I will second that, you never know with the US utubers when the mention gallons you never know if its imperial or US gals, it gets a pain doing the calculations all the time
I’ve still got some of a gin that I made (accidentally) using about a gallon of feints that included ~1L of absinthe heads and tails. It was juniper and lime heavy with some Thai basil and …sweet fancy Moses… just knocked some of this into a coke with lime and it’s magical. The anise and fennel playing with the nutmeg and cinnamon in the coke rounded out by the juniper and citrus… it’s almost March but it feels like Christmas!
When i made my gin i got 68 abv out of the air still and i used RO water to dilute to 45 as jesse suggested, few weeks on now and the flavour has smoothed to the point i drink it neat just over ice, probably the best gin i have made, awesome method and recipe, i now use this recipe as a base gin and started adding other ingredients, i just made a gin with imperial earl grey tea which has a smokey taste but that didnt come through still at all, work in progress.
@@ststst981 my wash is 5 imp gals tap water, 1 pack of weetabix a hand full of rolled oats and a 0.5 kg of fine chopped raisins, 4-5 kg table sugar depends on what abv mash you are aiming for for me 80 on the hydrometer or 10% ish abv seems ok, supermarket bakers yeast and Nutrient, and citric acid to correct the ph to 5.3, ferment 30c. i use a temp controller and a aquarium heater, works ok for me.
Well done and thank you for sharing, adding fresh cucumber worked super well, instead of kawakawa I used watercress flowers/leaves and also added chicory root
Your timing for this video was bang on. I just got an Air Still recently, and did a gin as my first test. I went with juniper, coriander, cucumber (thanks for that, it's great), lemon zest, lime zest, fresh ginger, orris root and almond extract. I also used your fast maceration technique (again, thanks). I did all that just last night and mixed up a GT just now. I'm very happy with the air still, and the gin.
@mmwosu Jessie is using the Still Spirits Air Still (original version) on this recipe. I used a Vevor Air Distiller with great results. There are several versions of the Vevor, if you get a Vevor, make sure to get one that says it can do spirits, with temp control.
Recently my own version of Kawakawa Gin, using Odins recipie as a base with the addition of Anjelica, Licorice Root and of course Kawakawa from the back yard has become my go to. I have always dried the leaves using a dehydrator but must try them fresh now after watching this. The Cucumber of which we have a tonne of in the garden right now is a twist I would never have imagined. Keep rocking it Jesse.
@@killham1337 OK...I haven't tried the roots. I know the leaves and flowers are edible, you can add them to salad. But they are quite spicy. I'm actually considering trying both leaves and flowers for gin, they should be interesting
I've always called the Gin and Coke combo a Christmas tree. I don't remember which gin I had the first time I had it, but the result was so wonderfully Christmas between the juniper/citrus from the gin and the dark caramel flavors from the coke.
For proofing down, in this case i use RO water, i have aslo used supermarket cheepo bottled, my tap water is very phosphatey and iron due to the cast iton mains pipes. I have a RO unit i use to use for top off water for my marine aquarium, both water's seem to work ok.
hello Jesse I watch your video for a while now and i decided I wanted to jump right in my friend had a cheap china made pot still i used to distill 20L of a mead i made and I tried this gin recipe with the new vevor air still and I gotta say my friends and I are absolutely Loving, I'll keep chasing the craft for sure! thank you for the great videos!
I also made this today, and i must say it turned out fantastic, only a small amout of backend tails was discarded, so currently i have combined and proof down to 45 abv, so gonna leave it a week and have taste, but all indications are extremely positive, i purchased a air still a few days back, ive seen you getting some good results Jessie. I like the small batch, and defo a well worth purchase
I've had a gin and coke and was surprisingly good. I kept it to myself because I felt weird about how much I liked it until now. It has no reason to be that tasty:-)
Gin and coke sounds like it should be a wino drink but I think I’m coming around to it. Would be interesting to try a hoity-toity cola like Q or fenitmans with it to see if that makes it any better than old Doc Pemberton’s original recipe.
I tend to prefer Pepsi with Juniper heavy gin, in college we called it the Pine and Pepsi. Cola and gin makes sense once you look at the ingredients in DIY cola recipes online, mostly citrus oils some spices and caramel. It is halfway to gin on it's own.
Thanks for this one Jesse, I've been messing around with recipes on the airstill and this is really close to what I want for a daily gin. I followed most of the recipe but instead of kawakawa I used peppercorns and a dash of stale elderflower. Calling it a "session gin" is a perfect way to describe it.
@StillIt Jesse did you proof down the the vodka before starting the run in the 2 bottle recipe? and what was the volume or ABV of the hearts? If you used 1.5L @50% and got 1.4L product @43% it looks like you were getting close to making cucumber stir fry with the tiny volumes :)
Watched this so many times and have done it but because in Sweden distilling is illegal at home i have done tincures and blended separately ❤️ I just used the peels från the cucumber because it just got weird
For the rating from Jesse of "New Favourite Gin" I'm sold on trying to make it, and can't wait to try it. I'm in Australia. Amazon sells a dried tea made by Oku which is pure dried Kawakawa so will have to experiment :) I also grabbed a Kawakawa blend tea called Restore so that should be interesting to try too!
I have made gin with the addition of gorse flower. Added a floral coconut tone. Well worth it but time consuming and prickly collecting the gorse flowers.
