Gin Distilling Equipment Whisky Brandy Column Still 4 Plates Distillation Equipment Copper Distillery

Gin Distilling Equipment

Step One: Get Your Equipment

Distillers work on stills, which can be either pot stills (the oldest type of still) or column stills, complex pieces of machinery with columns stretching up into the ceiling. The still is connected to a condenser (a container through which cold water is run) which in turn is connected to a barrel to collect the finished distillate.

Step Two: Clean Your Still

Your still must be cleaned thoroughly before every distillation. After all, you wouldn’t want the grime from the last distillation to mess up your gin!

Step Three: Add Your Alcohol – And Botanicals

There are many unique distillation techniques, often developed by distillers over months and years of experimentation. But the basics remain the same: you begin by adding the botanicals and your base spirit, also called a ‘neutral spirit’, to the body of the still. This spirit is a fermented alcohol, usually made of grain, with no additional flavour. It’s a combination of water and pure alcohol.

Step Four: Turn Up the Heat

A heat source – some distillers use open flames, while others use furnaces or electric heat sources – starts to heat the bottom of the still. Alcohol begins to boil at 73 degrees Celsius, while water won’t boil until it reaches 100 degrees. This means that the alcohol in the neutral spirit will become a gas and begin to rise while most of the water stays just where it is in the bottom of the still.

Step Five: Cool and Capture

As a gas, the alcohol moves up through the still head, or the top of the pot still, or the columns of the column still. It then moves through the condenser, which is filled with cold water, where it cools down and turns back into a liquid. The final distillate trickles into the barrel, where the distiller can decide whether to keep it or return it to the still for a second round of distillation, to become an even higher-proof solution of water and alcohol.

Thermometer and Copper Bubble

The special attention we give in the final quality inspection of each work is also a guarantee of unparalleled reliability and robustness. If you have any needs or questions, please contact us.