GIN : Vapor Infusion Vs Maceration Quick Test

this week i made two different gins to compare to each other they're actually exactly the same recipe but one is made by macerating the botanicals in the alcohol and adding it to the pot and the second is made using vapor infusion which one's better how are they different let's find out how's it going chases i hope you're having a kick-ass week i'm jesse and this is still at the channel all about chasing the craft the foam distillation and making it a legitimate hobby so here we have it guys i haven't bottled this yet because i'm a little bit lazy but i have bottled this this is the vapor infused gin and this on the other side is the maceration gin and what i want to do in this video is walk you through how i mode made both of these so you can kind of understand the little experiment that i'm doing see if you think that i've you know could have done things a little bit better could have done things a little bit differently whether or not you think it's a fair test and then i'm going to talk about the differences between the two gins and i have yet to actually taste these things side by side but first of all why the hell am i doing this well um if you're into gin at all and you look around at marketing or the way people make things or whatever vapor infusion is talked about a lot and i have never done it well not up until this i haven't done it i always macerate the botanicals in the liquor you know in a jar like this leave it overnight and then add the whole lot botanicals and all into the pot the next day [Music] sorry guys the neighbors decided that it would be a great time to i don't know what they do i think they've got a digger out there or something sorry about the noise guys i hope it's not too bad for you anyway like i said guys i've never done anything but macerate gin up until this point the first gen i made i followed odin's gin's recipe and i've just always used that technique even if i switch flavorings or botanicals or ratios if i switch things out i still use the same technique but it made me wonder what am i leaving on the table so that's why i'm doing this should we get stuck in and i'll show you exactly what i've done to make these two gins all right guys these are all the ingredients that i'm going to need for this gin not a lot it's relatively simple and i've been working on this gin and balancing it to my tastes for a gin and tonic kind of gin for a while now i think of this recipe in one liter lot so the base recipe is based on one liter of 40 abv spirit that you put into the pot or that you macerate with and then i multiply it from there based on the volume i'm making so for the macerated version i'm going to be making three times this recipe to put into the little mini pot still that's the volume i like to make in that little mini pot still it works well for me for the vapor infused version i'm going to be using the claw hammer still and to safely use that still without you know exposing the element after distilling for a while i'm going to make 12 times this recipe i know that's not a perfect comparison to compare apples with apples in terms of changing the size it just is what it is i didn't want to make two lots of 12 12 liters so the recipe is juniper at 14 grams coriander seeds at three grams uh orange the zest of an orange sorry guys i ran out of nice oranges to put back into this segment eight grams and the last ingredient is the angelica seeds which is 0.75 grams per liter of the the spirit the vodka the neutral whatever you're using that's it guys so just keep in mind the the the maceration one the first one i'm going to do is three times that recipe and the vapor infused version is 12 times that recipe now if you want to get this recipe i'll put it down in the description as well i'll write it out so you can grab it from there and yes i'll convert it to freedom units down there as well for more information on the process of making this gin i'll link the odin's gin recipe in the top corner right now different recipe same process but in a nutshell i macerate at a higher abv at 90 percent i then gently crush everything that goes in other than the angelica seeds and the orange peel everything goes in the jar with the alcohol and it macerates overnight before distillation then everything goes into the pot including the botanicals i proof it down to 40 abv with nice water and run the still at a nice slow drip i ditched the first 17 mils per liter of recipe it's a flavor thing not a heads thing and then keep the next 375 mils per liter of recipe as the final product this always happens to me when i decide i want to run this little still i look outside it is definitely going to rain i set up inside and now it's a beautiful day ridiculous anyway guys so now that this still's running i just wanted to quickly say that this is the way that i've made every gin i've made so far on that still i've macerated it i've added it into the pot and i think i did one or two without leaving the botanicals in the pot maybe at some point in time but for the most part i just leave everything on in there in the pot and i run out nice and slowly this is kind of the reason that i wanted to try the vapor infusion to do it a little bit differently and see if i like those results better if i don't like those results just what changes in any case now that we've taken that 50 mls off at the beginning we've got 1.125 liters to collect um i don't know how much that is in freedom units this much there's not much else to show for this guys it's not about running the still specifically it's about the comparison between maceration and putting the botanicals in the pot and vapor infusing so let me get this finished and then we can get on to the vapor-infused version the vapor-infused version is exactly the same but the botanicals go into the botanical basket funnily enough honestly i don't really know why but i decided to kind of layer these a little bit and spread each ingredient out throughout the botanical basket i thought maybe that would help the steel is charged with the 12 liters of 40 abv the gin basket goes into the still everything's closed up and we can fire things up obviously this is a much larger run so i'm gonna run it at a faster speed this time we're ditching the first 200 mils and collecting the next four and a half liters while we're here i just wanted to point out the decisions i've made and how to configure this still for this run so obviously does have a gin basket up here uh with all the botanicals and that's there's no botanicals down in the boiler and the pot that is literally the point of this to see the difference between the two