Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi, can anyone recommend a good gin essence for her indoors. I've been given a T500 and done a few runs with it. I got a couple of liquor essences from the local shop, willards Irish cream is very nice, as is their butterscotch schnapps, willards honey bourbon is ok but is missing something ( I like wild turkey American honey ), but there were a lot of different gin essences and I don't want to get them all.
Cheers.

You will probably find that most people here are making their gins using botanicals rather than an essence.

Your best bet would be to ask at your local home brew shop what they recommend. I personally have never tried any gin essences myself but know that a gin using botanicals is very achievable.

Hi Taffy 4 x4

I made Zymurgy Bob's gin extract - it is somewhere in this forum Essentially you macerate a lot of botanicals and then distill it (pot still). You get a a concentrated version that you add to neutral and dilute according to your taste. So you can make a light gin or a heavy gin or somewhere in between. That might be an option.

Cheers
Carol

still spirits dry gin

NOT the Edwards kookaburra gin. That experiment will be going back through the still.

slideshowbob wrote:NOT the Edwards kookaburra gin. That experiment will be going back through the still.

i consider making good neutral the hard bit.
so if you've done that, i consider turning good neutral into good gin so so easy.
all you have to do is mascerate the botanicals in neutral and run a la Odin method and voila.
no cuts, no baskets and maximum taste.
you can do small runs in the digiboil as it has concealed elements, but i would seriously suggest investing in a small gin still.
i have a glass set up (chemistry set from ebay)
i believe the original airstill does a decent job (it's only a small pot still when all said and done)
there's the vevor water distiller (i don't know if anybody has used these) or even a small cheap still.
gumtree and faecebook have used airstills for $200.
botanicals are on fleabay.
you will have so many brownie points :smile:

I get my juniper berries Angelica root and orris root from online supplier, as well as some worm wood then coriander from supermarket or same online store, citrus from local trees macerate and run the air still then bottle love it

howard wrote:

slideshowbob wrote:NOT the Edwards kookaburra gin. That experiment will be going back through the still.

i consider making good neutral the hard bit.
so if you've done that, i consider turning good neutral into good gin so so easy.
all you have to do is mascerate the botanicals in neutral and run a la Odin method and voila.
no cuts, no baskets and maximum taste.
you can do small runs in the digiboil as it has concealed elements, but i would seriously suggest investing in a small gin still.
i have a glass set up (chemistry set from ebay)
i believe the original airstill does a decent job (it's only a small pot still when all said and done)
there's the vevor water distiller (i don't know if anybody has used these) or even a small cheap still.
gumtree and faecebook have used airstills for $200.
botanicals are on fleabay.
you will have so many brownie points :smile:

Indeed! Since I tried the essence (which I originally ordered with the still) I have done an Odin's gin, and my god it was good. That was a trial run of one litre, I now have two bigger batches macerating. One is the original oeg recipe, the other has extra botanicals, orris, Anjelica, cassia.
It seemed to go fine with the digiboil and alcoengine pot still. I've also got an extension tube with a screen for a botanical basket.

good job.
i used to make odins, it's a great starter gin, but i find it a bit bland now.
i do gins like this now............

Oh dear, I’m doing waaaay more juniper than your whole botanical bill the wife and I enjoy it, May try ginger thou,
Ah ok spread sheet making sense now, column G is total for litres,

RobMichelle wrote:

IMG_5277.jpeg

Oh dear, I’m doing waaaay more juniper than your whole botanical bill the wife and I enjoy it, May try ginger thou,
Ah ok spread sheet making sense now, column G is total for litres,

oh, i missed out some of the instructions. :-|
column D is for 1 litre of 40%, like you say, column G is for 4 litres in that example.
the spreadsheet just applies the basic x2/x10/x100 principles, but i have obviously tweaked stuff in the last 4 years.

howard wrote:good job.
i used to make odins, it's a great starter gin, but i find it a bit bland now.
i do gins like this now............

Can you please repost the pic? It's not showing for me.

slideshowbob wrote:

howard wrote:good job.
i used to make odins, it's a great starter gin, but i find it a bit bland now.
i do gins like this now............

Can you please repost the pic? It's not showing for me.

ok bob
maybe it was something to do with the outages, but here it is.......
column D for 1 litre, column G for 4 litres

Thanks.

This week I've run 3L of Odin's recipe, and 3L of my Odin's+, where I added some licorice, orris, and anjelica root, and cassia bark. I wasn't very scientific with measurements though, so will need to improve my note taking if I like it.

slideshowbob wrote:Thanks.

This week I've run 3L of Odin's recipe, and 3L of my Odin's+, where I added some licorice, orris, and anjelica root, and cassia bark. I wasn't very scientific with measurements though, so will need to improve my note taking if I like it.

good idea to buy a small digital scale, make sure it goes down to 0.00gms, as these are the quantities we are dealing with for small runs.
i can probably post the excel sheet if you're interested.

Do you make yours in the same method as Odin's?

This is how I've done my 3 to date. Macerating botanicals for x weeks, then distilling - once with the included botanicals (minus mandarin peel) in the boiler, twice with just the liquid in the boiler.

I'm keen to experiment with botanicals in the vapour path. And I think I read if you can distill with the botanicals in the boiler (due to enclosed elements), you don't need to macerate anywhere near as long.

slideshowbob wrote:Do you make yours in the same method as Odin's?

This is how I've done my 3 to date. Macerating botanicals for x weeks, then distilling - once with the included botanicals (minus mandarin peel) in the boiler, twice with just the liquid in the boiler.

I'm keen to experiment with botanicals in the vapour path. And I think I read if you can distill with the botanicals in the boiler (due to enclosed elements), you don't need to macerate anywhere near as long.

everything (inc peel) goes into a 5L glass flask and run when i remember ( 2 days later or 2 weeks later :smile: )
the main odins gin recipe is run by volume (400ml per litre) but Odin also sells Istill automatic stills where he collects by temperature (starts collecting at 77C and stops at 94C).
but all values are slightly variable and depends on the ingredients and you preferences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjWgS4REEQw

Great video, thanks!

Now I want an istill :))