Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

Busy this weekend, but will be over soon, don't drink it all up!

Btw, this remains one of my favorite threads for whiskey makin'.
Tons of information and so much ground covered. I often use enzymes now, just because, but I often still do it up just outlined here, grains & malts.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Jimbo »

haha, barrel full.... its not going anywhere too fast MC.

Bourbon_Greg, To answer your question, how to get to proof gallons. The answer depends on FG (yeast/temperature/mash health), how deep you go in your stripper run, and your cuts. After you do a few runs you'll have reasonable empirical numbers for those, but to keep it simple.

If you ferment to 1.000, capture 95% of the alcohol in your stripper run, and keep 65% of your take, the math looks like this. ABV = (og – fg) * 131.25. Divide that by 100 to get to Alcohol %. ie. 8% ABV = 0.08. So proof gallons keeper whiskey from a mash is this....

Proof Gallons Yield = ((OG-FG) x 1.3125 x Mash Gallons x 0.95 x 0.65) X 2

Or, for every 10 gallons of 8% mash you'll get about a gallon of 50%, 5 bottles. Roughly. After you dial in your process. And for every gallon of 8% you'll need about 2 pounds of corn/malt blend. Roughly. After you dial in your process and get good efficiency. So 4lbs grain per bottle. In practice after youve done a pile a runs that number will come down some cause youll learn where to tweak your process.

Cheers.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Jimbo »

MichiganCornhusker wrote: I often use enzymes now, just because, but I often still do it up just outlined here, grains & malts.
I use enzymes too, but on top of a regular bourbon recipe with a good DP of malt to start with. The high temp stuff I'd miss, keeping that corn from turning into a brick, but the low temp stuff not so sure helps with all the malt I have in there already. Im not a fan of straight grain and enzymes, as I think you already know from my earlier blatherings on here.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by panikry83 »

I started a batch of this last night - slightly scaled down. It went something like this:

10 lb cracked corn
2 lb red wheat malt
1 lb 2-row pale malt
(a miscalculation made my malts come in just slightly under 30% of my grain bill)
7 gal water
2 gal backset
*I have Gypsum but my pH fell in a good spot (5.3) so it was not used

As I'm writing this, I feel stupid because my calculations were off for both my grains and my water and I blew right past them without noticing until now. Anyway, off we went...

@ 6:30pm I boiled the water and backset while I heated my Igloo cooler with a gallon of hot water and StarSan. Once my strike water was where I wanted it (205F) I added my corn and dumped the water in; this was around 8:30pm. I had extra Reflectix wrap from my keg project so I wrapped the cooler in that and let it sit overnight - stirring every 30 minutes until I fell asleep around midnight. I'm still amazed at how well this held heat - to the point were I had to move it downstair because it was making my upstairs too humid to be in.

@ 5:00am this morning the temp was 150F after a good stirring. I added the malts, stirred it real well, and that's where I'm at so far. I unfortunately have to be at work for 7am but, I'm gonna try and get home on my lunch to cool and pitch (around 11:30am). Is this too long to leave the malts w/o supervision? Do I risk an infection? I guess we'll see because my wife sure won't do anything with it.

Anyway, so far this was a super simple recipe and, if it continues to go smoothly and tastes good, this will be my go to whisky to fill my new barrel. Plus I have the sugar-head afterwards which is a bonus. Nice deal. Thanks Jimbo for a simple recipe.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Swedish Pride »

The gypsum if I understand correctly is not so much to drop PH, it does a bit but the main reason is to keep the yeasts happy and pissing tasty alcohol.
They yeast will work fine without it but a happier yeast = tastier product.
I may be totally wrong, more often that not I am :/

on that, I was just about to throw out some plasterboard cut offs and relaised they are mainly made from gypsum, my cheap ass can't see a reason why i can't grind them down to a powder and use in my mash.
Any reason not to?
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by yakattack »

They have a glue that bonds the gypsem. Not sure what kind of glue it is or if it would be safe. Easy way to see the reaction in a mash. Single gallon test. But that will only tell. You so much
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Swedish Pride »

I've inadvertently eaten/ inhaled lots of gypsum over the years so I doubt it's overly bad for you, but may not be brilliant for the yeasts.
Sure fuck it, I'm doing a booners soon, we will see what happens to them then
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by yakattack »

Oh don't get me wrong. I'm a carpenter, I've eaten more of this over the years then I care to think about. Who knows, it may be just what they need lol
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by panikry83 »

Got good conversion as per my iodine test og is 1.041 not great but my math was all out of whack with the grains and water so I'm not surprised cooling down now have a us-05 starter ready to go getting better at all grains just need to pay closer attention to details well see how it goes
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by J0hnni3 »

Just curious...

