sweet feed with pellets?

[Kentucky shinner]

call me crazy but I started a 30 gallon ferment about a week ago of the sweetfeed with pellets just to see how it was. It is still fermenting out but I looks great, just like what i have fermented without the pellets, and the beer taste great right now. I will let you know how it is after I run it.
KS

[MuleKicker]

Really?? thats cool. Everything I here around here is negative about the pellets. I hope it works out. I chewed on a pellet at the feed store to maybe get an idea of its contents. no such luck. couldnt tell. All the guy would say it that it was vitamins and nutrients. who knows, it may help a ferment. Thanks for the info KS.

Edit: KS, the stuff yer buyin without pellets, is it baged/mixed by the mill or is it comercial? Just wondering what brand it is. maybe i could talk to my mill and get the same stuff.

[Kentucky shinner]

I may go and get another bag in the next couple of days, if so I will ask if they mix it. I will let you know what I find out.
KS

[irishmike]

went ahead and made up a 55gal batch of this a week ago. it seems to be finished working which seems to be pretty fast to me. all of my other mashes (only 6 or so) have all taken much longer. perhaps this quicker one was due to it being outside? its around 80-90 here right now. or the fact that this was a sour mash? i threw about 2 gals corn from a ujsm mash into a 55gal olive barrel and poured 5gals of boiling backset in. then mixed in 50lbs sugar, 30lbs of this pelleted sweet feed, 3 pounds white corn meal (RIP popcorn) and topped up with cool water. to this i added perhaps a tablespoon of bakers yeast and about a quart of corn/yeast from the bottom of a previous ujsm mash. do sour mashes work off in less time than sweet ones? i'll let you all know whats what when we run it.

spoke to the manufacturer and they assured me there are no animal by products in their stuff. of course one can buy grains and molasses then mix it themselves but have you seen what a bucket of molasses costs? i bought my 50lb bag of feed for $7. yes the "roughage products" can sometimes be things like soy beans and alfalfa but screw it, i'll go and buy the separate proper grains when i start making bourbon i figure. right now im making moonshine and i think itll fun to see the looks on my friends faces when i remind em the drink theyre enjoying so much is made from horse food, as long as it tastes good. and if not? the bag was only 7$ and we learn from our mistakes right?

[Kentucky shinner]

Let us know how it comes out. Remember let it air out with coffee filters over it for about 24-48 hours. After some time it will smooth out more and more depending on how long it has aged.
Keep us posted.
KS

[MuleKicker]

$7??? wow mike thats cheap. The bastards want over $12 where Im at.

[Kentucky shinner]

$7 bucks here too

[MuleKicker]

dammit.... thems folks rippin' me off! The price a guy will pay to make himself some shine these days

[NcHooch]

That dont seem too expensive Mule, considerin you might get 2 gallons out of a 50 pound sack

I hear ya tho, it just dont seem right when the other fellers are payin 5 bucks less
NC

[irishmike]

damn!!! infection. went and checked mash today and there was that white spiderweb non popping bubble film on top. smelled good though. like beer y'know? well i cant just write off 55gals so i skimmed off all the crap and added a little yeast. i read somewhere on here that you could do that to get it restarted. i think its done working but just in case i added the yeast. im sure the white stuff will come back so ill hae to go and skim tomorrow and then before i strip it the next day. you guys think that my turb at the bottom is infected of does the infection need air and thus only live on the top? i like using turb for sour mashing and the yeast strain ive grown seems to do a great job. id hate to lose it. will fill you all in on what happens when i run it though im pretty sure i wont be able to run it all in one day as the still only holds 14gals.

[rubber duck]

The infection goes all the way down. Don't worry about it this happens all the time with grain mashes. Just run it and everything will turn out just fine. After a weeks fermentation at 80f you should be done, grain ferments can keep bubbling for a long time after fermentation is complete. Co2 gets trapped in the grain bed and is slowly released, it can trick you into thinking it's still fermenting. If it doesn't taste sweet it's ready to distill.

[Kentucky shinner]

Keep us posted. I look forward to hearing about your results. I checked my 30 gallon wash yesterday but it was not quite finished. SG was 1.00

[MuleKicker]

Dammit Kshinner. I am totally waiting to hear your results on the pellet wash. I want to start one so bad, but since i heard your trying it, i cant bring myself to spend the $12 until you say its a go! I have the week after the 4th july off work and i want to have some shit ready to still. helps me pass some time. the good way.

[Kentucky shinner]

I should be trying some of this wash Tuesday or Wed. I will let you know then how it comes out.
Sorry about the delay MuleKicker.
KS

[MuleKicker]

no problem man, just givin ya shit.

[Kentucky shinner]

bring it on brother I love it....

