First All Grain Vodka results

[roxtar]

I was trying to make something similar to Grey Goose and this was my first attempt.

Mashed 12# wheat. Added 6 gallons to the carboy. OG = 1.064 which I calculated to be 83% efficiency. I think my mash went really well.

Pitched 5 g Lalvin 71b-1122 yeast after rehydrating in 2 oz water. Added Fermaid K (8 g) for nutrients. Do I need to add nutrients with an all-grain? Fermentation began vigorously at the start and stopped in a couple days. FG = 1.020.

I think I really underpitched the yeast and this is why the gravity got stuck at 1.020. Is this correct? Calculated this to be about 5.5% ABV.

I decided to just run through my still anyway and see what I came up with.
I discarded the first 50 mL as fore shots.
The next 350 mL smelled really clean.
At this point I was already into the tails as I could smell the wet cardboard smell.

This seems like a really low amount of distillate. My thoughts for next time to get more yield would just be to pitch more yeast, around 20 g of the Lalvin 71b-1122 and hopefully get my FG to around 1.000.

For an all grain 5 gallon batch how much distillate can I expect? Has anyone else had a really low yield like this with a 5 gallon batch?

[Dnderhead]

5 gal at 5%=32oz or 928ml total alcohol.

[rubber duck]

Do you remember what your mash temp was? I don't have any exp with malted wheat but my guess is that the malt you used has low diastatic power. If this is the case and you mashed at 155f you would have produced a lot of unfermentable and undesirable sugar.

EDIT. Also aprox how long did you mash?

RD

[roxtar]

I mashed at 154 F for 60 minutes. I used white malted wheat from the LHBS.

[rubber duck]

I mashed at 154 F for 60 minutes. I used white malted wheat from the LHBS.

That's your problem. Next time mash at 145f for 2-3 hours minimum, longer is ok also. The lower mash temp should produce more fermentable sugar and you should hit a lower fg. Also see if you can get the grain milled a little finer. Home brew shops tend to mill the grain to coarse. They probably won't do that for you, if they won't don't worry just go with it.

The nutrients are optional, you don't need them. Your yeast pitch rate was a little low, I would use 2 packets but the reason for that is to reduce the lag time and to give the yeast a good head start on any bacteria. Your pitch rate has nothing to do with your fg in this case.

Every thing else looks spot on, give it another go.


RD

[WalkingWolf]

wheat

so im tole

Roxtar,
This is from another thread on Vodka.