On the grain side, have you ever noticed fewer heads than usual with this recipe? I usually remove quite a bit of heads by taste and smell, and take a larger than usual foreshot... but with this one each jar I went up kept tasting good and smelling good. My wife helped with the tasting and she thought they were good too... MUCH less heads than I usually get from my equipment... I ended up keeping all the way to Jar 2, which kinda weirded me out a bit.

On the sugarhead side, it also gave a sugar head with a lot more flavor than UJSSM ever did. (presumably because of I left a gallon of the thick yeasty dregs from the original AG run, and UJ doesn't get that starting flavor boost.)

Do you ever get less heads with this recipe, or was it just the way it happened to role for me this time around?
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Jimbo »

J0hnni3 wrote:Just curious...

On the grain side, have you ever noticed fewer heads than usual with this recipe? I usually remove quite a bit of heads by taste and smell, and take a larger than usual foreshot... but with this one each jar I went up kept tasting good and smelling good. My wife helped with the tasting and she thought they were good too... MUCH less heads than I usually get from my equipment... I ended up keeping all the way to Jar 2, which kinda weirded me out a bit.

On the sugarhead side, it also gave a sugar head with a lot more flavor than UJSSM ever did. (presumably because of I left a gallon of the thick yeasty dregs from the original AG run, and UJ doesn't get that starting flavor boost.)

Do you ever get less heads with this recipe, or was it just the way it happened to role for me this time around?
Johnni, 'less heads' is a result of many things (unlike less head which is just a result of being married a pile of years). A clean mash, quick drop to pitch temp, clean fermenting yeast will all ensure minimum byproducts (esters, aldehydes, and other crap unhappy yeast produce). So I dont think there's anything special about this recipe that results in less heads, more a result of a good dialed in process. Sounds like you nailed it. Congrats.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by J0hnni3 »

It's true that I did have more output than I usually get from this amount of grain.

Crap... Now I gotta figure out what I'm doing wrong on other recipes! :P
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by dodgebrown »

Hi all,

I haven't read the entire thread, but I hope someone could help me :)

I am new to distilling and I only made sugarwash so far for cleaning run of my new pot still.
My main interest is bourbon, so I am not really interested in producing more sugarwash (which is simple and good practice for a beginner distiller).
So which recipe do you think I should try - this one or NChooch bourbon? Perhaps someone's made both..?
There's a grain wholesaler not far from here and they have corn meal, crushed 2 row brewers malt and crushed wheat malt. That should fit the bill for Jimbo's recipe.

I could get 6 row barley from brew supply place, but it will be more expensive and farther away. Does it make huge difference?

Getting cracked corn from a feed store is easy, but I hear cornmeal converts better..?
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by still_stirrin »

dodgebrown wrote:...I haven't read the entire thread, but I hope someone could help me :)..?
Nope....you've got to read it. And the other T&T recipes.

I don't know your skill level mashing grains, or even fermenting. You come to this T&T recipe and ask what other recipe we would recommend. Well, you're at least in the right forum (T&T) to find a recipe you want to make and may be capable of making.

But you really need to read. And you should also read the mandatory reading too. And a good start would be the spoon feeding link in my signature line.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by dodgebrown »

hopefully there're more helpful members here than that last poster :(

OK, I got my answer about the cornmeal. I am still unclear on how thick does it get and how hard it is to strain.

What about 2 row vs 6?
There's distiller's malt in one brew shop here - good idea?
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Bigbob »

dodgebrown, you won't like this but.....here we will answer questions when it looks like you really up the creek. But when you start by saying you haven't read the entire post and ask simple questions that are found in the post, most are going to not want to help. I would suggest to start with a simple sugar wash such as UJSSM or sweet feed. Learn the basics, be patient then tackle the all grain. Good luck
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Jimbo »

Yup. Some, like Still_Stirrin and Bigbob at least responded to you to tell you to read. Im sure many more, like me, read your post and went away shaking their head.

You come to my recipe thread, you dont read it, ask if there are other better recipes, and then commence to asking to be spoon fed instead of reading the answers that are already here. Takes balls if you ask me, or a serious case of entitled thinking.

Please make an effort, if you do you'll find ALL of us here will jump in and help when you get tangled up. But when you ask the same stuff thats already been carefully assembled for you, cause you dont want to read, well, you just make enemies around these parts.

NCHooches recipe is a good one if Ive just put you off. Go try his, but dont start off the same over there.