[irishmike]

success!!!! well sorta... did a stripping run last night of 10gals of this stuff. actually closer to 13 now that i think of it. still is a 50l/14gal boiler and we damn near filled it. ive heard of the "only fill 2/3 full" rule but i have 55gals of this to strip and a 3ft column on my rig so i figured i wouldnt get any foam all the way up the column and out the spout. distillate may have a blue hue to it im not sure as i had just poured it from the collection pot into glass jugs for storage until its time for a spirit run. may have been tiny bubbles or blue im not sure. its not at my house so i havent checked it today. if its blue (oils right?) ive had that happen to me on my last stuff (cooked ujsm) and it cleared right up in the spirit run so im not too worried. should i be? i couldnt find either of my hydrometers so i couldnt check SP of mash or % of distillate. wash seems ok, but that damn white infection keep coming back but the more experienced hands on here tell me not to worry about it. smells boozy as hell though, like old wine/hot beer with a lovely penicillin note to due im sure to the white crap on top. problem is no SP so i cant tell if it stalled on me or not. its not sweet but i got what i thought was a low return of distillate. only about 1 1/3 gals of ?% from the 13gal stripping run. seems kinda low eh? percent of distillate was pretty high i assume. took about 350mL of foreshots off nice and slow and threw em in to a cold fire pit. one flick of the lighter and poof! even the fore shots burned with a nice blue flame with almost no yellow visible. since i had no proof hydrometer i checked it old school. distillate burned blue with no yellow, evaporated very quickly when rubbed into the hands and stripped the hairs from the inside of your nose if you stuck it in the jar too far! im sure it will be a bit of a pain in the ass when i get to the bottom of the barrel and the mush left there but i plan on leaning the barrel on a 45 degree angle and using a shovel to scoop into a pillow case and squeezein it. my advice to you kicker is to try this out, or actually wait and see what KYShinner says. he knows a lot more than this noob and id trust him over me. im gonna keep up with it ad see what kind of final product i get. i plan on trying some fresh, some aged in glass in a dark cupboard for two weeks-a month and most of it aged on charred oak (thanks NC). i will keep you all filled in on my pellet hooch adventures as they progress.
m.

PS one thing i did different was i removed all of the packing from my column. we checked out the copper scrubbers before running last night and they were black and or silver. when i bought them there were "copper coated" and "copper", i obviously bought the ones label "copper scrubers". seems that "copper" is the same shit as "copper coated" pissed me off something fierce. we thought we were detecting a mineral note to our ujsm and i guess that was it. im still drinking it. drank half a pint last night with a 6 pack and felt ok this morning. only had to take one Advil! so this stuff is being run with no copper in the vapor path unless you count the 2ft condenser. (that doesnt count as "vapor path" does it?) or the 2inches of copper tube from the column to the condenser. lesson learned, dont believe the label on "copper" scrubbers and buy yourself some copper mesh from brewhaus or mile hi brothers.

[MuleKicker]

bring it on brother I love it....

KS, yer allright........for a moonshiner....

[Kentucky shinner]

All right MuleKicker you ole bastard, I did the first strip run on the sweet feed wash with pellets. taste pretty damn good to me, I dont think it is as good as the sweet feed without the pellets but I am happy with it. I am going to strip more but I think its fine.
so there ye go ole bud...
KS

[MuleKicker]

All right MuleKicker you ole bastard, I did the first strip run on the sweet feed wash with pellets. taste pretty damn good to me, I dont think it is as good as the sweet feed without the pellets but I am happy with it. I am going to strip more but I think its fine.
so there ye go ole bud...
KS

Great to hear KS. Ill be going to the feed store tomorrow.. I'll take back some of the bad things I said about you now

[Kentucky shinner]

Great to hear KS. Ill be going to the feed store tomorrow.. I'll take back some of the bad things I said about you now [/quote]

.

[Kentucky shinner]

well I am not as happy with the finished product from the feed with pellets vs. without. The shit this left in the bottom of my fermenter is nasty. I dumped it and went back to the feed store and bought 50# of all grain sweetfeed for 7$. 30 gallon ferment working right now.
If you can find all grain I think you will be much happier.
KS

[MuleKicker]

Was there an off taste/smell, or just the shit in the keg? Good info here man! cheers.

[Kentucky shinner]

It was just the stuff left in the fermenter. I racked it off so I did not get it in my boiler. I did not taste bad just not quite as good as the all grain sweetfeed. But I am sure it will change with some age on it. Hell it may be better. I will just have to wait and see.
KS

[irishmike]

KS:
the all grain stuff, what brand is it? I'd rather be using that too. I like the idea of seeing the grains and not wondering about the contents about the pellets y'know?
M.

[Kentucky shinner]

We have a local feed store that makes there own grain feed. They dont even have anything with pellets accept rabbit food. Corn, Wheat, Oats and molasses.
I think I am very fortunate to have them.
KS

[MuleKicker]

You are lucky. I talked to the owner at our feed store, he said most places wont mill there own sweet feed. I guess the molases is hard on the mill. Thats was his excuse anyway.....

[docdave]

Hey, I just bought a bag of sweet feed from a feed store in Ontario. I read the posts on this thread and was freaking out about pellets. The tag on the bag said all grain so I opened it up and to my surprise it was all grain and no pellets! There is a horsetrack nearby and lots of people have horse farms. I'm sure they are are pretty picky about what they feed their horses. I guess I'll give KS' recipe and see what happens. Sorry to all who got pellets!

[Kentucky shinner]

Hey man, great I hope you like it. Let us know how it goes man. I have never had a wash fail me with it yet.. I hope you like some Rumskey

[Horse_Shoe]

Ok! I know I'm going to catch some he'll for this, but I have ask. SAMs wholesale sells sweet feet with pellets in it. I looked at the ingredients and found no sign of alfalfa. I tore a bag open and saw that there was very little grain besides corn. The ingredient list stated that the barley was "textured.". What do ya think? It was cheap.