[Jan Samuels]

Oh that’s perfect. Thanks Jill – I live on Kawau Island and we have plentiful shells that will add another local flavour to my gin.

[Jan Samuels]

Thanks so much, Jill. I’ll try one of these, and perhaps wait a bit longer until we get our pot belly stove going too 🙂

 

[Jan Samuels]

Hi there.

Today I made a new blend of gin using 1.5litres of good quality NS in my 5litre still and added a pouch of about 58g of dried botanicals to the column. The still temperature got up to about 100 degrees (higher than I usually see), and I turned down the heating element down to 8.5 on the dial. When I turned everything off after 75 minutes I had 460ml of really nice flavoured distillate but the alcohol reading was only 57.

This is the second time I’ve had a lower reading than expected (the previous time I got 500ml of flavoured distillate from 1.5 litres of NS and an initial reading of 62 per cent).

Every other time I’ve had readings of between 85 and 76%.

Can you advise me what I am doing wrong please? Thanks so much.

Jan

 

[Jan Samuels]

Thanks Jill. I tried making a concentrated infusion and it turned out perfectly, thank you. I’ve kept some in one of your Alembics bottles (with a dropper) so I can add it to individual drinks later. Lovely!

[Jan Samuels]

Thanks Jill – I’ll try both and see what happens. It’s so much fun, we’re loving our experiments and our results. Feedback from neighbours who have tried our first efforts has also been encouraging.

[Jan Samuels]

Thank you Jess. I realised after my post that this was the most likely explanation. I had earlier tried distilling NS from red wine and the colour disappeared, so I suppose it was obvious.  I’m going to take some of the finished not-pink gin and macerate the rest of the raspberries in it to see what happens.

The first blend was fine, with subtle fruit flavours coming through. Before adding the macerated liquid to the still I passed the fruit through a sieve and then again through muslin to ensure it was completely clear. The local wekas ate the discarded solids and I think they had a very merry new year!

Jan

PS: I’m finding these forums really helpful, thank you.

 

 

[Jan Samuels]

Thanks Jess. I used the Alembics Garden Blend pouch for my first effort, but I didn’t think about the difference between using one litre of NS and two until I was finished. I used a 5l column still, but achieved a very satisfactory result. I can’t wait to make some more.

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