Youre questions about how thick, straining, 2 row vs 6 row, have been addressed here, and there.

Good luck.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by dodgebrown »

I have above average capacity for research and I couldn't find answers to my questions. I don't think those were simple questions and I wouldn't consider it spoon feeding, but you guys know how you want to play (or not).
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Swedish Pride »

the search bar and advanced search are no good in your quest for knowledge.
you need to use google search in the lighter colored field below that and you will be overwhelmed at how easy it is to find the answer to all your questions.

In saying that though, not reading the full thread that you are in (where the questions have been answered) does not show above average capacity for research, it shows that you just want the answer now.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

Hi, I am chiming in just to thank again Jimbo for this T&T. I ran yesterday the first 25L of my AG scotch whisky islay style, 100% peated barley malt (20ppm) and it seems that it came out nice. I'll know that for sure when I run the other 25L tomorrow and spirit run the two together. Yield of this first sripping run was 4,5L of low wines @27%ABV. I also started a 25L sugarhead with the spent grains and some backset, which I am going to call USSSM (Uncle Scrooge Simple Sour Mash)
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by der wo »

cuginosgrizzo wrote:Yield of this first sripping run was 4,5L of low wines @27%ABV.
Why did you collect only 4.5l from 25l. I would collect 8l probably. For sure not less than 6.5l. But why your 4.5l are only 27%? What abv was the mash? Your numbers looks like about 5%. Why so low? Too much water or bad conversion? Did you measure the FG? Do you the spirit run with a potstill?
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

der wo wrote: Why did you collect only 4.5l from 25l. I would collect 8l probably. For sure not less than 6.5l. But why your 4.5l are only 27%? What abv was the mash? Your numbers looks like about 5%. Why so low? Too much water or bad conversion? Did you measure the FG? Do you the spirit run with a potstill?
Hi der wo, you know how we say: you get what you get.

Mash was 50L water with 10Kg barley and I got OG 1053. I fermented it on the grain in two 25L vessels. FG in vessel 1 was 1000 after 8 days, so ferment should be little less than 7%ABV. I tossed 250ml fores then started collecting at 50%ABV and continued until all my collection was around 25%ABV. (it took me 2h 15min) By that time I was collecting around 10% and deep into tails, I could have gotten some more but did not want to decrease the low wines ABV so I quit.

All in all I don't think I lost much: I did not over-press the lees and grains so some liquidm say 1 or 2 liters must have stayed there so probably ran less than 25L, say 23L. Total alcohol should be 1,56L and I extracted 1,21L excluding fores...

yes I am going to run the spirit run with my potstill, and I aim for 25%ABV low wines, which give me 65/70%ABV hearts.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by der wo »

10kg, 50l, SG 1.053, FG 1.000, little less than 7% are plausible numbers.
But why did you toss 250ml fores? At a stripping run? If I would do both runs with a potstill, I would toss out one tenth of that perhaps. Here you lost much low wine strength.

I don't like this combination of low abv mash and short stripping run:
- A low abv mash leads to a decent flavored spirit. But the low wines will be low abv too. Them potstill distilled will have the result, that your spirit run cuts will be a compromise (either too neutral or much bad tastes).
- Short stripping runs lead to less good tail tastes (explanation later in this post). So although the higher abv leads in the spirit run to a big fraction with high abv, you will have the same problem of the compromise between neutral and bad tastes.

Because of that, if I have a low abv whisky mash and a potstill, I would distill three times. I think three long runs tastes better than two short runs.

I suggest you an experiment for your second stripping run:
After distilling the 4.5l low wines, distill 3 more liters seperate in 3 1l-bottles. Next day smell and taste those bottles. The last bottle will have almost zero alcohol. But probably you find many tastes you like and only little you don't like. Probably this last liter has a some kind better quality than the last of your 4.5l.
If this experiment fails and you think, wtf is this a terrible taste, you can still toss it and do it your way.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by cuginosgrizzo »

Thank you for the suggestions, der wo.

First lesson I am probably tossing too much fores. My rule of thumb so far has been about one percent of the wash in the stripping runs and then another 0,5 percent on the spirit run. I'll look it up and try to save some :-D

I don't think I will be able to try the third liter procedure on the next stripping run, because I have to run it tomorrow after work, and three more liters at the rate I dare to go means one more hour in the run (and yesterday I finished at midnight - wake up is at 6am). But I have 15kg peated barley malt left to run three more batches in the very near future, and I want to try what you are suggesting.