Mate, thanks for this as my introduction to distilling. I tried a version of this last night, Cherry\Cucumber Gin. This was my first attempt at distilling anything, so I may have overstepped my complete novice badge by even attempting this. I have ended up with a quite nice 1.2L @45% ABV Gin from an 8l Sugar Wash and Air Still Pro in Pot Still mode, not very Cherryish but it does have the cucumber taste. Wife and I have enjoyed a couple of nice glasses over ice, slice of Cucumber and a Mint Leaf. VN
kawakawa is peppery because its actually part of the piper genus, which is the pepper family. its used by the maori for toothaches and such, sort of like how willow tree bark was used by native americans for pain relief
In one video you talked about a pid controller, and how you don't care for them because you prefer constant liquid flow rate over temprature. Well I don't know if they are commercially available, but using an arduino or something similar, you could make a PID controller that adjusted voltage to maintain constant flow
You just need constant power for constant vapour production. The temperature is dependent on the azeotrope and does not change based on the power. It is little use having a control loop on the boiler, unlike controlling the reflux.
I had a wacky idea and I thought I'd put it here. I have no idea if it would work. But the idea is taking chilli peppers fermenting them into a wine and then adding mother of vinegar to that to get a chilli vinegar. I just needed this thought to be out there on the internet 👍
Question I’ve been binge watching ur videos for a few days now all I’m wondering is wtf are faints, tails and heads I have kinda figured out what hearts are but I’m very confused on what you’re talking about (very new to alcohol making)
I do a gin with kawakawa and hiropito that's darned good if I don't say so myself. The two flavours work well together, though I only use vapor infusion. Great video as always. Happy new year!
@@humpfrees No, I stopped using those after I got more experienced. I distill twice for gins, first with a refractory still, then I do a pot still with the botanicals to produce the gin.
Thought i would put a update on 24 hours on. When i proofed down the spirit was clear as Gin, i left it out in the shed overnight and it went cloudy white, i warmed the jar up and now its clear again, lol. Lovely on the nose, its shaping up to be a good brew thanks Jesse for this recipe
Hey jesse Love your dedication mate. Have you tried basil in any of your stuff you've ever made? Doing another batch of this (perfect) gin recipe and the thought just popped into my head.
Hey Man, love the channel. I'm in the land of Oz and note that we can buy Kawakawa Tea (100% dried Leaf). Might try that, but need to work out some sort of Qty. Any ideas?
Great vid dude! Would love to see you do something interesting with mint. Maybe im living under a rock but I don't know of alot of mint flavoured/based spirits
Has anyone ever distilled anything sassafras root if your from U.S. you know it's commonly used in teas and flavoring for other things and makes a great Christmas /wintertime gin just use it sparingly to suit your personal taste because it can be overpowering if you use too much . Just thought I'd throw that out for y'all to try , let me know what ya think.
I've distilled Sassafras here on its own, to see what it is like before blending it. It's an interesting botanical, for sure - although I have not yet found the right combination to include this in a Gin recipe.
Hi Jesse. I tried this recipe, and honestly I stuffed it up. Instead of leaving the botanicals to steep for 2 hours, I left them for 1.5 hours. However, it's probably the gin that suits my palate the best that I've ever had, and I've had multiple people taste it who thought it was great. So thanks! Kiwi brother (I'm Australian). I just made it off a base of birdwatchers, which had been been through a stripping run but was quite clean due to a slow ferment. Also, didn't have any Kawakawa, so just used pink peppercorn and a couple of leaves of rocket (arugula for our American cousins). Might have added a nice vegetal note, but a bit hard to tell. Also, goddamn was this gin and coke with a slice of lemon not great. Great with pepper tree tonic and lemon though.
Hi, I do. In fact it is the one I bought thinking it would be the business, but it turned out not to be. The PID controller runs flat out until it hits its target temperature, then shuts off. This resulted, for me, in an uneven distillation, with scorch notes coming through in the product. I ended up buying a cheap voltage regulator off ebay, bypassing the PID in the still, and running it right down somewhere around 300W. The element in the Vevor still, if I remember right, is a 750W element, so a bunch of heat is going into the still when it is turned on by the PID. I personally would not recommend buying the temp controlled unit, instead get the cheaper unit and use a voltage regulator, the total for both pieces of equipment will be around the same price as the PID controlled still, but you will have much more control over its heat input. If you go with this, you'll want to sort out a power cable to run the fan independently from the boiler, just run it all the time while you're using the unit, as when you use the PID controller, it shuts off the fan when it is in the heating cycle. Other than that, great little unit and works well.
@@My_Fair_Lady literally Google "kooloo root": zero relevant results Wow what a helpful comparison while telling someone else they're wrong. You know the point when describing a very specific and region specific ingredient is to use a scent/taste of something that is usually widely known so that you can use that reference to try to describe it to as many people as possible. Not to just use yet another even lesser known ingredient. Again, helpful. Thanks. 👍
I must disagree as rosemary is nothing like kawakawa. Having just tried my dried kawakawa again, it's a cross between mace and pepper with some bitterness as well. I do a London dry gin that I add a sprig of rosemary to, which is popular amongst our visitors.
Might be a stupid question, you said you used 50% abv going in. My understanding was anything above 40ish should be diluted before distilling. Am i mistaken? Or are you just going mildly balls to the wall 😂
Thanks for this really this "simple" method of making gin. I live in a country where we can buy and use the Air Still but alcohol above 37-40% ABV is horrifically expensive. So, if you could come up with projects/recipes similar to this one using 37-40% ABV spirit as a base I think there are a lot of people out there that would appreciate it. By the by, I had a cocktail at Cuca, in Bali, which was made from a pineapple distillate and infused with rosemary which some say taste like kawakawa. Yes, sounds weird and yes, it was great. So, kawakawa sound like a good candidate for some creative infusing.
