Converting Maceration Recipe to Vapor Basket?

[BraedenB]

We are switching our botanical infusion from a macerated gin to a vapor infused gin and are working through the baseline quantities of what we will need. Our recipe previously had about 11 pounds of botanicals macerated in a little over 100 gallons of 20 percent neutral spirits and distilled through a 500 liter pot still.

We are now going to be distilling on a 1000 liter pot and will be distilling using a vapor basket rather than bathtubing it. Our basket can't even fit the 11 pounds unless you really jam it in and I don't want to risk blocking the condenser. I was looking through conversions and before I start throwing away money running some tests I wanted to see if anyone else had any basic conversions they recommend when converting botanical amounts from maceration to vapor basket. It sounds like you need less botanicals from vapor infusing, but I have heard that some essential oils don't get picked up as well in the basket. I would prefer to run the still full to reduce in utility costs but if it doesn't translate well then we might have to run smaller amounts.

Any advice or opinions would help. Thanks guys.

[FernandoP]

I don't know if this is any help, but I run about 25 to 40 grams of botanicals per proof litter in my basket. 25g is for a mild gin with 9 botanicals and close to 40 grams for a full flavor gin with 23 botanicals

[whiskeytango]

Your going to need a bigger gin basket. In my experience you need much more botanicals to vapor infuse vs maceration.

[Broken Anvil Distilleries]

Reviving an old thread. We love our gin, but for yield (due basket capacity limitations) and consistency (different people grinding juniper may be resulting in differing levels if astringency),  we are looking to macerate our juniper and leave the remainder of botanicals in the basket. I was curious about ballpark ratios to start our experiments at in an effort to produce a very similar (ideally identical ) gin.

 Would experiments of half the amount of juniper macerated (by dry weight) for 16-24h be comparable to weights used in basket or should we start at 3/4 the weight used in vapour path or above ? 

[SLCDBD]

vapor extraction is high efficiency. it's tough to get a balanced run without getting nasty terpenes in your collection. 

 

liquid-solid extraction is a lot easier to manage IMHO, and yields are much higher when you distill the macerate carefully.