Let me just see if I got you right: with low ABV wash it helps to distill three times. first run 7% -> 15%(circa). second run 15%(circa) -> 25% spirit run 25% -> hearts ad 65%. Interesting procedure (even though I am trying to make scotch whisky which is double distilled). If the second run is combined this means to add only one run globally so it is not much work more.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by der wo »

Yes. Malt normally is double distilled. But also normally they have a very complicated feints system. Look here:
http://whiskyscience.blogspot.de/2012/0 ... tland.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
This rises the abv of low wines. They collect less final product from the spirit run, but rerun almost everything else. So in fact it is more a triple distillation.

I don't know, where you have read to toss out more fores at the stripping run. The opposite is the normal procedure. The most here do only a minimal fores cut to clean the still at the stripping.

Yes, keep more fores. Btw fores age out faster than tails. So your new make should be more headsy than tailsy.
And yes, it's probably better you try it next time. You also could keep the two distillation procedure then, if you want. But for that I would mash to 9-10% perhaps or use a reflux/thumper/plates -still for the spirit run, that you can strip longer. And you definetely should collect feints from the coming spirit run for your next malt whisky project.

And of course. All this is my opinion. Not proven for everyone.

(and sorry Jimbo for being off-topic now)
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Jimbo »

der wo wrote: Btw fores age out faster than tails.
(and sorry Jimbo for being off-topic now)
The discussion is fine Der Wo but I have to respectfully disagree with a couple of your points. Fores (higher alcoholes, aldehydes, acetones bla bla) do NOT age our faster than tails. In fact they really dont age out much at all. A little tails on the other hand (esters etc) blend into a nice grainy complexity pretty quick, under a year. If you cut for a headsy drink at cut time, youll have a headsy drink in 5 years.

It is correct the 'normal procedure' at distilleries is to run and rerun everything, and make little to no fores cuts. Its why a craft whiskey is so much smoother than a commercial high volume whiskey. I cut fores at every run, strip and spirit runs. The only time I make a smaller than usual fores cut on a strip is with fruit brandies where much of the fruit comes over early. I then use the spirit run for dialing in the flavor Im after. Also when you cut fores at every run, the heads remaining are not so bad, and when blended and rerun with the tails can give you a nice bump in yield without reintroducing the headsy bite we try so hard to get rid of.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by der wo »

Perhaps you agree more with me, when you consider the context of my whole system:

- I do all my spirit runs with a LM reflux still. So I have all the options to remove the fores concentrated at the spirit run. So normally I only toss the first 10-20ml of a stripping run.

- I age with sticks and let the jars slightly breathe (lid with holes and coffee filters) the whole time of aging. Normally I bottle my first whisky after minimum 6 months and after losing minimum 10%, but let the other jars breathe until they have lost 20%. The heads reduction this way is huge. When I drink my first whiskies, for all of them I would toss out less heads afterwards.
I lose much this way. But I like this part of my whisky very much. I much more bother with the other part, the tails, where I think, my whisky could be better.
In fact, while writing my posts to cuginosgrizzo, I wrote more about myself than helping him I think. But probably we all speak only about ourself always. :lol:
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by raketemensch »

I'm finally starting this one myself tonight, sooner than I'd planned, but my wife's away, so I had to jump on the opportunity.

My LBS didn't have everything milled, but fortunately I've got a Ninja blender that will take care of that part.

I've read through this thread a bunch of times over the past few months, and somehow it never hit me just how heavy 12 gallons of liquid is. Jebus.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by Jimbo »

haha, ok Der Wo, but when you say heads age faster than tails, its a pretty important distinction to state you age open to the atmosphere and let 20% evaporate.

Because youre using a reflux for your spirit, your tails are hugely compressed, so i can see why you say letting some of that in has been detrimental to your quality. Thats one of the paradox of reflux, IMHO. I rather like a little tails, but getting a 'little' tails in is not easy to do with reflux. Odin has a whole thread on it. I remain skeptical. With a potstill its like shooting at a barn door. Its pretty easy to make cuts in the zone.
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Re: Jimbo's easy 1/2barrel Wheated Bourbon and Gumballhead

Post by der wo »

Jimbo wrote:Because youre using a reflux for your spirit, your tails are hugely compressed
That's not true for my distilling procedure:
After the fores, heads and the high abv hearts fraction I try to maintain a vapor temperature with the needle valve. It's normally 88°C for whisky and one or two degrees lower for fruits (I decide by tasting during the run). And after a while I start collecting small jars. This way without rising of the temp I don't have a clear line between hearts and tails, the taste is changing slower than with a potstill (of course I started distilling with a potstill, so I know).

I don't doubt this method and search more in direction what happens before the spirit run currently.
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