How to know when your distillation is done

Please Note! This post applies to distilling gin from a vodka base in an alembic still. It does not refer to the safety of distilling alcohol from a fermented grain base - which is a completely different process.

It’s important to stop distilling once you’ve extracted all the desirable alcohol from your source. There’s no health risk, but continuing could make your end product taste less great.

When your distillate is “done” depends on a number of factors, so taste is the most reliable way to determine when to stop..

• Start tasting when the volume output from your still is ~40% of what you put in. (e.g. for 1L vodka, taste at 400ml output)

• To taste, capture a single drop from the output and put it against your lips / tongue.

• If you receive the tell-tale prickling sensation of alcohol, keep going. If you get very little prickling and / or it tastes like wet cardboard, it’s time to call it quits.

• For a 40% vodka, you can generally expect an output of 45% to 50% of the volume you started with. (e.g. 1L vodka yields 450ml - 550ml). This is dependent on the alcohol percentage, though.

A Note on the risks of methanol poisoning.

The short story is you don’t need to worry.

You may have heard that if you don’t capture exactly the right parts of your distillation, you could get sick or even go blind due to methanol poisoning.

When distilling store-bought liquor, this is not a concern. The distillation process doesn’t generally add anything that wasn’t already there. If it was safe to drink before distillation, it’s safe after (once you’ve diluted to an appropriate strength!).

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