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Jimbo wrote:Ya 145-148 is target temp. A few lbs of malt won't push the temp much. Im gonna have the mods edit that to add malt at 149-150, to hit 148 mash temp. Gives a bit of margin for cooling off during the mash period.

I think I struck at 150F today, got 1.071, not sure if it was the temp or the fact I mashed 8 hours (I had to leave).

I saved 2x0.5L of hearts from 2 stripping runs of sugarhead yesterday, one at 43% and another at 49%. I think I like the taste of it. The smell was much more neutral than AG.

Every time I walk by my bucket of charred oak sticks, I have to smell them, it's wonderful

I saved 2x0.5L of hearts from 2 stripping runs of sugarhead yesterday, one at 43% and another at 49%. I think I like the taste of it.

I got headache from those. I guess, I got some heads smeared in running it reasonably fast (I get 2L/hour on 1.8 KW range during stripping run).

Tried this as my first AG last weekend, will check SG tonight (just did; it's at 1.004) to see how I did, but everything seemed to have gone well. Added a bit too much water (I added 205F water to my HDPE fermenter which had the cracked corn (feed) in it), after 3 hours cooled to 146F and added wheat (left it for 90m at 145F), then took 5-6 hours to get down to 86F (best i could do) with fans and lot's of mixing (I now own a wort chiller), then pitched my yeast (Nottingham) that I had hydrated in warm water. Even with an extra gallon or so of water I ended up with 1.060 OG, so I think that's good. I checked my fermenter the next morning, airlock bubbling away, temp was up to 92F, it's gone down, but never below 80F.

Few questions:

1- Smells a bit like puke, not sure what else to compare it too. Butyric infection? Dump it? Or could something else have cause this?
2- It's summer, the temperature in my house is between 75-80F. Should I not be using Ale yeast? My ferment temp probably averaged in the mid/high 80s, will this produce unwanted flavors?
3- Locally I can find Safale US-05 and Safale S-04. Is that the same as US-04?
4- I see throughout the thread you seem to have moved towards a mix of cracked corn and cornmeal. What about passing some cracked corn through a grain mill once or twice, would that help?
5- You mention not to let the AG sit too long. Can the Gumballhead be left to sit once the ferment is done? Like UJ, which can be left for months..

EDIT: After lot's of reading I'm going to wait and see if I can save it. It's not as offensive as Butyric acid should be, so I'm hoping for something like lactic souring

llamaflage wrote:Tried this as my first AG last weekend, will check SG tonight (just did; it's at 1.004) to see how I did, but everything seemed to have gone well. Added a bit too much water (I added 205F water to my HDPE fermenter which had the cracked corn (feed) in it), after 3 hours cooled to 146F and added wheat (left it for 90m at 145F), then took 5-6 hours to get down to 86F (best i could do) with fans and lot's of mixing (I now own a wort chiller), then pitched my yeast (Nottingham) that I had hydrated in warm water. Even with an extra gallon or so of water I ended up with 1.060 OG, so I think that's good. I checked my fermenter the next morning, airlock bubbling away, temp was up to 92F, it's gone down, but never below 80F.

Few questions:

1- Smells a bit like puke, not sure what else to compare it too. Butyric infection? Dump it? Or could something else have cause this?
2- It's summer, the temperature in my house is between 75-80F. Should I not be using Ale yeast? My ferment temp probably averaged in the mid/high 80s, will this produce unwanted flavors?
3- Locally I can find Safale US-05 and Safale S-04. Is that the same as US-04?
4- I see throughout the thread you seem to have moved towards a mix of cracked corn and cornmeal. What about passing some cracked corn through a grain mill once or twice, would that help?
5- You mention not to let the AG sit too long. Can the Gumballhead be left to sit once the ferment is done? Like UJ, which can be left for months..

EDIT: After lot's of reading I'm going to wait and see if I can save it. It's not as offensive as Butyric acid should be, so I'm hoping for something like lactic souring

I've only run this once, but was pretty successful. I still have lots of room for improvement, but:

1) Mine smelled a little puky too. It tastes great. I don't think this is normal, though.
2) You would want to aim for a lower temp for ideal flavor. What's it like in your basement, if you have one? Mine averages about 68 all summer.
3) US-05 attenuates more, which will give you a drier flavor. US-04 will be a tiny bit sweeter. People seem to think that 04 tastes a little breadier.
4) Milling the corn will definitely help.
5) Dunno, haven't tried.

Meanwhile, I just picked up a 50lb bag of 6-row through a group buy on the homebrewtalk forums. I'm debating whether to start with a smaller batch to get the process down better, or just throw the ULWD heating element into my BOP and go to town. I also added a bazooka screen to the valve on my BOP, now I need to figure out how to have both the screen and the heating element in place.

