uncle jesse's simple sour mash method

[newbie1982]

Ok so in on my second generation of this and it's day 13 and she's still bubbling. I added a little to much sugar and started with a og of 1.082 but should it be taking this long?

[jb-texshine]

Whats the temp and sg now? Did you add anything to buffer the ph,oyster shell or such?

[newbie1982]

Sg now is 1.000 ph is 3.4 and temp is 73f and I have not adding anything for ph

[der wo]

It needs longer because of the low temp and the high SG. You should wait. Placing the mash warmer would help now.

[NZChris]

It sounds like you are in a hurry, which is seldom a good thing in distilling.

Some sea shells, or other forms of calcium carbonate, would have kept the pH up where the yeast would have been happy.

Less sugar would have been quicker.

Run it. Do more research. Learn from any mistakes.

UJSSM is very hard to stuff up as long as you stick closely to Jessie's protocol and keep an eye on pH.

[newbie1982]

I'm not in a hurry just asking question.
And I am researching but I have learned that all research isnt created equal.

I knew when I added to much sugar it would take longer just didn't think it would be that long.

I thought my ph should be between 2.0 And 5.4

And I thought higher fermenting temps would cause an off taste and I wanted to keep it between 68 And 75

Now this is all information I have written down in my little (try not to **** this up to bad book) and yes that's what is on the front of my book. So I had to see this info somewhere. But like many other thing I have written down in here they may be incorrect. It would be the first thing to get a big black line though it.

[jb-texshine]

Its runable now at sg 1.000 if your tired of waiting on it. Definately get a bag of oyster shell grit to add for a ph buffer. Try keeping the fermenter around 80-85°f and itll ferment faster and still be a clean ferment.
How long has it been at sg.1.000? If its been over 3-4 days id go ahead and kill the heat to it,give it a good stir to de gas ,and let it clear and settle some and run it.

[NZChris]

Clearing UJSSM doesn't make for a better product, so I never bother.

If I get a slow generation for any reason, I clean up the fermenter and start fresh. Starting a generation knowing you have dodgy yeast and then getting a dead vat is really annoying.

[squeezins]

This time of year I tend to experiment with yeast that likes the cold. I have run ujssm in the past with bakers yeast using an aquarium heater to keep the temp warm and stable. Outside temp was in the 30's and still finished in a week.

[jb-texshine]

Not related to any questions:
Out of curiosity i used fresh rum backset (unaged dunder) to start a corn and oat uj. Its probably the most complex uj ive ever made. Very heavy fruity nose,corn and oat taste,oat mouth feel. If it had a smoky taste i would say it was scotch like. Very much un ujssm like.

Anyone else ever started one with rum backset and got similar results?

[newbie1982]

so whats the range i want to keep my PH? and is there a rule on how much oyster shell to add?

[jb-texshine]

I add a quarter cup to a 5 gallon ferment and a cup in a barrel.both always have a bunch undisolved in the bottom. Its more of a buffer than a way to correct ph. My tap water is ph6.8 and itll drop to 4.5 or 4.6 and stay there.

[Uncle Jesse]

Ok so in on my second generation of this and it's day 13 and she's still bubbling. I added a little to much sugar and started with a og of 1.082 but should it be taking this long?

A common newbie mistake is to add more sugar in order to bump up the amount of alcohol produced.

This is not a good idea.

You can't rush a quality spirit. And if you are really trying to distill your own, there's no point going for quantity over quality. You can buy booze much cheaper than you can produce it. Trying to get "the most alcohol possible" out of a mash will only lower your quality.

Relax, be patient, don't rush things.

[MichiganCornhusker]

Happy Anniversary UJSSM!
12 years and still going strong.
Thank you Uncle Jesse

[speedfreaksteve]

Ok so in on my second generation of this and it's day 13 and she's still bubbling. I added a little to much sugar and started with a og of 1.082 but should it be taking this long?

You can buy booze much cheaper than you can produce it. Trying to get "the most alcohol possible" out of a mash will only lower your quality.

That one bit of advice rings true for most countries. For Canada though, with the buying cheaper part not so much. Our bottom shelf 26oz bottles of bourbon are north of $30. We have minimum prices set by the government for liquor that makes it ridiculously expensive. It seems to be a legacy of the temperance movement of 100 years ago.

