Maize for Gin

[Cain Harland]

I inherited my grandfathers home made copper still a while back and is been gathering dust in my shed so I thought I might try my hand at making some gin. I will have to build fractionation column / steam infuser which shouldn't be that hard.

I read somewhere mash 16 parts corn : 3 parts malted barley (I'm thinking gladfields pale ale) : 1 part rye 90 minutes at beer type temperatures no boil just cool and pitch.

Dose any one know of a cheap source of maize? there must be one out there, they feed the stuff to cattle. The brew shops seem to want more for flaked maize than base malt.

Also how do people recon the barley crusher would handle whole dried kernels if I opened the gap right up. Its pretty hard stuff and I don't want to trash my barley crusher but if its not going to trash it freshly crushed has to be better.

[Cain Harland]

I just gave farmlands a call and 25kg for $20ish whole and 20kg for $25ish kibbled. Now the only question is will the barley crusher crush it.

[Horace]

My experience of kibbled maize is that it is quite fine any way. I haven't used it for brewing just feeding cows. Whole will not go through your mill.  Have used feed wheat for making Wits, that was hard enough to get through the mill. Feed grade just means it might have other bits in it, other grains and maybe the odd small stone.

Have you got hold of some Juniper berries, or did you have some thing else in mind for flavour

[Cain Harland]

Thanks for the advice. Kibbled it is then.

I do have dried juniper berries, the Mrs use them for cooking sometimes. I have seen a few recipes using a bunch of different botanicals, citrus peel ,orris root , bitter almond, coriander etc. I haven't really decided on a combo yet. I will do a bit more research on that once I have the mash and infuser sorted. I may do a few small runs with different combos.

[Cain Harland]

Ingredients mostly sourced, next the column.

Basically I need a tube (pref stainless) at least 50mm wide and 300 mm tall with a male 3/4 bsp thread on the bottom and a female 3/4 bsp thread on the top. I need to be able to open it near the top of the wide bit to get my botanicals in there for infusion. Any ideas on how to do this on the cheap and weldless (because I don't have a welder).

[Beau]

I'm not sure if this helps but have you considered using copper tubing?  I have been able to find 2 and 3 inch stock at metal scrapyards for a reasonable price.  They are often old sewer pipes so they need a good clean but easy enough if your stomach can handle the task.  The reason I ask is because copper is easily solderable with silver solder and a propane blow torch.  Some varieties of solder and flux can also be used to solder stainless to copper.  Copper is also quite malleable and also amenable to fluting, allowing you to use trip-clamp fixtures for easy access - a potential solution for your access and connection requirements. See: http://www.artisan-distiller.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4104

[Pilgrim]

I've done a bit of distilling and have read several articles that say that you need some copper in the system, can't remember why now but I would endorse Beau's recommendation to make the whole thing out of copper. I am currently using a CopperHead pot still which I bought direct from the manufacturer who sells on TradeMe:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/home-living/lifestyle/home-brewing/brewing...

They make a large wire basket to suspend under dome in which you put your botanicals. Haven't tried that yet but on my list of things to do. So far I have only used it to make straight spirit and to heat my sparge water for my GrainFather.

[Cain Harland]

the copper catalyzes break down of suffixes. No worries for me there as the boiler is made of copper. I've pretty much canned the whole idea as the necessary still upgrades are looking expensive and I would rather put the money into brewery upgrades. Maybe at some stage I will have someone weld me up a boka head to go on the still, seems the most cost effective option to work with what I already have to make a really pure nuteral spirit. I think I could probably make a little column from threaded pipe an conneters and improvise a gin basket.

[Kevin Sharp]

I know this thread has been dormant for a while, but I thought I'd point out that although flaked maize costs an arm and a leg in NZ, corn sugar is reasonably cheap. I can't see any reason why you would use flaked corn in a mash. Dextrose is less than half the price of flaked corn and if you add it directly to the boil it's about 20% more efficient weight for weight. I can imagine kibbled corn being pretty difficult to handle, especially after the cereal mash. You will basically have building grade polenta.

My interest in this is not from a distilling viewpoint, but amongst my list of beers to be brewed is Ronald Pattinson's recipe for 1933 Younger's No3. It uses 40% flaked maize and to mash that it needs a high proportion of six row malt. This brew has been on hold for quite a while because I don't know anywhere you can buy six row in NZ and I don't fancy trying to negotiate it past MAF.  However, I just realised that it's unnecessary if I replace the flaked maize with corn sugar. I have had to order some Cluster hops from Yakima, but other than that it should be a very simple brew.

[Gareth D.]

Have you distilled anything yet? I'd recommend doing some 100% peated whisky as a test, for 1 I've had excellent utilisation from it and 2 it seems to finish dry (meaning it doesn't foam up as much in the still). If you haven't used the still, yet you need to understand it before you do gin, as then you're throwing the botanical mix as a variable. I've got 2 copper stills and done several whiskies and brandies but still haven't done a gin because I want to get a good recipe.
For adding the botanicals I've read and seen that some gin brands just chuck the botanicals in the wash rather than Distill through it (namely sip smith) so you could leave the still as is and use that process. Luckily (or unluckily if you see that it adds another variable) 1 of my stills let me do either.

[Cain Harland]

Na I haven't got any further with distilling. I did some when I was younger and made some filth that got ya real drunk real cheap, sometimes drank it strait out of the still with a bit of just juice, real classy. Its looking like the cost of extra gear to make a really clean neutral for gin might be a bit much for me, and for the moment I would rather invest any money I was spending on such things on my brewery. Might have a look at making some whiskey and aging with those oak dominoes some time, 2 or 3 runs through the pot still should be fine for that.