iPad3 in the car running the Waze navigation app..

    Running 5500W..

    I want a bit of a crush on the juniper, and my grain mill and my old-school coffee grinder are both too fine, ordered this, it has a .150" max gap(~3.9mm)

  • edited December 2015

    The one I saw in the Smithsonian was my own when I was visiting there. Damn thing's like a Timex, "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking!" I use it to monitor my weather station now.

    And I think it's very cool that you're doing research for the Centers for Disease Control. I'm guessing gin as a malaria preventative?

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

  • I did a Gin run last Saturday and was in short trying to chase that elusive Stunning / perfect Gin recipe that one imagines about. Basically I am looking for a Citrus styled, fresh, crisp and want to drink more styled taste..... recipe because it is so damn good. Well that was the intention. My ambitions are on the Tanqueray and Bombay Gins.

    In a nutshell, it was quite good but still missing the mark.

    To the palate it had a dryish taste. I am not sure if this is from the Coriander or the Juniper ??

    It had a slight Citrus taste. Needs to be more.

    It certainly did not have the absolute "want to have another" drink.

    As others have mentioned before, ..... you hold your recipes to your chest. .... So here goes.

    Because I could not timeously get it, ...... I did not have Grains of paradise nor Cubeb berries.

    So I made a wash of total 40% and of this total volume I added;

    Juniper 20 g/l Coriander 10 g/l Angelica root 2 g/l Cinnamon 2 g/l Lemon grass 2 g/l Liquorice root 2 g/l Zest of 1 orange

    After this I ran the still in a pot still mode without any plates and ended with an 83% product to which I herafter diluted to 43%.

    So where am I going wrong and how to get rid of the dryish taste.

  • edited March 2016

    I tried my new botanical bag. Seems to work well.

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  • Try running at a lower boiler strength to get it to come out to a total abv of around drinking strength so not diluting with water so much

  • Thanks.

    If I have 100% understood ... instead of diluting the bolier to 40% say drop it to around 20% ??

    Also what gives rise to a dry taste .... juniper or coriander. ??

  • No clue on the dryness maybe other will chime in on that, never actually used my gin basket for Gin. I've done lots of expierments in it though. Dilute to around 12% run in pot mode making no cuts and you should get around the 40% + mark and not have to dilute also a lot of the flavors in the botanicals come over later in the run when more h20 is present in the distillate. Note make sure your product going into the boiler has already been run several times and tight cuts made before watering down to the 12% and redistilling for your gin.

  • Try giving it a few weeks of aging and taste it again.

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

  • Many thanks.

    One of the bottles I have added wood chips to it.

    Will come back and see results.

  • @richard What is that botanical bag and where from? I see you are using the GB4 as I but was not 100% happy with basket and from comments either was punkin when i bought. I wrapped the basket in thin copper wire to take up the clearance in three places for about 10mm and that helped. Like the idea of the bag though.

  • I made the bag up as I do not have a basket. The trick is to make sure that there is no clearance between bag / basket and side wall of the housing.

    I will ultimately use a basket as you can ensure a uniform depth and spread of botanicals.

    The bag is a stop gap.

  • I run just the 4" filter disc and am very happy.. I run it at the bottom of a 4" tube, and have a GB on top of the tube, the sight glass is nice, the side exit and lift off top are great for letting it warm up the system, get a little output, open the top and put in a funnel and dump my bucket of botanicals in... close it up and turn the heat back on nice and high, and nearly nothing drops back in the boiler...

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