You have a still, you weren't expected to buy the base alcohol but make it. Even if you "cheat" and buy the 37% stuff, making it stronger should be as easy as falling down.
Do a TPW wash and double distill it , throw 50mls heads each time (2 stripping runs to 1 secondary) . @ about 25-30% base into the second run - stop at about 55-60% and dilute to 50%. I've done it with an airstill - should be fine.
Just discovered you a few weeks back and I am obsessed, just went and bout myself an airstill. So much to learn, any pointers more than welcome. All the way from Scotland here
Hi Amy, all the best from Yorkshire. I started with a cheap airstill, then moved to a stove top pot still and now I have a reflux still I put together myself. If you want any help just ask.
@ledzep331 thank you. Just bought a second hand air still and fermenting buckets and thermometer and hydrometer to get started, want to make sugar wash and then use airstill to make flavoured gins
Hey Jesse, two quick questions: 1. Would arugula be a good U.S. substitute for Kawakawa? 2. I see you have Yellow Label Angel yeast on the website, but it's not avail in U.S. yet? Thanks! P.S. I'll be wearing my CTC T-shirt over to my buddy's house. He'll be so jealous!
I am a bit confused by the short macerating time for the botanicals. I know from Gin distillers around here (Germany) that they’re macerating for three weeks cold in high abv spirit and then watering it down to 40 abv for distilling.
Hey peeps!! Need help! Trying to pick a voltage controller for a 1650w HE.. I see a few on Amazon but wanted to know if there were any recommendations! Thank you all!
The cloudiness comes from the essential oils falling out of solution after you added water to proof it down. You could always add a neutral grain spirit to re-dissolve the oils but they won’t change the flavor of the drink.
I sorta picked up from online that you should add the spirit to the water, not the water to the spirit, and only use pure demineralised water. Old wife's (home brewers) tale or not?
@@cabji how would what goes into the vessel first change how it mixes? Once everything is in its going to mix together regardless of which was originally in the container first. When the chemicals touch they touch, and then you're going to mix them further. Why would it matter. Think about it.
@@Mr_Jumbles I dunno. I still need to try it out more to see there's any weight to it. From a layman perspective, it could be compared to adding an ingredient slowly when combining so it comes out smooth instead of lumpy maybe? You could throw all the ingredients in and mix the shit out of it and say the chemicals will bond the same, but in reality they wont and you'll get lumps instead of something smooth. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying I dont know, but I can sort of see ways that it could be true.
Hi Jesse and cohort, I luv all the videos but at some stage I missed the details of that great alcotester you use to test ABV. What’s it name and is it affordable.? My local brew shop says only $2k meters exist? Thanks, Sam.
could crab apple replace juniper i got cumquats you need to give people an alternitive to your leaf that they could use ------------- like orange leaf pine leaf
Is it possible to macerate the botanicals in a clear wash instead of a shop-bought neutral spirit and still end up with a similar quality of product? I've got a wash that's nearly ready to be distilled and am quite keen to give this a go if it'll produce a nice finished product
I made this and gave it to friends who invited us to dinner. They raved about it. It was fortunate that I could get kawakawa leaves from the garden. The only variation was to macerate the botanicals and use orange peel rather than lemon peel.
I have yet to make my 1st Gin or Rum. I've got molasses but can't seem to get away from single malt, lol. Have to run corn in between to keep my 2 barrels full. It takes 2 6-7 gallon mashes to fill each barrel and my wife lushes thru the S/M so fast it's hard to get ahead 😉 She did buy me 1 of the first t-shirts and enough Golden Promise and Heavy Peated barley for 2 runs, for Christmas, so I guess I can't bitch too loud. Will DEFINITELY save this recipe and give it a try soon. Thanks Jesse 👍👍
After allowing the alcohol to come to a steeping temperature and allowing a 2 hour maceration, do you think adding water to the kettle would hurt anything? The water would mainly be to prevent burning of the botanicals during distillation.
You need to write up a cookbook based on botanical, fruits, and wood notes. Example for botanicals -juniper berry will give you piney earthy flavoring Wood Medium toast oak will give you sweet vanilla overtones.
So I have a 5 gallon bucket of 6 year old pristine raisins what do I do with it? They were fermenting when they went in the bucket and I forgot about them. Not mold or anything I just checked
On the Whisky Tribe I have heard them talk a lot about "saponification" when proofing down whisky too fast causes a soapy flavor. Some whisky makers fear this so much that they titrate down their whisky very slowly by literally adding the water dropwise or at a dribble over hours or days. You never seem to worry about this, have you ever experienced it in your endeavors?
This is awesome. If you were testing some other ratios of botanicals or flavorings, is there a minimum size batch you would do? Could this air still produced a 500ml batch?
I see you are using your airstill more often lately. I have one, but put it aside a whila ago, and I want to pick up where I left with something better. Or is it not so bad and rudimentary as I think?
I have 4 litres of 40% proof spirit which has been macerated with gin botanicals the slow way.The Airstill says that the product of the stripping run (1 litre)needs to be reduced to 12% ABV and the full 4 litres added back to the still for the gin infusion run- leading to 700ml 60% end product. Do I do the same with my macerated version?
