My New Process
Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:01 amHere’s what I currently do. I have only done this end to end once– and I’m currently 2 weeks into doing the second cycle. I’m currently trying to develop a solid gin recipe to call my own, so my aim with this is to produce some stock neutral to do back to back infusions for direct comparison. My gin is a long term goal; I have no illusions about achieving this short term. I am currently making some very tasty gin, but there are so many ways to cut it even from a single recipe you could spend a lifetime perfecting it.
-any constructive criticism will be warmly welcomed.
Day 1, Put down 2x 25L sugar washes – using a yeast bomb for nutrients.
Day 5, 1st gen ferment stops. –stir out the CO2, leave to settle out.
Day 7- rack 23L from each into my big 110L plastic barrel for clearing.
- get 2 more washes going on the lees of the previous wash + additional starter from 1 new pack of yeast.
Day 9 – 2nd gen Stops fermenting – as only takes about 50 hours for subsequent generations.
Day 11\12 – rack these into the big barrel (now 90 something litres in there). Get 2 more washes down – for the 3rd generation I add more yeast bomb mixture to top the nutrients up. + a new starter. (after removing about 30% of the lees)
Day 15 – 3rd gen stops fermenting – stir out CO2 leave to settle.
Day 17 – rack into second barrel and repeat.
Day 20 – 4th gen stops fermenting
Day 22\23 – rack – chuck the yeast and sterilise the fermenters. – I now have 2 x 94L ish barrels of wash clearing in a little over 3 weeks, using only 2x33L fermenters.
Day 30 – I can start to strip barrel 1.
I can do 2 x 30L strips in an evening, or 4 in one day at the weekends. Barrel 2 isn’t clear and ready until about day 40 based on the first cycle so I’m not in any hurry to do the strips. Obviously temperature, variation from wash to wash, how well its clearing all come in to this, once I’ve done a few more cycles I’ll have a better idea of the average end-to-end times, I can only go on what has happened so far.
I do 6 strips in total and chuck the remaining wash to free up the barrels again. – I need to get a move on and cut the 50L keg I have for turning into a stripper – this will mean going from 6 strips to 4 - a big saving in effort.
The 6 strips result in around 45L of 40% ish low wines from my 9-10%ABV wash which I store in a 50L stainless keg until I’m ready to do a spirit run.
I do 2 x 20 something litre spirit runs on my new VM column head. The VM is a pleasure to use, much easier and much much less fiddly than the T-500- fine adjustment is done with half turns of a stopcock, rather than tickling the T500 needle valve like a safe cracker. I run it on my T-500 boiler on 1300w power, during hearts I’m running at about 1.2l/h, and getting azeotrope. The mid column temp is rock solid until you hit tails, then the dial give a little wiggle and starts to creep up. I power down at this, as I don’t bother collecting tails – this leaves a fair bit in the boiler, but from trying re-distilling tails on the T500, I found you got so little hearts out, it just wasn’t worth the effort of collecting them in the first place– if I’m wrong with this thinking, please jump in someone.
After airing for 2 days, I chuck the heads and feints into another 50L barrel to be re-run at a later date, and toss the little tails I have collected down the drain.
-any constructive criticism will be warmly welcomed.
Day 1, Put down 2x 25L sugar washes – using a yeast bomb for nutrients.
Day 5, 1st gen ferment stops. –stir out the CO2, leave to settle out.
Day 7- rack 23L from each into my big 110L plastic barrel for clearing.
- get 2 more washes going on the lees of the previous wash + additional starter from 1 new pack of yeast.
Day 9 – 2nd gen Stops fermenting – as only takes about 50 hours for subsequent generations.
Day 11\12 – rack these into the big barrel (now 90 something litres in there). Get 2 more washes down – for the 3rd generation I add more yeast bomb mixture to top the nutrients up. + a new starter. (after removing about 30% of the lees)
Day 15 – 3rd gen stops fermenting – stir out CO2 leave to settle.
Day 17 – rack into second barrel and repeat.
Day 20 – 4th gen stops fermenting
Day 22\23 – rack – chuck the yeast and sterilise the fermenters. – I now have 2 x 94L ish barrels of wash clearing in a little over 3 weeks, using only 2x33L fermenters.
Day 30 – I can start to strip barrel 1.
I can do 2 x 30L strips in an evening, or 4 in one day at the weekends. Barrel 2 isn’t clear and ready until about day 40 based on the first cycle so I’m not in any hurry to do the strips. Obviously temperature, variation from wash to wash, how well its clearing all come in to this, once I’ve done a few more cycles I’ll have a better idea of the average end-to-end times, I can only go on what has happened so far.
I do 6 strips in total and chuck the remaining wash to free up the barrels again. – I need to get a move on and cut the 50L keg I have for turning into a stripper – this will mean going from 6 strips to 4 - a big saving in effort.
The 6 strips result in around 45L of 40% ish low wines from my 9-10%ABV wash which I store in a 50L stainless keg until I’m ready to do a spirit run.
I do 2 x 20 something litre spirit runs on my new VM column head. The VM is a pleasure to use, much easier and much much less fiddly than the T-500- fine adjustment is done with half turns of a stopcock, rather than tickling the T500 needle valve like a safe cracker. I run it on my T-500 boiler on 1300w power, during hearts I’m running at about 1.2l/h, and getting azeotrope. The mid column temp is rock solid until you hit tails, then the dial give a little wiggle and starts to creep up. I power down at this, as I don’t bother collecting tails – this leaves a fair bit in the boiler, but from trying re-distilling tails on the T500, I found you got so little hearts out, it just wasn’t worth the effort of collecting them in the first place– if I’m wrong with this thinking, please jump in someone.
After airing for 2 days, I chuck the heads and feints into another 50L barrel to be re-run at a later date, and toss the little tails I have collected down the drain.