I just started this and tried to skim through all the comments for an answer but, figured I'd just ask while I'm still making my way through. I steep my corn last night and it did not thicken up. I am using cracked corn and used recipe for the full amount but split up into thirds and separated into three 8 gallon fermenting buckets I have. Is it supposed to be so liquidy still with the gypsum and lactic acid (I did not have backseat to use). And I used 22 pounds of dry corn I realize the weight changes after rinsing did I use too much corn or not enough. Just trying to keep it as true to original as I possibly can and any help would be appreciated. I'm not against taking what I have and cooking for a while and stirring the crap out of it to thicken it up if needed.

What temp did it settle at after you added the corn? How long did it stay above 170?

As we talked about before, corn requires a long cook. If it's ground fine, like corn meal, then it gelatinizes much quicker.

Edit: 22 pounds dry is what the recipe calls for. I've never had luck with steep cooking corn straight from the bag, since water boils at 200 here. If you didn't get any thickening like you normally do, I'd be wondering if you got any of the starch to break down. Things cool down much faster in separate buckets, vs a bigger fermenter with more mass, so maybe you cooled down too fast.

I brought 4 gallons water with gypsum and lactic acid up to 205-206 and added to bucket with 11 pounds corn and wrapped with blankets, stirring occasionally for three hours or so and left overnight

It was cracked corn not sure of crack specifics it's from tractor supply

It's fine I'll just bring it all back up to temp and cook for a little to ensure gelatonization, I'd rather be safe then sorry

Boomed Bert wrote:It's fine I'll just bring it all back up to temp and cook for a little to ensure gelatonization, I'd rather be safe then sorry

Good plan, careful not to scorch.

Guessing your temp dropped too fast, before the corn fully gelatinized. Note steps 3 and 4 in the process. Those are important. Corn needs alot of heat and time to gelatinize. And cracked corn is a bitch. If you use corn meal, you can use less, and will have better success with conversion. Dont forget the old blankets to hold temp high for the corn to cook.

I do a full boil for 90 minutes minimum, then allow to sit overnight.

Bourbon_Greg wrote:I do a full boil for 90 minutes minimum, then allow to sit overnight.

This is what I ended up doing, I'll just have to make adjustments for it in the future since it is cooling faster and I'm using all cracked corn. I did wrap with blankets but i guess it still wasnt enough. Just do that until I'm in the big leagues with the larger containers.

Jimbo wrote: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.

I am a Noob!

I felt compelled to bump this and add a comment.
Not long ago I ask a stupid question and got sent back to page one where I found the answer. I felt like a NOOB
And some of the responses sounded like people just being assholes.
But as I stated in a separate thread, I learned an important lesson.
If it was a topic I was REALLY interested in, it is IMPORTANT to go back and read through ALL the pages - at least scan them.
You learn what started the idea, the logic and reasoning behind it. You get input from others, suggestions for improvements or just different tastes.

In my case, the whole process then made a lot more sense and it started MY process of, "well, maybe I can do it THIS way".
So for the rest of you NOOBS, you keep seeing "READ READ READ"
Not much substitute for it.

BB

Once you squeeze your grain and your yeast and liquid are settling, how do you store your yeast laden grain until the next day when you mix it back in with the backseat?

jon1163 wrote:Once you squeeze your grain and your yeast and liquid are settling, how do you store your yeast laden grain until the next day when you mix it back in with the backseat?

You’re mixing it in the “backseat”?

If you plan to add backset (from the boiler) to mix with sugar and the grain dregs to make a gumbalhead, then why not simply leave the dregs in the fermenter (covered, of course)? You can add some water and sugar to it too so that the yeast can get a jump start at building population. As a result, they’ll produce some CO2 which will help blanket the fermenter, keeping wild spores at bay in the interrim. But don’t add too much sugar...just enough to feed the yeast a little. And don’t wait too long to get the gumbalhead fully fermenting with your added backset.

Never done this before? Don’t be such a worry wart...the system of nature is surprisingly robust.
ss

So Jimbos recipe says not to leave it fermenting no more than seven days. Mine has been fermenting for seven days on the dot and registers at 1.01 SG. It's sitting right around 72° and is still fizzing and bubbling. I'm wondering if I should stop here and racquet into the settling bucket or if I should let it go another day or two ? I have the next four hours free so if anyone reads this quickly and response I would greatly appreciate it .

personally, i'd leave it.

if you are going to run it, there is no loss, if you are doing the gumballhead next...anything left will just show up in the next feremnt...so you can get a jump on it and mix it up now if yer inarush

HDNB wrote:personally, i'd leave it.

if you are going to run it, there is no loss, if you are doing the gumballhead next...anything left will just show up in the next feremnt...so you can get a jump on it and mix it up now if yer inarush

Roger that. I'll leave it for another day or two.