Love your vids . Just wondering did you proof the alcohol down to 40% before running through the air still? im going to do this recipe in a few days so just curious if its all good at 50%
yeah I didn't notice him proofing it down either to run the still for this and yet in other videos he does proof it down.... The Air Still instruction's advise not to run alcohol through it over 40%. How did your run go?
@@NixzKerr went well . Proofed it down . I may have added too much cucumber. The gin is really nice but the cucumber taste is dominant. But stoked for my first gin run
*Main Question* Does it glow under black light (UV)? I ask because my wife of several decades only recently confessed to me that she used to order gin drinks in clubs because gin made her drink glow.
Hey Jesse, I broke my bloody hydrometer. About how much product did you extract before you shut it down? I've currently extracted about 650ml using the recipe in your video, but how do I know when enough is enough? What's coming out now still tastes pretty good. #beginner
Just to clear things up are you classing the first fish water as foreshots? Is it dangerous to drink ? What am I missing here. Sorry just new to the game and need educating.
The four shots were removed when the spirits were produced. The first output of any maceration is bonkers. Generally discarded but may mellow in time to use for whatever?
@@cheesestradamus right ok so technically it’s safe to drink but tastes nasty. And this is a slightly different process to distilling from scratch? Thanks
Filled a sun tea jar with as much of my bathtub gin as it would hold, and then added a whole lemon, 3/4 bosc pear, dried currants, dried mint leaves, celery leaves and then some anise and raspberry extract. Then I'm going to add a 750ml of 100 proof vodka and distill it again. My original four passes through the still were WAY too juniper and peppercorn forward. Tastes like drinking a pine tree with pepper on it.
I used a 40% ABV vodka. And the result came in at 65% ABV. Tasty, but a bit more than sessionable. So it seems that I ought to add water to get my final down to something a bit lower than 65%, like maybe 40%. Anyone else done this. Or....what am I missing?
Perhaps someone here can help me answer a question which has been bugging me for a while... Many gin recipes specify the total botanicals as grams per litre, which is great, but they don't specify litres of what. In the searching that I have done I've come across some people saying it should be per litre of pure ethanol, others saying per litre of finished product (at 42-45%), others saying per litre on liquid in the boiler (with no mention of abv), plus other various other options. Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, links to recipies which are a little more specific. Looks like the one here is about 70-80g per litre of 50% in the boiler... Which is much higher than what I currently do (25g per litre of 40% in the boiler)
It's such a blessing that the best distilling channel is also the only one in metric
I will second that, you never know with the US utubers when the mention gallons you never know if its imperial or US gals, it gets a pain doing the calculations all the time
Spending a couple of hours translating the math could be used better breŵing😊
The same measurement system that Adolf Hitler used.
🤷♂️.....Just saying
I’ve still got some of a gin that I made (accidentally) using about a gallon of feints that included ~1L of absinthe heads and tails. It was juniper and lime heavy with some Thai basil and …sweet fancy Moses… just knocked some of this into a coke with lime and it’s magical. The anise and fennel playing with the nutmeg and cinnamon in the coke rounded out by the juniper and citrus… it’s almost March but it feels like Christmas!
When i made my gin i got 68 abv out of the air still and i used RO water to dilute to 45 as jesse suggested, few weeks on now and the flavour has smoothed to the point i drink it neat just over ice, probably the best gin i have made, awesome method and recipe, i now use this recipe as a base gin and started adding other ingredients, i just made a gin with imperial earl grey tea which has a smokey taste but that didnt come through still at all, work in progress.
What's your wash made from?
@@ststst981 my wash is 5 imp gals tap water, 1 pack of weetabix a hand full of rolled oats and a 0.5 kg of fine chopped raisins, 4-5 kg table sugar depends on what abv mash you are aiming for for me 80 on the hydrometer or 10% ish abv seems ok, supermarket bakers yeast and Nutrient, and citric acid to correct the ph to 5.3, ferment 30c. i use a temp controller and a aquarium heater, works ok for me.
Well done and thank you for sharing, adding fresh cucumber worked super well, instead of kawakawa I used watercress flowers/leaves and also added chicory root
Your timing for this video was bang on. I just got an Air Still recently, and did a gin as my first test. I went with juniper, coriander, cucumber (thanks for that, it's great), lemon zest, lime zest, fresh ginger, orris root and almond extract. I also used your fast maceration technique (again, thanks). I did all that just last night and mixed up a GT just now. I'm very happy with the air still, and the gin.
Is that the still he’s using here? I’m interested in finding out what it is
@mmwosu Jessie is using the Still Spirits Air Still (original version) on this recipe. I used a Vevor Air Distiller with great results. There are several versions of the Vevor, if you get a Vevor, make sure to get one that says it can do spirits, with temp control.
@@Jake_B74
Thank you for the info!
@@Jake_B74hzu, would you have a link to one of those vevor air distiller? Cheers
I found a love of Gin this Christmas. We used cran-rasberry juice and sprite to mix and it was an absolute holiday treat!
Recently my own version of Kawakawa Gin, using Odins recipie as a base with the addition of Anjelica, Licorice Root and of course Kawakawa from the back yard has become my go to. I have always dried the leaves using a dehydrator but must try them fresh now after watching this. The Cucumber of which we have a tonne of in the garden right now is a twist I would never have imagined. Keep rocking it Jesse.
