StillSmart

Interesting read....soaking the botanicals by first warming the wash to 50c. interesting they use a barley mash and make a 7% beer.

From great vodka we make great Distilled Gin

Distilled Gin, according to EU regulations, is a spirit derived from vodka quality spirit, infused with botanicals of which juniper must be the predominant flavour.

We use the method of Distilled Gin production to make a vodka quality spirit. Using our Copper Pot Still and Copper rectifying column, we subsequently re-distill the Vodka in our Pot Still with an infusion of selected botanicals.

We charge the Copper Pot Still with Vodka quality spirit at 50% abv late afternoon, warm up to some 50°C and place up to 13 selected botanicals into the warm spirit to soak overnight.

As we have charged the Still with our purest vodka, we have no need to reuse the rectifying column. So this time, a simple distillation using only our Pot Still will over 6 hours bring off the spirit and botanical oil flavours.

We only recover 95% of the vodka spirit in this gin run, again ensuring a gin of superior quality, character and smoothness.
All our spirits are based on locally grown, East Anglian malted cereals, with which we brew a “distillery wash” – a 7% abv beer, unhopped – using our unique two strain brewing yeast, that has been in use for over 70 years.

And some of the higher end Gin brands use vapour infusion, where by the botanicles are in a basket of some sort in the vapour path of the pot still, rather than letting them soak in the liquid first.

The smart still Sputnik is probably the perfect solution for us small hobbyists, it's by far the simplest and cheapest way of vapour infusion.

I'm going to make my Sputnik very soon, I will use some old bits of copper pipe to make the legs.

So which is the 'better' method when making home made gin? Is there one? Does steeping have any advantages over vapour infusion (or vice versa) or is it all just a matter of taste?

I vote for vapour infusion it works for
me. Build a Sputnik, if you have not already.
Put it in the AS buddie make some lovely Gin

The wife is in a "GIN CLUB" that sends a bottle of gin from a different craft distillers every 2 months, it costs £30 for the bottle but its still cheaper than buying it from the specialist spirit merchants...they also send a magazine on gin, reading it it seems that most steep their botainals for 24 hours in the spirit before spirit run...some do both to produce different gins.

I drink a fair bit of craft gin, and "most" seem to macerate then distill.
Also most dont seem to make their own neutral, and buy in NGS.


As for the vapour infused vs distilled gin, it's quite easy to overdo one of the botanicals in a vapour infused gin, as hot vapour solvent is really efficient at extracting, I use about 1/10th the weight of botanicals when doing vapour infused V's a similar distilled gin.

I just like the simplicity of infusion.
Just play with the recipes and bots,
& adjust to suit.
Just love the instant result, which if you
leave for a week or so will improve, from
my experience.
I just love Gin and Rum And Vodka and Beer
In Fact make that Alcohol.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:
As for the vapour infused vs distilled gin, it's quite easy to overdo one of the botanicals in a vapour infused gin, as hot vapour solvent is really efficient at extracting, I use about 1/10th the weight of botanicals when doing vapour infused V's a similar distilled gin.

Agree I have found it much more economical on botanicals.
I also like the fact it is consistent when scaled up - 3l batch is 3 x the 1 litre tester botanicals, not a rework of the recipe.