Gin - Single ingredient distillations

[mrbob]

Evening everyone!

I've been thinking a lot about Gin recently and yesterday was watching a video about how Sloane's produce their Gin. Anyway it turns out they distill each botanical seperately (8 or so if i remember rightly) and then blend them at the end to produce the Gin.

This method is also mentioned in the StillDragon gin basket manual, which is a fantastic read BTW.

I quite fancy trying this sometime in the hopefully not too distant future but I was quite confused over how to maintain the botanicals ratio in the gin overall if the concentrations of each botanical was different, so I knocked up this calculator in Excel.

It seems like it would be a really quick way to test recipes, if you had a bottle of each of your botanicals you could make a tester sized amount rather than committing a lot of your neutral and time in making a full batch just for development purposes.

Basically you knock up an essence of each botanical you want (recording how much you used in grams per litre in the spreadsheet). Whack in your batch size, then your chosen botanicals and ratios, as well as total botanicals in grams per litre, and it will spit out how much to add of each essence to get your desired recipe.

I've not yet tried this in practice and I dont even know if it produces good results. I'm fairly sure my maths is solid though.

Hopefully some of you may find it interesting/useful or some of you more experienced lot may tell me I'm on the wrong track/up the wrong tree/creek without a paddle.

Either way I will get round to trying it sometime.

Thanks for your time!

Bob

[Mash]

Brilliant. I do like a bit of Excel.

Good work.

[gaza the instructor]

Wow if i could i would.
Got some Plymouth in the Airstill now,
sputnick stile work for me.
Need to explore more without a doubt

[Easydrinker]

mrbob.
I do believe that you are on the button.
Almost the same point that I have reached.
As the SD guide says, a whole bunch of single "essences" to blend together for the ultimate controlled Gin.

I have chosen to take this a little further, and warn other readers not to follow my example without doing their own research.At risk of their health.
Winging their way towards me are many small bottles of what seem to be the purest essential oils that I can find.
The idea being to add a few drops to neutral, as a Prestige or Still Spirits essence would have you do, to try and accertain the mark up on these additives bought as an all in one Gin flavouring..

Bonkers.

Robert.

[Seagull]

That sounds interesting Robert. May I ask where you found the little essence bottles? Sounds a little like the Still Spirits whisky profile kit idea

[Mash]

I do this with orange & lemon. The amount of Citrus was getting silly and the oils are brighter.

The issue you may have is clarity.

And when you replace your oil your recipes go to cock. So a good repeatable source is good.

Made my own rosemary oil in the AS. I now know why essential oils are expensive... the yield is soooo small.

[Easydrinker]

The problem here is that the approved flavourings available in your local store tend to be synthetic; and undiluted real essential oils are hard to find with an FCC FG rating, - some exist, others you have to take on trust, or at your own risk.
And it is a risk; the essential component of any natural product is so much stronger than the thing it came from, A little can FCUK you big time.
The Orris root absolute that I just bought retails at £2,000 a litre, I am hoping that the 2.5ml that I bought goes a long way, it should, it is as thick as treacle

Robert.

[Mash]

Is it worth diluting in 60%alc? I mention it because you need such a small amount and it would make measuring easier?

[Easydrinker]

Yes, for sure I can see a dilution will make life easier.
While I intend to continue with the Juniper berries, another 950g delivered yesterday, I am looking forward to playing with these concentrated flavours, hopefully the postie will deliver the missing ones tomorrow.

Robert.

[mrbob]

Where did you get your juniper berried Robert? I think I got mine in 100g bag for about 3 quid odd from the brew shop.

Bob

[Easydrinker]

From here mrbob, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291501286503? ... EBIDX%3AIT.
One day I will learn to do this tidily, following Ice's tutorial.
Time, time, time.

Robert.