I'd be interested to compare nasturtium leaves with the kawakawa. Those are peppery
I don't know about the leaves but the roots certainly have a peppery quality to them. I thing they are related to the pepper plant
@@killham1337 OK...I haven't tried the roots. I know the leaves and flowers are edible, you can add them to salad. But they are quite spicy. I'm actually considering trying both leaves and flowers for gin, they should be interesting
Good idea! Nasturtiums go crazy in m garden every year so this could be a useful substitute.
I've always called the Gin and Coke combo a Christmas tree. I don't remember which gin I had the first time I had it, but the result was so wonderfully Christmas between the juniper/citrus from the gin and the dark caramel flavors from the coke.
Did you proof it down to 40% before distilling? Just curious as the starting abv was 50%.
For proofing down, in this case i use RO water, i have aslo used supermarket cheepo bottled, my tap water is very phosphatey and iron due to the cast iton mains pipes.
I have a RO unit i use to use for top off water for my marine aquarium, both water's seem to work ok.
hello Jesse I watch your video for a while now and i decided I wanted to jump right in my friend had a cheap china made pot still i used to distill 20L of a mead i made and I tried this gin recipe with the new vevor air still and I gotta say my friends and I are absolutely Loving, I'll keep chasing the craft for sure! thank you for the great videos!
Kawakawa - I've always considered it as a cross in flavour between lemon grass and ginger.
That sounds lovely!
I recently made some hydrosol with kawa Kawa and lemon in one of these stills and used it to make cordial, SO GOOD
I also made this today, and i must say it turned out fantastic, only a small amout of backend tails was discarded, so currently i have combined and proof down to 45 abv, so gonna leave it a week and have taste, but all indications are extremely positive, i purchased a air still a few days back, ive seen you getting some good results Jessie.
I like the small batch, and defo a well worth purchase
man I love your vids, I don't even drink but I just love your content
I've had a gin and coke and was surprisingly good. I kept it to myself because I felt weird about how much I liked it until now. It has no reason to be that tasty:-)
Gin and coke sounds like it should be a wino drink but I think I’m coming around to it. Would be interesting to try a hoity-toity cola like Q or fenitmans with it to see if that makes it any better than old Doc Pemberton’s original recipe.
In the USA I think you could substitute with California Bay Laural. It's got a similar aroma and flavor. I love using it to make my black beans.
I tend to prefer Pepsi with Juniper heavy gin, in college we called it the Pine and Pepsi. Cola and gin makes sense once you look at the ingredients in DIY cola recipes online, mostly citrus oils some spices and caramel. It is halfway to gin on it's own.
I plan to use first growth spruce tips this spring in a different style of gin. Wish me luck. Forest livers need to exercise their inner livers.
Thanks for this one Jesse, I've been messing around with recipes on the airstill and this is really close to what I want for a daily gin. I followed most of the recipe but instead of kawakawa I used peppercorns and a dash of stale elderflower. Calling it a "session gin" is a perfect way to describe it.
finally someone that understands the beauty of a Gin Cubata. Seriously underrated, Gin and Coke is heavenly.
@StillIt Jesse did you proof down the the vodka before starting the run in the 2 bottle recipe? and what was the volume or ABV of the hearts?
If you used 1.5L @50% and got 1.4L product @43% it looks like you were getting close to making cucumber stir fry with the tiny volumes :)
Watched this so many times and have done it but because in Sweden distilling is illegal at home i have done tincures and blended separately ❤️
I just used the peels från the cucumber because it just got weird
Missed your videos over the last few weeks. Hope you had a great new year.
For the rating from Jesse of "New Favourite Gin" I'm sold on trying to make it, and can't wait to try it. I'm in Australia. Amazon sells a dried tea made by Oku which is pure dried Kawakawa so will have to experiment :) I also grabbed a Kawakawa blend tea called Restore so that should be interesting to try too!
How do you go with the kawakawa tea? How much did you use?
@@NetworkGeek280 I haven't managed to make it yet! Still have the tea though un-opened... :(
I have made gin with the addition of gorse flower. Added a floral coconut tone. Well worth it but time consuming and prickly collecting the gorse flowers.
Mate, thanks for this as my introduction to distilling. I tried a version of this last night, Cherry\Cucumber Gin. This was my first attempt at distilling anything, so I may have overstepped my complete novice badge by even attempting this. I have ended up with a quite nice 1.2L @45% ABV Gin from an 8l Sugar Wash and Air Still Pro in Pot Still mode, not very Cherryish but it does have the cucumber taste. Wife and I have enjoyed a couple of nice glasses over ice, slice of Cucumber and a Mint Leaf. VN
kawakawa is peppery because its actually part of the piper genus, which is the pepper family. its used by the maori for toothaches and such, sort of like how willow tree bark was used by native americans for pain relief
One of my favourite mixers is using ginger beer with gin. Especially a peppery gin. Try it, you might like it.
In one video you talked about a pid controller, and how you don't care for them because you prefer constant liquid flow rate over temprature. Well I don't know if they are commercially available, but using an arduino or something similar, you could make a PID controller that adjusted voltage to maintain constant flow
You just need constant power for constant vapour production. The temperature is dependent on the azeotrope and does not change based on the power. It is little use having a control loop on the boiler, unlike controlling the reflux.