I see this hobby as a craft where I can make superior drink to what is offered at the local stores. But the saving money part certainly makes it extra satisfying for me.

[DBCFlash]

I'm going to try this recipe today for my first consumable run. Sounds like a great thing to start with.

[jb-texshine]

Good quick and easy all In one. It can also be made with any grain or combo of grains you want.

[sltm1]

I posted this elsewhere, but it's worth repeating. I'm doing my generational UJ using 1/2 cracked corn and 1/2 cracked malted rye. 5 pounds total for six gallons of water. I'm stirring the 2 in 2 gallons of 160d water for ten minutes to enhance the starch breakdown and it is a great drink by any standards!!! I'm gonna have to oak some of the next run and see what that turns out like. Instead of adding backset, i make to much mash for my boiler therefore about a gallon is recycled in each batch.

[jb-texshine]

I've made it out of mix grain chicken scratch from the feed mill. The only guaranty is it ain't got no pellets. Its different contents every time . cracked corn red wheat white wheat oats Milo millet whatever... They mix& bag whatever grains they are low on monthly so they can order more in to fill the silo. Kinda like moonshine surprise in a feed sack. Another feed store sells a fancy chicken scratch that's more consistent that is equal parts cracked corn , cracked wheat,rolled oats and Milo that is good also. But my favorite is equal parts cracked corn and oats.

[Bavis54]

Hi guys, thanks Jesse for this recipe-- I've been using this basic recipe for good while, but just for single run corn liquor recipe- I'm very excited to try this with using backset, as far as a simple corn liquor- it works great for me, other than what u mentioned, all I do is add 1cups distillers malt and 1 cups captain crunch cereal- for 5 gal wash. In a single run on pot still, with backings in thumper I get 160 proof of smooth liquor. Have no clue wat the cereal does, but my father used it for yrs n yrs. anyway thanks for post n I definitely gonna try it

[joeymac]

Well... I'm joining the UJSSM party on page 120. I made up my first batch ever last night (along with some Birdwatcher's TPW I've been trying to dial in). I'm pretty excited to finally make a spirit that is not a neutral after several years of sugar washes. My plan is 4 generations of UJSSM stripping runs and then use the low wines + 4th gen backset for a spirit run. But I suppose what generation I end up with in my spirit run really comes down to how much volume my stripping runs yield.

I used:
14 LB Cracked Corn (Producer's Pride, from Tractor Supply)
15 LB cane sugar
10 Gallons Soft Filtered Water
4 TBSP Red Star Active Dry yeast - Pitched at 37C/98.6F
2 handfuls of crushed oyster shells (DuMore Brand, from Tractor Supply)
1.5 TBSP Epsom Salt

If anybody's interested in how much volume the corn adds to a wash (I know I was), here you go:
14LB of cracked corn fills up about 2.5 gallons dry. However, my displacement of 14LB of cracked corn was only 1.5 gallons. For example, if I add 10 gallons of water to 14LB of cracked corn I get 11.5 gallons of stuff. Likewise, sugar's displacement is one gallon for every 13.25 pounds dissolved. So my UJSSM ingredients above should theoretically combine to make combine 12.63 gallons - which it basically did... I got 12.4 gallons of wash in my buckets.

[DBCFlash]

I had to leave my UJSSM waiting in the cold garage for about three days, but after I finally made the run, 1 1/4 gallons of backset, sugar and fresh corn made it start right back up again. great recipe!

[joeymac]

Interesting thought there DBC. How much does it hurt the UJSSM to leave sitting in the fermentor once fermentation is "done"? Say for example, if you don't have to run the wash when it actually completes, but you can find time on the weekend in a few days - or something like that.In a normal recipe mash, we don't care about the trub and lees and whatever else is leftover because it usually gets tossed. But in the UJSSM, we're reusing the lees and corn in the fermenter. Would keeping a finished wash a couple days negatively affect future generations?

[jb-texshine]

Hasn't ever affected mine at all.

