Today it was time to distil my absinthe.
The setup is just as for my Gin distillation although with rather less liquid so it shouldn't take as long. I was using the alembic configuration without the additional column between the pot and the hood.
Here are a few photos.
This is my mixture after its 10 days maceration.
The first thing was to adjust the water pump setting for my cooling spiral.
The trick is to get the flow right so that comes out at the top at the same speed as it goes in.
Unlike my gin distillation, the botanicals don't go in the still and had to be filtered off.
Here it is ready to charge the still.
I will be measuring the amount and alcohol strength as I go, swapping out jars of distillate about every 100ml or so.
As I will have about 10 minutes for each jar, I will have some time to edit my forthcoming Weekend Quick Cryptic Crossword (entitled "Where there's Muck) in the study next door to the kitchen.
This is how the setup looks from the side.
I make notes as I go along of each jar and the settings of my heater.
To the side I have assembled the botanicals to be added to the distillate at the end for the next stage of adding colour.
The distillate is clear as it comes out of the still. The idea is to get the level of heating right for a steady drip into the jar
.
The first fraction (Jar 1) was measured at 75% abv. I continued collecting till Jar 4 came out at 40% abv and then stopped when I had another 67ml in the final jar, for a total of 480 ml at 55%. This then got diluted with filtered water to the target 50% abv.
It will go in this kilner jar with the colouring botanicals.
And here it is, already starting to go green,
In 4 days time it will be ready to bottle. More anon.
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