It's a bit of a gamble, these mashes arent boiled so there's all manner of bug in there growing. Fermenting whiskeys is ALWAYS a race. In a clean environment, yeasts will always win. Commercial folk go 60 hours or less, granted more for economic reasons.

Long story short, if it smells and tastes good, another day or 2 wont hurt. But if you smell anything at all a bit odd, sweet and pukey, even a glimpse, run it immediately. Remember that stuff still has to make it a whole 'nuther week for the gumball. Thats 336 hours total hours of bugs growing.

Thanks jimbo. Tasted sour and good yesterday at 1.01

Do you guys mix the stripping runs from the jimbos and the gumballhead or keep them separate to run spirit runs of each individually?

I would keep separate.

Keep them seperate, the first run makes a Bourbon. The second run makes a thinner sugarhead. I do dump the feints from the bourbon run into the spirit run of the gumball tho to add a little more flavor. The bourbon run makes a legit bourbon thats a nice sipper and stands up on its own. The gumball is similar to Jack, thinner but makes a great mixer for jack and coke and such. (Jack is charcoal filtered so a bit thin next to most topshelf bourbons, IMO). Not demeaning Jack tho, drank it for years.

Jimbo wrote:Messin around with some generic labels you guys could use for this.
Cheers.

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Just a quick thought using a new Labelizer design. (didn't take time to clean up the one stock image)

Nice Labels Bama!

Jimbo wrote:Nice Labels Bama!

As I posted elsewhere, if I had spent as much time in the kitchen as I have on this forum, I'd have my Christmas presents taken care of.

But a lot of personal stuff going on and I'm a "bit" of a procrastinator, I'm finally off my ass and doing SOMETHING.

And thanks to everyone on the site who've gotten me this far.

Right now, I've got an Igloo with 10 gallons of @Jimbo s Wheated Bourbon mash. I used 20# corn, 7# malted wheat, and 3 pounds malted barley, so it's even a little heavier on the wheat than Jimbo's or Pappy/Weller's mash bill. It won't go in a barrel, so I won't call it "Bourbon". Potato, Patahta.
Figured I'd sparge with 2 gallons when I come off the grain.

I have NO idea how well my malting went so I did add some Amylase & used 2 tablespoons (30 grams) of Baker's yeast pitched a little hot around 90 F.
Wasn't sure what I'd find the first morning but it's bubbling away and smells like fresh bread dough.

For the Gumball portion of Jimbo's recipe yes, I'm gonna do some @Cackalaky Gamecock Gin in my copper pot.
I'll post more on that as I get closer to time but all suggestions are gratefully welcome.
While I'm having waiting on the mash, thanks again Jimbo ...

I pitched my yeast on a cooler of on grain mash Thursday morning, had not stirred it since Saturday morning.
Just checked it 1:00 p.m. my time and when I opened the cooler, strong smell of polish remover.
Gave it a good stir and the smell calmed down, tasted it and REAL sour.
Should I be concerned about the smell?
How often should I open the cooler and stir?
Thanks!

Hey Bama, it went from smellin like fresh bread dough on Sunday to polish remover on Monday? Guess that answers the question 'think it'l keep till Monday'

Far as opening and stirring, dont do that! Pitch the yeast and leave it alone. Keep your spoon and snout out of it for a week. Them little yeasty buggers will find their way into every nook and cranny of that ferment bucket, no worries there.

Jimbo wrote:Hey Bama, it went from smellin like fresh bread dough on Sunday to polish remover on Monday? Guess that answers the question 'think it'l keep till Monday'
I ASSUME we are both thinking about the same joke!

Far as opening and stirring, dont do that! Pitch the yeast and leave it alone. Keep your spoon and snout out of it for a week. Them little yeasty buggers will find their way into every nook and cranny of that ferment bucket, no worries there.

Full Disclosure - I also posted & it's also being discussed on CC with folks saying it's ready.
I'm hanging with you and will follow it to a tee.
It's in a rectangular Igloo I did not take the time to convert it to a mash tun. Thursday I'll scoop it to a bag and let it settle down.
Since it's 10 gallons/29 pounds, I thought I'd sparge with 2 more gallons. That will give me 4 runs in my 5 gallon pot.
Should I run the thumper on the stripping run? Goo or mash?
Thanks again!