but i would like to point out that everything is stainless this still does have options for copper columns and copper condensers i've chosen not to use those because the little pot still the mini pot still has no copper in it i've also kept the column as short as possible uh to eliminate any extra uh passive reflux it wouldn't be that different uh and obviously this is a little bit taller than the mini pot still it is what it is so uh let me run this out let me get the gins proofed down to 45 which is where i like them uh and wait until tomorrow let things settle out just a little bit and taste and that brings us to the the pointy end of the video tasting these two things evaluating them and seeing if there are any differences interesting right off the bat this is bigger denser more in your face in terms of all the botanical flavors but especially especially the orange and the juniper the orange is slightly different the orange in this is a little bit more marmaladey i guess a little bit more like baked goods orange if that makes sense this is much more like just straight up if you grab an orange and scratch the surface of it it's like orange zest it smells like orange zest it's much brighter it's much fresher i guess both are pleasant don't get me wrong guys uh i in terms of preference i would lean towards this one just because it's bigger and i like bigger more intense flavors most of the time but that doesn't mean it's a better thing it's just a personal preference right what i will say is the juniper especially kind of that real piney sappy it's almost not there i'm not getting it at all to be honest now just to let you know guys uh both of these have been proof down to 45 percent so we're playing fair on that side of things this is a recipe i've made a couple of times this is kind of where i've landed on a gin that i like i like this it's the same as it always is let's see what this is like the first thing to note is kind of the mouth feel or the the presence of the spirit in your mouth when you're drinking it this is more rounded more full almost oily it is um thicker and smooth on the tongue this is a lot more light and it's sort of it feels like it evaporates off the tongue a little bit quicker it just feels less heavy on your tongue once again preference thing right i actually quite like this especially i'm going to be drinking it straight but this i can totally see the appeal in it especially for some cocktails i could see where that could be a good thing but then again having that thick body and presence for a cocktail as well it's not a better or worse thing it's just a difference thing this has a really bold flavor from beginning to end it is it comes in strong and it just carries on all the way through and you get all the components of the ingredients that we've put in there this one on the other hand the cardamom doesn't show up as much as this uh the orange up front is very very much in that zesty fresh just straight orange zest flavor as opposed to once again slightly more uh stewed or baked sort of orange and then it finishes on juniper so the actual juniper like the amount of juniper flavor that i'm getting out of this is less but i think it it kind of finishes more one-dimensionally on juniper and i think the the the light mouth feel that comes from this seems to allow the juniper to show through more if that makes sense um so yes yes these two are very different um and if i had to be kind of objective i would i would say this is a better gin now that has probably got absolutely nothing to do with the the vapor verse maceration it probably has everything to do with the fact that i've made this with this technique multiple times and i've adjusted it i've dialed it in so that it is balanced and enjoyable to me when i'm using this technique and all i've done is switched over to that technique and i've done none of that balancing so if i you know if i made the same gin five times with with this and just sort of adjusted ratios of ingredients you know then i'd probably be able to make just a good engine this way is this way that's not the interesting thing to me here the interesting thing is the way that flavors are presenting in slightly different ways so the fact that the cardamom is not really showing up at all actually there's a little on the nose the fact that the orange is bright and fresh uh and almost piercing in a way if i really wanted to dial in my perfect gin i would use a combination of both of these techniques i'd look at each individual component of the gin each flavor that i wanted to put into the gin and potentially even you know literally just do juniper by itself just do coriander by itself just do you get the picture right and see which flavor profile i like for each ingredient whether i prefer it macerated and in the pot or macerated and not in the pot or vapor infused and if i had to shoot from the hip on this one i would say i would do the juniper in the cardamom definitely macerated i would probably do the orange vapor infused and the coriander and the angelica seed i would lean towards the maceration side of things so i don't know guys how many of you have come to the same sort of conclusion i've talked to people in the industry i've talked to people that make a lot of really good gin as home distillers and um i have to admit that that i knew that that was the conclusion they came to before i even recorded this video but it's nice for i'm one of these people that that needs to kind of do things myself to really let them sink into my head sometimes so it's nice to see that i've come to some similar conclusion uh if you do the same thing at home let us know which botanicals do you put in the pot which do you do vapor infused do you do everything one way or the other let us know guys it's always nice to have some other people you know weighing in on these sorts of things down in the comments so um you know basically we get a larger group of data that we can pull from to make decisions based on uh in any case guys i hope in any case guys i hope you liked this video i'm out of here to go and drink some gin and tonics tonight with my wife that'll be very nice but if you like the video guys please please give it a thumbs up that helps me out heaps if you have anything else to say or anything else to add or anything you think i've done wrong chuck it in the comments section down below that helps me out as well and i'll catch you next time guys keep on chasing the craft see ya you

Channel: Still It

Views: 77,427

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Id: 6BbePZDU-VA

Length: 15min 4sec (904 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 05 2021