I had a wacky idea and I thought I'd put it here. I have no idea if it would work. But the idea is taking chilli peppers fermenting them into a wine and then adding mother of vinegar to that to get a chilli vinegar. I just needed this thought to be out there on the internet 👍
I know that gin with mint and cucumber and lime with ginger ale and maybe a little bump of extra sweetness is really good
Question I’ve been binge watching ur videos for a few days now all I’m wondering is wtf are faints, tails and heads I have kinda figured out what hearts are but I’m very confused on what you’re talking about (very new to alcohol making)
I do a gin with kawakawa and hiropito that's darned good if I don't say so myself. The two flavours work well together, though I only use vapor infusion. Great video as always. Happy new year!
do you run it through a charcoal filter?
@@humpfrees No, I stopped using those after I got more experienced. I distill twice for gins, first with a refractory still, then I do a pot still with the botanicals to produce the gin.
I was going to suggest trying horopito leaves. How much pepper comes through?
@Babco Boss Just a hint, depending on how much you use of course.
Thought i would put a update on 24 hours on.
When i proofed down the spirit was clear as Gin, i left it out in the shed overnight and it went cloudy white, i warmed the jar up and now its clear again, lol. Lovely on the nose, its shaping up to be a good brew thanks Jesse for this recipe
Hey jesse
Love your dedication mate.
Have you tried basil in any of your stuff you've ever made?
Doing another batch of this (perfect) gin recipe and the thought just popped into my head.
Hey Man, love the channel. I'm in the land of Oz and note that we can buy Kawakawa Tea (100% dried Leaf). Might try that, but need to work out some sort of Qty. Any ideas?
Is that like a safety still or something? I'm not into distilling, but I don't think I've ever seen a still w/o an open flame. Looks nice.
Great vid. Gin and coke is pretty common in Spain. I like the plan.
Great vid dude! Would love to see you do something interesting with mint.
Maybe im living under a rock but I don't know of alot of mint flavoured/based spirits
Creme de menth - lots of mint.
I made a mint gin the other week. Disappointingly the mint disappeared after the first night.
Timely? I got my first Air Still a week ago and was wondering what the first batch should be. Rock star!!! HNY man, keep up the craft!
Me too!!! I just finished an Orange Cointreau and I’m over the moon about it
FYI Liquor in the US is measured/sold in metric. 750ml or 1.5L is typical.
Has anyone ever distilled anything sassafras root if your from U.S. you know it's commonly used in teas and flavoring for other things and makes a great Christmas /wintertime gin just use it sparingly to suit your personal taste because it can be overpowering if you use too much .
Just thought I'd throw that out for y'all to try , let me know what ya think.
I've distilled Sassafras here on its own, to see what it is like before blending it. It's an interesting botanical, for sure - although I have not yet found the right combination to include this in a Gin recipe.
Hi Jesse. I tried this recipe, and honestly I stuffed it up. Instead of leaving the botanicals to steep for 2 hours, I left them for 1.5 hours. However, it's probably the gin that suits my palate the best that I've ever had, and I've had multiple people taste it who thought it was great. So thanks! Kiwi brother (I'm Australian). I just made it off a base of birdwatchers, which had been been through a stripping run but was quite clean due to a slow ferment. Also, didn't have any Kawakawa, so just used pink peppercorn and a couple of leaves of rocket (arugula for our American cousins). Might have added a nice vegetal note, but a bit hard to tell. Also, goddamn was this gin and coke with a slice of lemon not great. Great with pepper tree tonic and lemon though.
With you there, dude. I discovered Southern Comfort and Tonic. Different but but good.
Yo man, good to see you. I hope your holidays were great. I can't wait to get that shirt! Lol
This is interesting! Funny you should mention fishiness in the first drops: I have sometimes noticed it when peeling or cutting fresh cucumber.
Have you any experience with the Vevor air still? There’s one with temperature control. Half the price of the still spirits one in Europe.
Hi, I do. In fact it is the one I bought thinking it would be the business, but it turned out not to be. The PID controller runs flat out until it hits its target temperature, then shuts off. This resulted, for me, in an uneven distillation, with scorch notes coming through in the product. I ended up buying a cheap voltage regulator off ebay, bypassing the PID in the still, and running it right down somewhere around 300W. The element in the Vevor still, if I remember right, is a 750W element, so a bunch of heat is going into the still when it is turned on by the PID. I personally would not recommend buying the temp controlled unit, instead get the cheaper unit and use a voltage regulator, the total for both pieces of equipment will be around the same price as the PID controlled still, but you will have much more control over its heat input. If you go with this, you'll want to sort out a power cable to run the fan independently from the boiler, just run it all the time while you're using the unit, as when you use the PID controller, it shuts off the fan when it is in the heating cycle. Other than that, great little unit and works well.
Rosemary is considered the closest thing to a substitute to Kawakawa. Yes, not nearly the same.
Worth a try
@@My_Fair_Lady literally Google "kooloo root": zero relevant results
Wow what a helpful comparison while telling someone else they're wrong.
You know the point when describing a very specific and region specific ingredient is to use a scent/taste of something that is usually widely known so that you can use that reference to try to describe it to as many people as possible.
Not to just use yet another even lesser known ingredient.
Again, helpful. Thanks. 👍
I must disagree as rosemary is nothing like kawakawa. Having just tried my dried kawakawa again, it's a cross between mace and pepper with some bitterness as well.
I do a London dry gin that I add a sprig of rosemary to, which is popular amongst our visitors.
Rosemary in gin, looks to me like a pleasant Idea if not overpowering.