[DBCFlash]

Interesting thought there DBC. How much does it hurt the UJSSM to leave sitting in the fermentor once fermentation is "done"? Say for example, if you don't have to run the wash when it actually completes, but you can find time on the weekend in a few days - or something like that.In a normal recipe mash, we don't care about the trub and lees and whatever else is leftover because it usually gets tossed. But in the UJSSM, we're reusing the lees and corn in the fermenter. Would keeping a finished wash a couple days negatively affect future generations?

I reckon I'll be finding out here shortly. I report back my progress.

[joeymac]

Well, I stripped my first ever UJSSM wash last night (10 gallons total in the boiler)! It took days 5 days to finish out to 0.990 specific gravity. One bucket smelled strongly of corn alcohol and I knew it was finished before even tasting/measuring it. But the other bucket had a little bit of funk smell to it... although it didn't look different from the first bucket at all and measured out to 0.990 as well. I stripped them out to 99 degrees C and ended up with 2.5 gallons of 41% ABV.

I only had to replace about 1/4 of the corn, and I filled each fermenter with cool water leaving room for about 1.8 gallons of sugar dissolved into backset (1.25gal backset + 7.5 LB sugar = 1.8 gallons). This gives me 25% backset for the next generation. It all came out to about 93 degrees F and the yeast was bubbling back to life within minutes. 3 more stripping runs and I'll have 10 gallons of low wines for a spirit run with room to add 2.5 gallons of 4th gen backset.

All in all, it was super easy... easier than doing a birdwatcher's from scratch each ferment and UJSSM takes almost no time if you do all the prep while running or cleaning the still! Rack the wash into boiler and turn on, top the fermenters with water leaving room for sugar & backset, measure out the sugar in a pot so it's all ready to go, and once the run is done I just pour my backset in the pot and wait for the sugar to dissolve while I clean the still. Once dissolved, I add the sugary backset to the fermenter and let the yeasts start working.

I plan to do the potstill method to process my first 4 generations and then use the 5th and 6th generation to try Odin's Pure Whisky technique. Then I can compare the potstill whisky to the reflux column whisky side by side.

[UpnorthBilly]

Hi All,

I just did a spirit run on my first UJSSM. I wound up with almost all heads and I'm hoping someone can tell me what I did wrong. Bear with me as this is only the second time running a still. There were some mistakes made which may or may not have caused this. I will start from the beginning. 30 Gallon pot still gas fired burner.
We made our first batch according to the recipe instructions. 15 gallons fermented out a little slow likely due to cool temperatures in basement and starting with cold water. Forgot to measure OG, but final Gravity was below1.000. We ran a stripping run down to 20% ABV tossing out the first 16 oz. of foreshots. Saved low wines for later spirit run. Meanwhile started next fermentation which took off right away and fermented out in 5 days. Forgot the OG again but FG was well below 1.000 when it stalled out. Here is where I screwed up. I misunderstood the directions and did not add the low wines from the first batch into the stripping run. I thought they were supposed to go in with the first spirit run together. So, ran the second stripping run the same as the first and combined them together for about a 5 gallon jug of low wines. Both stripping runs were done fairly fast, about 3 hours each once they started running. Having now realized my mistake, I was torn between running half of the low wines in a spirit run and using the other half to the next stripping run. We wound up running the 5 gallons after diluting down to 40% ABV plus added the feints from our first experience. (Corn flake wash. Came out real good) So we were running the spirit run nice and slow. Tossed out the foreshots and let it run for a bit collecting into numbered 16 oz. jars. After a few jars we checked the ABV and it was 85%. We checked every couple of jars and it seamed like we would never get below 80%. We wound up with 16 jars of heads and 8 jars of hearts. We kept running tails and got about 4 jars before stopping since it was starting to cloud up. The ABV was around 30. Any ideas or constructive criticism is appreciated. If you need more info let me know.

[NZChris]

Do your cuts by taste, not by %abv, temperatures, or anything else.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 63&t=13261

[UpnorthBilly]

I understand that taste ultimately decides what to put in and what to keep out, but as a rough guide for newbies like myself 80 -70 % is suggested as a place to start. I am wondering why I wound up with so much product at such high ABV.

[NZChris]

I understand that taste ultimately decides what to put in and what to keep out, but as a rough guide for newbies like myself 80 -70 % is suggested as a place to start. I am wondering why I wound up with so much product at such high ABV.

The answer to that will be in something you didn't tell us.