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Hi Veronique, Melissa officinalis (lemon balm) does yield some essential oil, but there could be factors standing in your way, like distillation size and harvest time. So can you let us know a bit more about your distillation so we can troubleshoot for you? Like what still (and size) you are using, and whether this was a hydro distillation, a steam distillation or a combo of both? How much plant material did you use, and how long did you run the distillation for? Let us know.
Hi Steve, Jill will get to you about some of the finer points of this – but an important thing to note is that if you are using your good-quality NS that has already had cuts taken, you don’t need to take massive heads cuts on your gin – you do however have to watch for when it starts going into the tails.
But in this case, I think you should probably go further into the tails – to answer your question, yes this yield is lower than you should expect. A simple answer is that I think you should take more – go further into the tail end of the distillation.
As a guide, you can expect to finish a flavouring run at around 40-45% of the initial input volume. So if you put in 1L at 40% you can expect to take between 400-450ml on average. In our Gin Immersion notes, I see we have a guideline that this 400-450ml would come out between 80-75%ABV.
That guideline (80-75% ABV) from the course notes is for the final distillate after you have combined all your fractions. What was your final ABV measurement of your distillate before you diluted it? Just from reading your post, I am wondering if when you say your final ABV was between 80-75% do you mean that these were the measurements from each of the cuts, and you stopped when you got a cut that was around 75%?
As Jill says quite a bit, these are guidelines, and they’re useful to start. In practice you can see what works for your distillations.
I have looked back over some of my notes from gin flavouring runs, and I have sometimes even taken a little more than 450ml when I have judged that the final cut getting into the tails was adding something to the blend (in one case there was some sweetness from cardamom I particularly liked in the last 50ml and I popped it in, taking me to nearly 460ml from 1L NS in the pot). This also took my final ABV down to around 70% (which is obviously outside the guideline we have given). On such a small distillation I also didn’t take a heads shot as I didn’t feel I needed to. The NS I used had been distilled and cut already before this finishing run.
I really liked that gin. It was with one of my TPWs. But interestingly I did a I comparison run for this blend with Absolute Vodka – same volume, same gin recipe – because I wanted to compare my homemade spirit.
They held up well in a taste test (FYI) but I found that I got a slightly higher final yield out of the Absolute distillation than I did out of my TPW (800ml v 740ml).
I can only guess at why – perhaps it was that the TWP was not as refined, and that meant that the unwanted aromas and flavours became more obvious earlier on in the run? I don’t know. If I had more time I would experiment more. When I do, I will let you know.
To summarise:
- Yes, your yield is lower than expected.
- You can take more distillate (as a guide 40-45% of your initial input volume is where you should expect to stop).
- You don’t have to take heads shots on small distillations with NS that’s already had cuts made.
- The ABV of your output (before dilution) can be anywhere between 80-70 or perhaps even lower.
- This may mean your final fraction is in the 60%ABV area.
- Your TPW may not be as good as using a top-quality NS, so your yield may be less when you’re judging your tails by nose – some of the more unwanted aromas may come through earlier (that’s just an educated guess for me here).
Hi Steve,
I have had similar issues with cloudy NS also with a T500. This was my way around it:
- Temperature fluctuations were an issue for me for one of my distillations, but I found with all my NS distillations that having a slower distillation, with controlled (and relatively gentle) flow of distillate really helped with the end result. If it’s too fast, then you’re not able to separate out some of those molecules that will make your spirit louche when watered down—even with generous cuts.
- And I definitely went in for double-distilling. One of the selling-points of the T500 is that you’re supposed to be able to take the wash straight to 80-90%ABV in one pass. But I found that you may compromise quality for that convenience. I ended up doing a first run (no cuts though I did discard the very first heads shot) and a second one with cuts.
- When this happened to me – even though I had taken cuts the first time – I bit the bullet took cuts a second time too. And though I ended up with less spirit than I would have liked, it was then OK to use for gin-making, and didn’t develop much more aroma than other distillations after sitting around a while.
- Have a look at your ferment – sometimes there could be some off-notes coming through from that. What yeast were you using? Was it our TPW recipe? People complain that the turbo yeast gives off-notes in their distillate. Again, ferments that are too hot and quick might cause some issues like this down the line. It’s been really hot lately, but it depends where you’re keeping it. Did you smell and taste the wash before putting it through? It’s a good way to test if there’s anything you’d turn your nose up at!