What would making a tea with the gin ingredients then using that to mash instead of water would that make a difference or just a waste of time
Might be a stupid question, you said you used 50% abv going in. My understanding was anything above 40ish should be diluted before distilling. Am i mistaken? Or are you just going mildly balls to the wall 😂
can u try to make a Drambuie some time? Thanks love the show.
Thanks for this really this "simple" method of making gin. I live in a country where we can buy and use the Air Still but alcohol above 37-40% ABV is horrifically expensive.
So, if you could come up with projects/recipes similar to this one using 37-40% ABV spirit as a base I think there are a lot of people out there that would appreciate it.
By the by, I had a cocktail at Cuca, in Bali, which was made from a pineapple distillate and infused with rosemary which some say taste like kawakawa. Yes, sounds weird and yes, it was great.
So, kawakawa sound like a good candidate for some creative infusing.
You have a still, you weren't expected to buy the base alcohol but make it. Even if you "cheat" and buy the 37% stuff, making it stronger should be as easy as falling down.
Do a TPW wash and double distill it , throw 50mls heads each time (2 stripping runs to 1 secondary) . @ about 25-30% base into the second run - stop at about 55-60% and dilute to 50%.
I've done it with an airstill - should be fine.
@@scottd8108 Thanks Scott. Much appreciated.
Just discovered you a few weeks back and I am obsessed, just went and bout myself an airstill. So much to learn, any pointers more than welcome.
All the way from Scotland here
Hi Amy, all the best from Yorkshire. I started with a cheap airstill, then moved to a stove top pot still and now I have a reflux still I put together myself. If you want any help just ask.
@ledzep331 thank you. Just bought a second hand air still and fermenting buckets and thermometer and hydrometer to get started, want to make sugar wash and then use airstill to make flavoured gins
@@amyseymour9133 It sounds like you're off to the right start. Email me if you want any pointers.
Nice recipe❤ but what method or additives you use for turn milky wine to clear wine? Pls help me this question
Hey Jesse, two quick questions:
1. Would arugula be a good U.S. substitute for Kawakawa?
2. I see you have Yellow Label Angel yeast on the website, but it's not avail in U.S. yet?
Thanks!
P.S. I'll be wearing my CTC T-shirt over to my buddy's house. He'll be so jealous!
I'm currently half way through this distillation run, I've stuck my finger in the drip a few times, excited to say the least!
I am a bit confused by the short macerating time for the botanicals. I know from Gin distillers around here (Germany) that they’re macerating for three weeks cold in high abv spirit and then watering it down to 40 abv for distilling.
The method you wrote sounds better, however, it takes much longer.
Hell yea! Keep em coming Jessy
Hey peeps!! Need help! Trying to pick a voltage controller for a 1650w HE.. I see a few on Amazon but wanted to know if there were any recommendations! Thank you all!
The cloudiness comes from the essential oils falling out of solution after you added water to proof it down. You could always add a neutral grain spirit to re-dissolve the oils but they won’t change the flavor of the drink.
I sorta picked up from online that you should add the spirit to the water, not the water to the spirit, and only use pure demineralised water. Old wife's (home brewers) tale or not?
@@cabji how would what goes into the vessel first change how it mixes?
Once everything is in its going to mix together regardless of which was originally in the container first.
When the chemicals touch they touch, and then you're going to mix them further.
Why would it matter.
Think about it.
@@Mr_Jumbles I dunno. I still need to try it out more to see there's any weight to it. From a layman perspective, it could be compared to adding an ingredient slowly when combining so it comes out smooth instead of lumpy maybe? You could throw all the ingredients in and mix the shit out of it and say the chemicals will bond the same, but in reality they wont and you'll get lumps instead of something smooth.
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying I dont know, but I can sort of see ways that it could be true.
Hi Jesse and cohort, I luv all the videos but at some stage I missed the details of that great alcotester you use to test ABV. What’s it name and is it affordable.? My local brew shop says only $2k meters exist? Thanks, Sam.
could crab apple replace juniper i got cumquats you need to give people an alternitive to your leaf that they could use ------------- like orange leaf pine leaf
Is it possible to macerate the botanicals in a clear wash instead of a shop-bought neutral spirit and still end up with a similar quality of product? I've got a wash that's nearly ready to be distilled and am quite keen to give this a go if it'll produce a nice finished product
I’m missing something how do you hold a temperature at 50°C on the air still? There’s no temperature settings.??
Thank you, Jesse !
I made this and gave it to friends who invited us to dinner. They raved about it. It was fortunate that I could get kawakawa leaves from the garden.
The only variation was to macerate the botanicals and use orange peel rather than lemon peel.
I have yet to make my 1st Gin or Rum. I've got molasses but can't seem to get away from single malt, lol. Have to run corn in between to keep my 2 barrels full. It takes 2 6-7 gallon mashes to fill each barrel and my wife lushes thru the S/M so fast it's hard to get ahead 😉 She did buy me 1 of the first t-shirts and enough Golden Promise and Heavy Peated barley for 2 runs, for Christmas, so I guess I can't bitch too loud. Will DEFINITELY save this recipe and give it a try soon. Thanks Jesse 👍👍
After allowing the alcohol to come to a steeping temperature and allowing a 2 hour maceration, do you think adding water to the kettle would hurt anything? The water would mainly be to prevent burning of the botanicals during distillation.
I would recommend putting them in a bag instead of floating around freely. Find a way to hang the bag (still in the liquid) to prevent scorching.
