Badbadger

Hi all, As someone mentioned above gin is a very subjective topic as there are so many variables. I see some of the rough cut points above and they all make sense to me. Where I work we take a small heads cut (1.5 litres, with a NGS charge of 200 litres diluted to approx 120 proof for maceration), and cut to "tails" at 160 proof (I put the tails in apostrophes there as I do not think it is tails at that point personally). I think we do not take nearly a large enough heads cut (leaving quite a pungent, spirity distillate) and our heart-tails cut is far too high meaning we are not getting the earthier flavors lower down, and leaving us with poor yield.

Hi Micah Nutt, Quick question as you seem one of the few people to have tried redistilling raw tails (ie without reprocessing first to clean it up) - did you notice any change in consistency by recycling the tails? I understand the motivation for recycling tails is largely an economic one as can be a lot of alcohol down the drain, but it seems to play havoc with consistency when trying to recycle.

Sorry, I wasn't clear with what I meant. We do lauter the single malt. I was just meaning that as the single malt is the main part of the business, and is run using our dedicated Forsyths stills, the Holstein still is largely unused, and so tying it up with a mash / fermentation would not be a problem time-wise for us.

Hey guys, I really like the idea of gin botanical cider. Does anyone know anywhere that recycles their gin tails straight back into subsequent batches, without any re-processing at all? I have heard of only two distilleries that do, and am assuming it is their process that allows them to do this. One of them does a two shot approach, and uses a carter head, so take it that their extraction of heavier oils is less due to the carter head, and so the tails don't get overly concentrated. They then dilute their distillate 50/50 with clean spirit before reducing for bottling. The other distillery has a still with a return from the condenser to the pot which I assume returns the heavier, oilier compounds so again take it that this limits the concentration build-up in the tails to an extent. The received wisdom (as far as I can tell) is that recycling tails unprocessed concentrates the oils leading to oily, acidic and astringent flavours in the gin. With that in mind, and with the relatively minor cost of ditching the tails, why would anyone want to recycle them? Cheers for any thoughts.

Hey guys, Thanks for the replies. Greatly appreciated. Our still is 500 litres (sorry, even as an ex-pat American over here in the UK I have been indoctrinated with litres and kilos so not great thinking in terms of gallons). As we are primarily making single malt that is the main focus, and our Holstein is currently only used for 5 days a month for gin, so that is why we were thinking to ferment etc in it as time wouldn't be a big issue as we would only be doing maybe one batch of rye whisky a month. I am thinking as I type this so might not be a good idea, but perhaps we could mash-in in the still, then pump to an IBC for fermenting (the pump on the Holstein is the only real solids pump we have), then put back in the still after fermentation? The still does have an impeller which I am hoping would keep the stuff moving.

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has tried, or regularly does, mashing-in in their still? We are primarily a malt whiskey producer with the associated pot stills, but also have a Holstein for gin, whiskey, fruit brandy and stuff. Our mash tun is for the single malt, fermenting off the grain. We would like to try a rye whiskey or bourbon type mash bill and can either use the mash tun and ferment off the grain (I know the difficulties lautering corn / rye, but our brewer reckons he can do it), or as we have no other mashing equipment we could potentially use our Holstein as a mash tun, fermenter and then still as it could act as a cooker etc. I have no idea if this is possible, but again, our brewer likes a challenge and wants to try. Any ideas or experience of doing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hello all, I have just joined the forum and thought I would post a hello. I have just become a distiller at one of the newest distilleries to open in England. We are attempting to make a whisky to match the Scots at their own game, so will need plenty of luck as there is a lot of good stuff coming from north of the border. Having recently moved from a life-sapping career in retail to become a distiller I can truly say it is the best decision I have made. The work might be hard (we have a very old fashioned design with little automation), the hours long and the pay on the lower end of the scale, but the rewards for my soul are incalculable. I hope you all are enjoying the distilling life as much as I am, and long may it continue for everyone with a little 'The Man'-defying fire in the belly.

Hey all, This is my first post and am hoping someone might be able to help. We recently tried distilling some perry, and it went horribly wrong. The distillate was truly terrible, and even a few drops tasted from the fingertip was enough to burn the back of the nose area and throat, and to be near the distillate flow from the parrot was enough to make the eyes water. Two questions for you knowledgeable bunch: 1) From what I can gather from the literature this could be acrolein taint. Does anyone have experience of acrolein taint, and if so do the symptoms sound similar to what I described above? If not, any ideas what else could have caused the problem? 2) Is there any way to remove the taint from the distillate? Cheers for any help any of you can give.