Hi Jan,
Sorry for the delayed response – we don’t have any detailed information in any of our foundation courses on building a non-alcoholic gin, so you haven’t missed anything!
It’s a challenge getting the flavour profile of a distilled gin just using water, because as a solvent it behaves quite differently to alcohol. This article in our archives might help – it was written about working with Ecology & Co on developing their non-alcoholic distilled gin.
Extracting flavour is all about solubility, which is based on the concept of ‘like dissolves like’. Polar molecules are soluble in water, while non-polar are fat soluble. Water will attract and dissolve polar molecules, but alcohol contains both polar and non-polar molecules, so can capture a wider array of flavours. So to make a non-alcoholic gin using hydrosol you have to work harded to get the flavour. Firstly that means using a lot more botanicals, and secondly it probably means changing techniques—i.e moving from and all-in one approach to using separate distillations and blending at the end.
Most people who embark on this route will end up distilling their main botanicals separately and then blending them together (with many tweaks and changes) to get a flavour profile that they like. Obviously using a juniper hydrosol as a base is your first step, and then adding in other hydrosol as you wish. As to a recipe – that’s something Jill may have some insight into where you can start, but it’s often a process of trial and error – and you do have to be more careful of your hygiene protocols, as alcohol is not only a wonderful solvent, but also a wonderful sterilizer!
Don’t let this put you off – experimentation is the key. And perhaps Jill may have some more words of advice re: where to start with blending hydrosols.
Hi Jan, Happy New Year to you too!
The simple answer is that colour doesn’t come through in distillate. So when you macerate the raspberries in the NS and then distil the liquid you won’t get colour coming over in your gin. These colour compounds are too heavy to evaporate so they get separated out and you’ll see them left behind in the pot – in what’s called the marc (which is why we sometimes can use the marc for dying). When you look in the pot post-distillation you will also often find that the process of distillation has changed the colour of your botanicals as these colour compounds can degrade when heated.
If you want a pink gin you’ll have to colour it post-distillation—these kinds of gins are infused with colour after their vapour-distillation. Little Biddy Pink is done with cherry juice, and other gins use a concentrated tincture (the coloured botanicals are steeped in a small quantity of gin and then blended back in until the desired colour and flavour are achieved). I just recieved a pink gin for Christmas that gets it’s colour from a post-distillation addition of a tincture with botanicals for flavour and beetroot for the colour. So experiment and see what you get! If you’re just using raspberries, then you may need to sieve the final product through fine muslin several times to get a nice, clear final gin (which is why you can see some people like to use juice or a tincture).
Hi Steve, we do use column stills on gas burners (like these) and gas hobs regularly—it all depends on the size of your still and the relative power of your heat source – you want to be able to control the heat well, and be able to turn it down low to get a gentle simmer for distilling alcohol. Does your hob have that ability to go down to quite a gentle flame if you need? As for not being able to see inside the pot – you can tell from the sound of your still how vigorous the activity inside is, (and also by the speed of the distillate). A gentle simmer sounds shimmery, while a boil sounds louder and more clamorous.
What kind and size still do you have? As for the thermometer – I don’t think it does need to be calibrated, but I will get Jill to weigh in on that one, as she knows much more about our hardware.
Hi there,
Yes, as you say it is difficult to know the ABV of spirits once sugar has been added. And even if you don’t add sugar, the natural sugars in the sloes (in addition to the water they contain) will still change the ABV of a spirit. Here are some points:
– Adding sloes or any other fruit post distillation will lower the ABV. This is due to the sugars and the water content of the fruits.
– The only real way to know your final ABV accurately would be to send it to a lab for testing. So if you’re selling commercially you would likely have to go down that route to discover what you’re recipe comes out at for out for bottling and labeling.
– However, if you are making just for yourself, you can take the ABV of your gin before you steep the sloes and sugar, and then you will at least know your finished product will be lower than that ABV—often by as much as half (usually sloe gin comes in at around 20-15% ABV from a 40%ABV gin, but that is just a rough estimate).As for tips and recipes, personally I haven’t got a favourite, as I hardly ever have sloes to hand where I live. But experimentation seems to be the key. Adding as little or as much sugar as you like to taste, I would try adding a little star anise, cassia or nutmeg (a personal favourite of mine) as well – or playing with these in the gin blend to see what it does to the final gin.
I hope that helps – let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to know – but I hope others may have recipes they’d like to share.
Jess.