You need to write up a cookbook based on botanical, fruits, and wood notes.
Example for botanicals
-juniper berry will give you piney earthy flavoring
Wood
Medium toast oak will give you sweet vanilla overtones.
So I have a 5 gallon bucket of 6 year old pristine raisins what do I do with it? They were fermenting when they went in the bucket and I forgot about them. Not mold or anything I just checked
Could nasturtiums bring a flavour close to Kawakawa ?
Having trouble getting Kawakawa, here so was wondering if nasturtiums are close?
Thanks 👍
On the Whisky Tribe I have heard them talk a lot about "saponification" when proofing down whisky too fast causes a soapy flavor. Some whisky makers fear this so much that they titrate down their whisky very slowly by literally adding the water dropwise or at a dribble over hours or days. You never seem to worry about this, have you ever experienced it in your endeavors?
I've been drinking gin and coke for years. It's brilliant!
Jessy can i give you a recipe that you can try. So far its the best one i maked
This is awesome. If you were testing some other ratios of botanicals or flavorings, is there a minimum size batch you would do? Could this air still produced a 500ml batch?
I'm with you, totally enjoy the combination of Gin and Coke ..... also like Gin and Cream Soda!!
If I distill 4 Ltrs of 40% spirit again how much lickor would I expect to get from an air still
Kawakawa has a really soft mint flavour, mixed with pepper and nettle maybe? thats how i would describe it.
Can you infuse Amarillo Iscariot psychedelic mushrooms into a gin or a spirit?
I see you are using your airstill more often lately. I have one, but put it aside a whila ago, and I want to pick up where I left with something better. Or is it not so bad and rudimentary as I think?
I have 4 litres of 40% proof spirit which has been macerated with gin botanicals the slow way.The Airstill says that the product of the stripping run (1 litre)needs to be reduced to 12% ABV and the full 4 litres added back to the still for the gin infusion run- leading to 700ml 60% end product. Do I do the same with my macerated version?
Do you have a whisky mash recipe using corn/ sugar instead of the malt packet you can buy?
cucumber hmmm nice idea !
Love your vids . Just wondering did you proof the alcohol down to 40% before running through the air still? im going to do this recipe in a few days so just curious if its all good at 50%
yeah I didn't notice him proofing it down either to run the still for this and yet in other videos he does proof it down.... The Air Still instruction's advise not to run alcohol through it over 40%. How did your run go?
@@NixzKerr went well . Proofed it down . I may have added too much cucumber. The gin is really nice but the cucumber taste is dominant. But stoked for my first gin run
I just take a minute to thank you so much. You helped me so much.
Just did this receipe today and wow already taste yummy but mine is crystal clear 😂
*Main Question* Does it glow under black light (UV)?
I ask because my wife of several decades only recently confessed to me that she used to order gin drinks in clubs because gin made her drink glow.
The quinine in tonic is what glows
Man I love when I find a good nz channel 👌🏻
Sweet video-I enjoyed it immensely Mate-Thanks for sharing 🥃
Kawakawa should be easy to find in the arctic north 🤣
Love your work :D
Hey Jesse, I broke my bloody hydrometer. About how much product did you extract before you shut it down? I've currently extracted about 650ml using the recipe in your video, but how do I know when enough is enough? What's coming out now still tastes pretty good. #beginner
Just to clear things up are you classing the first fish water as foreshots? Is it dangerous to drink ? What am I missing here. Sorry just new to the game and need educating.
The four shots were removed when the spirits were produced. The first output of any maceration is bonkers. Generally discarded but may mellow in time to use for whatever?
@@cheesestradamus right ok so technically it’s safe to drink but tastes nasty. And this is a slightly different process to distilling from scratch? Thanks
@@gethookedfishing5062 You've got it.
Filled a sun tea jar with as much of my bathtub gin as it would hold, and then added a whole lemon, 3/4 bosc pear, dried currants, dried mint leaves, celery leaves and then some anise and raspberry extract. Then I'm going to add a 750ml of 100 proof vodka and distill it again. My original four passes through the still were WAY too juniper and peppercorn forward. Tastes like drinking a pine tree with pepper on it.
I used a 40% ABV vodka. And the result came in at 65% ABV. Tasty, but a bit more than sessionable. So it seems that I ought to add water to get my final down to something a bit lower than 65%, like maybe 40%. Anyone else done this. Or....what am I missing?
Can kaffirlime-leaves be used instead of the kawakawa? Hard to find here in Skandinavia 😊
Perhaps someone here can help me answer a question which has been bugging me for a while... Many gin recipes specify the total botanicals as grams per litre, which is great, but they don't specify litres of what. In the searching that I have done I've come across some people saying it should be per litre of pure ethanol, others saying per litre of finished product (at 42-45%), others saying per litre on liquid in the boiler (with no mention of abv), plus other various other options.
Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, links to recipies which are a little more specific.
Looks like the one here is about 70-80g per litre of 50% in the boiler... Which is much higher than what I currently do (25g per litre of 40% in the boiler)
Did you not proof it down after maceration or forget to put it in?
Yet to make my own... Store bought though I like Seagrams extra dry
WHAT IS THE NAME OF THAT SQUARE TUMBLER THAT YOU HAVE AND WHERE CAN I GET IT FROM ??? CHEERRS !!!
Can I ask what that machine is that you are running it back through please.
Sitting here with scales, alcohol hydrometer, bags of botanicals, watching this for the fourth time. Wife calls it my science experiment.