MacStill wrote:I heard someone was sampling some nice gin earlier in the day, maybe a little too much distillers privilege to let us all know how it went 8-}
Very true...It all went very well. A bit of a learning experience as I took hours to heat up...But then I realised that the cable loom from 6 elements was so heavy that 3 of the plugs had come half out... I fixed that and in 5 minutes the thing was running like a thoroughbred horse on diuretics...
The Carter head was slow to get going as I had very strong reflux for the first Jar ...but I realised that the basket was absolutely cold as was the top of the head...so I ran vodka through the head to pre heat it and it all settled down. The second half of the day was really easy and all ran as expected...
I shut down at about 4 PM and will start the run tomorrow with a pre heat and throw a bit more power at it than I did this morning... I have to admit the product sure is clean and pure... I quickly hit Az and stayed there for the whole run.
I love the valve system, changing botanical baskets was just a matter of pulling the valve to vodka and exchanging the basket and then setting the valve back to Gin...Great system. I made one change to my gin recipe on the fly...I substituted Elderflower for lavender as one of my florals... I will see how this tastes tomorrow ...but I think it shoulds work well. I am absolutely knackered as I have not got a lot of sleep these last few days and we are in the busiest period of our working year...
Even though the restaurant and bar are booked for a Xmas party tomorrow ...I am going to take the day to distil... It will be good to see the faces as people do the tour...Methuselah sure is impressive... I must say it was great to be able to ring Mac for backup and support during set up and first run. Thanks for the great service mate.
Well I am off to bed...got a good book (Lonesome Dove) and a dog that won't take no for an answer.
Cheers all
Doc